Nine Eternities in Doom

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES (1971)
DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN (1972)

An iconic shot of Vincent Price as THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES. This cult favourite holds the distinction of being the film Who drummer Keith Moon was watching during his drug overdose of 1978. 

SINCE making WITCHFINDER GENERAL, Vincent Price had increasingly become an indigenous part of British productions at a time of declining audiences and stale output. American International Pictures had disengaged itself from further co-projects with Hammer after THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, but AIP was in danger of becoming just as out of touch with its core audience. Music had replaced movies as the premier entertainment for the young, and in July 1970 the BBFC had raised the age limit on X certificates from 16 to 18 years, enabling filmmakers to exploit a more liberal censorship regime and produce more lurid output to lure audiences back into theatres. Although THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES was a return to horror epitomised by HOUSE OF WAX in its Grand Guignol, it chimed with a prevailing mood among disenchanted youth, as Dr Phibes was seen to champion a lost ideal, making a last stand against impersonal capitalism. Additionally, its concept of nine murders in a single story - one per reel - would later become integral to the slasher boom.

This short lived series - both directed by Robert Fuest - is often applauded for giving Price the classic monster role his career had previously lacked, but the two titles can also lay claim to evoking the black humour of James Whale and even Monty Python (in THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES, Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey) is addressed as Pike or Bream). This first film sees Phibes - a hideously disfigured musical genius and doctor of theology - enacting an elaborate vendetta against the surgical team whom he holds responsible for the death of his wife Victoria (Caroline Munro), contriving their deaths to accord with the curses inflicted on the Pharaohs by Moses in the book of Exodus. Exactly why Phibes should choose to inflict Hebrew curses is never explained, though their nature would fit his raison d'etre of elaborate murder. This lack of detail is synonymous with the two movies, further illustrated by Phibes' sketchy survival from a car crash, and the origins of his mute female assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North).

Vulnavia (model and artist Valli Kemp) is summoned from the netherworld to aid Dr Phibes' Egyptian expedition in DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN.

As Phibes, Price contrives to tip a wink not only at his horror heritage, but also at his celebrity as an art authority; having drained every drop of blood from Dr Longstreet (Terry-Thomas), Phibes glides out of shot, only to glide back in to tut over his victim's taste in visual artifacts. Yet for its colourful touches and opulent production design, THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES is a shallow experience, undermined by its dramatis personae: the victims are only present as a prelude to their inventive deaths, and there are at least twice as many comedy police inspectors that are strictly necessary. Only Joseph Cotton - as Dr Vesalius - lends any gravitas to his role.

For DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN, the mad doctor is pitted against an adversary of similar cunning and intent, Biederbeck (Robert Quarry), who has been artificially sustaining his youth (which, again, is never fully explained). The film contrives to engineer Phibes' return but not that of Vulnavia (Valli Kemp), who is now represented as an ethereal spirit to be invoked at will. The elegant interiors of the first film are replaced by pastiche - Victoria's coffin sporting radiator grilles of a Rolls-Royce - and the sequel's obsessing over a sacred relic is the derivative stiff of Universal Mummy movies, not for the sophistication of Phibes. However, the film is buoyed by some notable guest appearances, such as Peter Cushing (intended as Vesalius for the first film) and Beryl Reid.

Derbyshire Dead

THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974)

Guthrie enjoys a liver in a film which has been released as BREAKFAST AT MANCHESTER MORGUE, LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE and DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW.

IF you are looking for a connection between the trend-setting undead films of George A. Romero and the abstract-effectiveness of Lucio Fulci, Catalonian director Jorge Grau's THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE acts as that bridge. This cult Spanish/Italian oddity can also be viewed as one of those releases - similar to Alfonso Cuaron's CHILDREN OF MEN and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 WEEKS LATER - that sees our green and unpleasant land with a quirky yet lovingly distant eye. The film isn't set in Manchester - though there are glimpses of Deansgate and John Dalton Street - most of the film is in fact shot in various locations around Derbyshire. Like many foreign filmmakers, what Grau finds is a stuffy environ on the verge of chaos and, in this sense, THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE is a worthy addition to those other extraordinary views of this decaying country by great directors: FRENZY, STRAW DOGS and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

The movie begins as George (Ray Lovelock), an antiques dealer, has his motorbike damaged at a gas station by Edna (Christine Galbo), a nervous woman en route to her sister Katie (Jeannine Mestra)'s farmhouse in Southgate. While giving George a lift, Edna is attacked by a recently drowned homeless man Guthrie (Fernando Hilbeck), when the antiques dealer is asking directions from Ministry of Agriculture scientists who are field-testing experimental ultrasound equipment to rid crops of insects. These sonic tremors, however, have begun to revive the recently buried dead. The couple arrive at the farm to see Edna's brother-in-law Martin (Jose Ruiz Lifante) killed by Guthrie, where bigoted Irish Police Inspector McCormick (Arthur Kennedy, sporting a typically colourful accent) takes one look at George's long hair and beard - and the obvious signs of Katie's heroin addiction - and comes to a much more straightforward conclusion.

Vito Salier as the autopsy zombie of Southgate Hospital.

Grau provides the first colour treatment of the generic possibilities from Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, while also anticipating the Pittsburgh director's developing social criticisms. McCormick despises any form of non-conformity - hippies, drugs, et al - placing the blame for the events squarely on our young leads. The idea that the police might pose as much of a threat as the zombies is rather apt considering that the film was released at a time when the UK constabulary were something of a law unto themselves. This uncompromising view of the Manchester police force will strike a chord with anyone who remembers that city's notorious Chief Constable James Anderton, who conducted a personal fatwa against pornography and once accused AIDS victims as "swirling in a cesspit of their own making." There is also a staunch pro-environment message; as well as the radioactive bug zapper, we see shots of nuclear power plants, crumbling buildings, gloomy riversides and rundown hospitals - suggesting a world dying under the influence of crass corporate and industrial practices.

THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE is more sedate and low-key than Romero, channelling a steady accumulation of incidents and detours enveloped by a genuinely weird soundtrack of unnerving hums and distorted breathing. There are oddball elements - a busty female streaker, with two fingers held aloft in the traditional peace sign, jogs through traffic attracting little attention from the jaded motorists; the notion that the zombies can “create” members of their brood by the application of blood to the eyelids - but since Grau keeps everything else grounded, we buy their overall non-believability. In the satisfying twist ending, when the undead George takes revenge on McCormick, Grau asks the viewer to align with the zombies as a retributive force that needs to be unleashed.