The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Laura’s Rating: 2/5 Stars
I love Vincent Price and old horror movies so I was really excited for this one but it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. It has gained somewhat of a cult following, so I may be in the minority with my review here.
The Analysis:
Years before the events of the film, Dr. Anton Phibes, celebrated concert organist, was speeding to be by his wife’s side during an operation when he was involved in a gruesome car crash. Presumed dead, he secretly survived the accident, but was left disfigured and unable to speak. He manages to reconstruct his face with prosthetics and use his expertise in acoustics to get his voice back. Dr. Phibes learns that his wife died during surgery and blaming the surgeons, he begins to plot an elaborate revenge.
The movie had long stretches without dialogue and the cinematography was not good enough to fill the space left by lack of conversation. The set is art deco, but seemed low budget and the transitions between scenes felt choppy. There were some interesting concepts in the movie, but it was a bit boring in my opinion. I wasn’t particularly intrigued by most of the characters and the plot took a minute to take shape.
I enjoyed the theme of the biblical plagues as a revenge tool, although the plagues weren’t all the same as those of the Old Testament. This could have been an interesting idea for a film in itself, but throwing in the organ music, the car accident, and the other weird plot points made for an unfocused movie that was kind of all over the place. Many praise the film for Price’s campy performance, but it just didn’t do it for me. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is definitely quirky but not really funny enough to function as a parody or campy comedy in my opinion.
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