Language - English
Genre - Horror, Slasher
This is the sequel to ‘The abominable doctor Phibes’ which I've reviewed here and this review may contain some spoilers.
The film starts with a with a flashback to the first film and a voice over tells us that Doctor Phibes had joined his wife but that he was only in a death like state, waiting until the right time to carry out the next part of his plan. Three years after the end of the first film the sun hits Doctor Phibes’ coffin in the right place and the embalming fluid that Phibes had used is replaced with his blood.
Doctor Phibes awakens and summons his companion, Vulnavia and the couple use the organ lift to go back to his house to get a papyrus out of the vault only to find the house has been demolished and the vault is empty. Doctor Phibes tracks down the papyrus which is a map to a tomb in Egypt and he steals it back from Beiderbecke, an archeologist who is also trying to find the tomb.
The Egyptian tomb contains the entrance to the river of life which flows once every 2000 years. Doctor Phibes plans to go there with Vulnavia and his dead wife to resurrect her and grant them all eternal life. Beiderbecke has been sustaining his life via a mystical elixir and wants to use the river to grant himself eternal life and end his need for the elixir.
Both Phibes and Beiderbecke race against time and each other to unlock the secrets of the tomb and to be the one who gains use of the river.
I think i mentioned in the review for the first film that Doctor Phibes is an early example of a modern slasher and the second film carries this on. The sequel delves into the supernatural more than the first, in the abominable Doctor Phibes, Phibes is a living man who, like Michael Myers or Pamela Voohrees is killing a set of people for his own reasons without any supernatural aid but when we come to the second film we have a more supernatural flavor leading to our slasher becoming unkillable, if he succeeds. I also mentioned in the first review that some of Doctor Phibes’ traps and kills could almost have been inspiration for movies such as the saw franchises the kill’s that springs to mind in this film are
1) the one involving the golden scorpion chair, where the victim is placed in a situation where he has to put himself in danger (or wait until someone finds him) to get out of the trap
2) the final trap where Beiderbecke has has to choose between his goal or his wife.
There are a couple of issues with the flow form the first film to the second. The voice over at the beginning of the second film says that the police uncovered clues to where Doctor Phibes was hiding and that they caught him unprepared which is why he went into the tomb at the end, this is not true Phibes told them where he was so that the doctor could find his son and try to rescue him, the fact that Phibes went into the tomb with his wife was part of is plan all along making it the 10th death and the representation of the curse of darkness. The second issue is that at the beginning of ‘Doctor Phibes rises again’ Phibes summons Vulnavia who appears, almost ghost like to aid him but at the end of the first film we see her hit and melted by the acid. From what I have read I believe that Vulnavia’s odd resurrection is due to the character originally being written as one of the clockwork toys that Phibes has created this was latter written out of the first film but, if it were still the case then this would explain why she appears in the second film un-injured, she is just a different model. This is also the reason why the character doesn't speak, the clockwork version would not be able to.
Doctor Phibes Rises Again has a good British cast and has the same type of humor as it’s predecessor, the deaths are interesting and, although not as gruesome as you may expect in a modern movie they still make the film a good slasher. There seems to be more story to the second film as Phibes is not just killing for revenge but to get back what has been stolen from him and to keep his presence secret.
If you like imaginative deaths and a few giggles I recommend both of the Doctor Phibes films and think that is a pity that there were no more made.
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