Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy, slasher
The Abominable doctor
Phibes is the first of two Doctor Phibes films starting Vincent Price as the
titular doctor. As we start the film we
see figure in a cloak and a woman as they deliver a parcel through a skylight
into the room of a sleeping man. Neither
of the speak to each other whilst this is going on and the cloaked man pulls
the parcel back out of the room we see that it is a cage with the door open. The sleeping man wakes up and sees something
moving in his room and a number of bats fly at him ripping his face open.
When the police
investigate the dead man we find out that he was a doctor and is the second to
die an unusual death, the first was stung to death by bees, his face was
covered in boils.
The cloaked man and
his companion, Vulnvia are then at a masquerade ball where they hand a man
(another doctor) an ornate frog mask which constricts, crushing the man’s head.
The man & Vulnvia
are next seen at the house of a fourth doctor who they drain all of the blood
from his body, whist he is there the man accidently drops an amulet which the
police use to get a clue to what is going on.
The only link the
police find between the dead doctors is that they all worked one case, the wife
of doctor Phibes who died on the operating table. The amulet that doctor Phibes dropped was one
of a set of ten, each representing one of the 10 plagues of Egypt and there
were 9 doctors who worked on the operation.
All clues point to the murderer being Doctor Phibes except he died in a
car crash the same night as his wife.
The Abominable Doctor
Phibes is an early example of a slasher movie with the killer targeting the surgeons
who he blames for the death of his wife and his gimmick way using the 10
biblical Egyptian plagues to kill each of the doctors making each kill more
inventive than the last. I can’t help
but wonder if the ‘cures of the first born’ influenced the ‘saw’ films in any
way, it’s defiantly as twisted.
The film is very ‘British’
set in London in the 1920s it has a cast of well known British actors of the
time and has a dark humour to it using similar gags as can be found in some of
the carry on or St Trinnians movies such as calling Inspector Trout by different
fish.
Part of the horror atmosphere
is helped by neither of the leads saying much.
Vulnvia is a mute and one of the injuries Doctor Phibes suffered from
during the car crash was damage to his throat meaning that he can only speak
when attached a device similar to a gramophone speaker.
If you like inventive kills,
a few giggles and over the top acting then give The abominable Doctor Phibes a
watch.
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