DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN

Oh it's Phibes all right, sir... and he always comes back. 
Sure at the end of the first film he embalmed himself, sealed himself up in a sarcophagus and then his house burned down on top of him, but, guess who's baaaack.   If you guessed the Phibes, you guessed right.  This movie was decidedly less awesome than the first one, but there are still a lot of things to like.  This movie came out a year after and seems pretty rushed and disjointed.  I would love to see the stuff that wound up on the cutting room floor. I believe these two films should be seen back to back.  Gather some friends and get to it.


BIEDERBECK  What kind of fiend are you?
PHIBES  The kind that wins, my friend.  
The film picks up three years after the events of the first.  The moon is in the proper place and for NO REASON WHATSOVER that wakes Dr. Phibes.  He de-balms(?) himself and his assistant Vulnavia (face mysteriously un-burnt from acid) reappears and the duo plan to set of for Egypt.  Why Egypt you ask? Why not?  Actually (apparently),  Phibes had been planning this all along.  When Phibes awakes he searches the ruins of his house for a map.  The map reveals the secret location of The Waters of Life, which flow beneath the pyramids (just go with it).  He plans on taking his beloved, Victoria to those waters to resurrect her but GASP...the map has been stolen.  An Egyptologist named Biederbeck is the culprit, and he is planning his own trip to Egypt as well.  See turns out Biederbeck has a a secret.  Dr. Phibes manages to steal the map back with the help of a real snake, a mechanical snake, and a needle air-compressor-phone (JUST GO WITH IT) and he, Vulnavia, Victoria, and his clockwork band set off for the land of the pharaohs.  Biederbeck and his crew go after him.  Murder ensues big time.  Phibes uses Egyptian themes this go round.  Biederbeck's crew gets stung to death by scorpions, sandblasted, crushed, and one gets EATEN BY AN EAGLE.  Yup.  All interested parties converge beneath the pyramids in a room that looks EXACTLY like the set from the first film.

This movie, just like the first, needs to be seen to be believed.  Vincent Price is once again, THE MAN.  This movie also had a sense of humor, especially in the form of Inspector Morse, the bumbling detective from the first film, who somehow bumbles his way into this film too.  The end of the movie features a man decaying rapidly like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade while Vincent Price floats away on a coffin singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  This movie, like the first, had a great soundtrack.  Plus this film has the ABSOLUTE BEST END CREDITS.  They go a little something like this:

THE PROTAGONISTS

THE GIRL

THE VICTIMS

THE LAW

INTERESTED PARTIES   

What I Liked
I liked that Peter Cushing shows up as the boat captain.  He's like a British Vincent Price.
I like that sometimes Phibes voice is mechanical and sometimes it's not.
I like that Phibes brought his damn robo-band with him again.
I like that sequels at one time in the works included Dr. Phibes in the Holy Land, The Brides of Phibes, and 7 Fates of Doctor Phibes.  
If you are in the mood for a strange film, gives these two films a shot and you won't be disappointed.

THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES

My love, precious jewel and noble wife. Severed, too quickly, too cruelly from this life. I alone remain to give delivery of your pain. Nine killed you. Nine shall die. Nine times, nine! Nine killed you! Nine shall die! Nine eternities in DOOM!
Imagine if you will, an art-deco-black-comedy-camp-horror-film.  What would that look like?  It would probably look like Vincent Prince wearing a gown, talking robotic-ally out of a device in his neck while standing beneath an acid chandelier.  Yeah.  I finally got around to seeing this one.  This movie is really something that has to be seen to be understood.  You will either like it or hate it.  One thing that really struck me about this movie was the tone: Wacky.  This came out in 1971, the same year as A Clockwork Orange, Willy Wonka and Dirty Harry.  There were not many standout horror movies this particular year- Omega Man and the Argento- giallo- Four Flies on Grey Velvet come to mind though.  This film is the definition of cult film.  If you ever ask for a single frame of this movie why something is occurring, the whole movie comes apart.  So I recommend sitting back, keeping an open mind, and just go for this strange ride.  
Anyway, medical men die everyday.  
The movie opens with a hooded figure (Dr. Phibes) playing an organ.  The organ rises from a marble floor to crown the top of a staircase.  The hooded figure then walks from the organ to his CLOCKWORK ORCHESTRA, and begins conducting the creepy suit-wearing bobble heads.  A gorgeous woman (Vulnavia) in white appears from a sliding panel at the adjacent wall and walks across the art deco floor and begins waltzing with the man in black as those creepy musicians play on.  The girl disappears down a secret passage way and the man walks over to what looks like a birdcage shrouded in velvet.  He then lowers it down to the girl who loads it into the Rolls Royce.  By the way for no apparent reason, the Rolls Royce has paintings of Vincent Price in both windows juxtaposing his actually position in the back seat.  The duo drive from Wayne Manor, their estate and drive to a doctor's house.  Our hooded character then proceeds to climb to the top of the house and lower the birdcage through a skylight.  Still with me?  Once the cage reaches the bedroom floor of an unsuspecting victim (wouldn't a suspecting victim be boring?), it opens, releasing BATS.  No really.  The bats suck the man dry and his butler finds him the next day.  When the detectives show up at the sucked-dry-surgeon's house one makes the comment that there was another weird death earlier--a doctor was stung to death by bees.  Hmmm.  As the the Yard begins to investigate we discover all these victims have one thing in common- they were all present at the surgery of one Victoria Phibes.  She wound up on the operating table after a car crash which killed her husband (OR DID IT?).  The surgeons did everything in their power but she died.  Somehow, Dr. Phibes has returned from the grave to revenge the death of his wife.  His tools of revenge include- bats, rats, hail, a frog mask, acid, locust, and a brass unicorn.  Why use the 10 plagues of Egypt on 9 surgeons?  Don't ever ask why during this movie.  Dr. Phibes begins killing off the medical staff one by one, but one doctor, Vesalius figures out what is going on and teams up with the detectives to try and stop Dr. Phibes, who is abominable. 

Where to begin?  I love this movie.  The villain is a sinister doctor,scientist, organist, AND Bible scholar. This guy is a doctor four times over.  The killer engineering nerd from Saw is starting to look like more of a badass right?  Nothing makes sense in this movie and it works to it's advantage.  Why is Vulnavia helping Dr. Phibes? Is she a fembot? An intern?  What's with the device in his neck?  Why does he need a mechanical band?  Where did he get all those animals?  Vincent Price really is one of the coolest actors in this genre.  He never speaks, but his performance is awesome.  Even though he is completely insane, you kind of feel for the guy.  The set design of this movie is fantastic, it's a weird blend of jazz, hieroglyphics, and some futurist stuff thrown in there.   I think a cool movie would be a real estate agent trying to show the old Phibes house and he and his customers get lost and maimed in that art-deco-booby-trapped mansion.  "Over here you'll see there's a huge picture window, and the kids will just LOVE the acid chandeliers, let's move on to the kitchen...closet space? Well, below this floor is a working stone sarcophagus and we'll ride the organ down there in a minute and give it a peek." Another great thing about this movie is the soundtrack.  For a movie featuring faceless men, plane crashes, impalements and bats, it has a great jazzy score.  I can't recommend this movie enough.  It's terribly funny too.  Just see it.  Trust me I'm a psychopath.  


What I Like
I like that for no reason whatsoever Dr. Phibes pulls his face off!
I like that the Saw films are way less creative in their devices compared to these contraptions.  A killer snow-blower!
I just like hearing Vincent Price talk.
I like how, like with most old posters, what you see never happens in the film.  
I like the blowtorch scenes with the wax figures, it's really creepy.  
I like how there is (somehow) a sequel to this movie.  
Don't worry cretins, Dr. Phibes will rise again in the film...Dr. Phibes Rises Again.  Until that day....

Intern

LA TERZA MADRE THE MOTHER OF TEARS

Your mother  can't help you anymore.  We all have one mother now...the Mother of Tears.

Hookay so we come down to it.  The cruelest and most beautiful of the Three Mothers, and it only took about two decades to see how the story wraps up.  I think another reason I enjoyed these films so much was 1. there are only three of them and 2. you don't need to watch one to understand the other a la Saw.  Each film winds up repeating what we already know- there are witches doing bad things.  On with the film.  This film is different from Suspiria and Inferno in tone.  The first two films are almost lyrical in nature, music, colors, camera work, everything works to create a dreamlike state throughout.  Mother of Tears throws that right out the window.  What we have here in this film is a visceral, gore-soaked movie, shot on digital film. I mentioned how goregous the murders where in the last two films, in this one, there is nothing but brutality.  This film seems to bridge a gap between old Argento (Phenomenon, Tenebre, Deep Red) with the later Argento (Sleepless, The Card Player, Giallo).  The man has given this genre some of it's most memorable films, and also some of the worst.  His later films are all the more disappointing because of how fantastic his earlier films were.  Now the audience (or maybe just myself, as far as I know) is reduced to moments of awesomeness, but no longer awesome movies.  

What you see does not exist.  What you cannot see is truth.  

The film starts off with a crew renovating a graveyard in Rome.  A grave is uncovered with a chest chained to it and adorned with crosses.  A priest investigates the ancient chest and sends it to a professional friend of his, to confirm his worst fears.  The chest arrives at the museum where Sarah Mandy works.  Apparently Sarah had a mother who was a white witch.  This witch fought a great battle with Mater Suspiriorum, which left her in the awful condition we saw her in Suspiria.  Anyway, enough retconning (that's for the Saw films).  Sarah and her friend open the chest and find three clay figures inside.  Oh yeah, and an unspeakable evil is unleashed upon the world.  Sarah's friend attempts to read the writing on the sculptures.  When she does a gang of grotesque creatures appear out of the darkness and kill her.  Hard.  I'm serious.  This scene, about five minutes in, is one of the most brutal, messed up things I've ever seen.  It got me really excited about the rest of the film.  But alas, what was to follow was a very bipolar film.  So basically after Sarah's friend is murdered she is on the run from the law.  And witches.  That chest unleashed the evil of The Mother of Tears, the most beautiful and cruel of the mothers, and now every witch on the planet is heading to Rome.  The Mother of Tears aims to bring about the second age of witches.  Sarah runs to one location, gets background on the Three Mothers, violent death occurs, and then she runs someplace else.  Repeat ad nauseum.  

So like I said, this movie started on such a strong note, then it was boring for about twenty minutes, then another kill got me interested, then twenty more minutes went by.  These lags nearly killed the movie each time for me.  To a much lesser extent this was like watching Indy 4 or Die Hard 4, bare with me-- you're getting the movie you've been wanting and waiting for for decades, and it's good to settle in to familiar characters or even directors, but it will never EVER live up to your expectations.  I've heard and read a lot of people saying they wish Argento from 20 years ago would have directed this.  That would have been mind blowing, but what we have here is cold pizza that showed up an hour late.  Yet, it IS STILL PIZZA.  Ha, see what I did there?  Italian director?  Italian food?   Nevermind.  Completist need to see this film.  Gore hounds need to see this film.  Not really anyone else.  

What I like

I like how Udo Kier returns.  Nobody dies like that man.  See Cigarette Burns for more proof.  

I like how Asia Argento looks like a librarian with a sleeping disorder in this film. 

I like how a monkey is one of the scarier characters in this film.  

I like that the book The Three Mothers makes a reappearance.  

I like how the last 5 minutes of this film aren't really that shocking since two girls one cup hit first....gross.

I like that one of the witches looks like Tila Tequila and promptly dies.  

INFERNO

There are mysterious parts in that book, but the only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people.  
Inferno was released in 1980.  This film is a spiritual successor to Argento's Suspiria.  Once again we are in the world of the Three Mothers.  This film was more like a collection of vignettes  than one cohesive story.  I liked the fact that anyone touched by the mystery running through this movie was confronted by the evil of the Mothers.  This movie allowed Argento to give the audiences even more of a back story to the Three Mothers.  I still think I hold Suspiria as my favorite of the series but this movie had a lot of strong, nightmarish visuals and added even more to Mother's mythology.

The book referred to  in the quote above is from the book The Three Mothers written by a fellow named E. Varelli.  This book is purchased by a girl named Rose Elliot, from an old antique book dealer.  Varelli was an architect who was forced by the Three Mothers to construct their houses in Germany, New York and Rome.  From these houses the witches could manipulate world events and amass great wealth with their powers.  The more Rose reads the architect's diary, she begins to believe that her apartment is located in one of the witch's, Mater Tenebrarum, house.  We follow Rose as she investigate the Mother of Darkness' house.  After Rose goes spelunking (check this movie out) in the basement of the home she writes her brother a letter.  Her brother, Mark, is studying music in Rome.  Yup.  He's studying music in the other, other witch's house.  Mark's friend actually receives the letter and is brutally killed because of it.  Mark must then return to New York to find his sister and get to the bottom of all this witch nonsense.  Wacky hijinks ensue.  Even Death makes an appearance by the end of the film.  

It had been so long since I've seen this movie.  I enjoyed how the architect's diary added a little depth to the story of the Three Mothers.  The rules that the book establishes for finding the houses are pretty great.  Once again, this movie is shot like a dream.  This is especially clear when Rose goes looking for her keys.  She is underwater for at least 10 minutes, swimming through the flooded basement.  It doesn't matter that she's down there that long, what matters is the beautiful way she is shot floating through room after room.  The corpse at the end really isn't half bad either.  Like I said, I like how when the characters go searching or come across knowledge of the Mothers, they must fight for their lives as they descend into a nightmare.  The Mother of Shadows is the main baddie in this picture but while Mark is in Rome we do get a shot of the Mother of Tears, the most beautiful of the three witches.  There are a few twists I don't want to ruin.  There is a decent little mystery here wrapped in all the trippy sequences.  Goblin did not do the soundtrack for this one.  Instead the reins were taken by Keith Emerson, and plays much more like a gory opera.  I liked how the movie was different enough in tone to distinguish itself from Suspiria.  Once again Argento uses everything- setting, lighting, sound, to draw viewers in to a disorienting, terrifying experience.
Have you ever heard of the Three Sisters?
What I like
I like the pick up line used in the elevator.  I'll have to try it sometime.
I like that I've seen this movie a dozen times but that mirror scene gets me EVERY TIME.
I like that people who read things that aren't addressed to them DIE.
I like the hot dog murder scene.  You know the one.

Later guys.  Two witches down, one to go....

SUSPIRIA

Susie, do you know anything about...witches?
Ok guys I'm back with another franchise in my sights.  I'm a little gored-out after over 12 hours of Saw movies so I'm really changing gears here with my next selection.  While the Saw series is a hyper realistic, hyper edited, hyper violent franchise, the Three Mothers Trilogy is old school in all the best ways--tension builds and builds and builds, atmosphere is established, characters are developed, the set pieces are elaborate.  And the gore is incredibly shocking in these three Italian films.  Even in a flick 30 something years old, you're still seeing things on screen that you haven't seen before.  Dario Argento is one of the biggest names in all of horror.  If you haven't heard about Mr. Argento, this blog is not for you.  If you haven't seen anything from Argento, email me and I will pay for your Netflix.  Argento's quality has seriously declined in recent years, but man, watching Suspiria again, I was struck by the atmosphere and sense of WTF-ness that Argento builds.  There is something about Argento movies.  The closest thing I can compare it to is a dream.  Or maybe a hallucination brought on by serious opiates.  Logic, chronology, physics, really don't have a place in these films.  Apparently Argento got the idea for three mothers from a book called "Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas de Quicy.  de Quincy's other book?  It's called Confessions of  an English Opium Eater. Yeaah, so when your source material is the medieval equivalent of Hunter S. Thompson, your movies are going to turn out TRIPPY.  One section of the Profundis says that while there are three Fates, and three Graces, there are also three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears," "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs," and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness." Can you guess which witch we'll be talking about today?  
Suzy Banyon decided to perfect her ballet studies in the most famous school of dance in Europe. She chose the celebrated academy of Freeborge. One day, at nine in the morning, she left Kennedy airport, New York, and arrived in Germany at 10:40 p.m. local time. 
Let's get on to the plot shall we?  Those are seriously the first lines of the film, and that's about as much sense as you will get out of this movie.  When Suzy arrives to the school it's during a violent storm.  She meets a terrified woman who is babbling something at the entrance.  Suzy can't hear because of the storm. Then the woman trucks past her and Suzy is left locked outside of the dance studio.  The woman runs to a friend's apartment and confides in her that something strange is happening at the studio.  She is leaving the country the next day.  She is so clearly terrified.  Something is stalking this poor girl.  Something with with glowing yellow eyes, and hairy arms.  After the girl is dispatched, in one of the longest, most shocking ways I've seen (STILL! It's been 30 years! See this movie!) we pick back up with Suzy outside of the dance school.  She is let into the school and begins seeing and hearing things that she cannot explain.  Suzy winds up in the room of the murdered girl and begins to learn the secret history of Freeborge.  Turns out that this school was once the home of a power witch named, yup, Mater Suspiriorum.  Did the Mother of Sighs die?  Snoring, maggots, Udo Kier, invisibility spells, zombies, secret rooms, and the most badass soundtrack ever ensue. 

 Nobody simply dies in an Argento movie.  His murders wind up looking like paintings.  The color of the blood he uses reminds me of that melted crayon color from Romero's Dawn of the Dead.  And did I mention the soundtrack?  A band called Goblin, scored many of Argento's movies but this score is, in my opinion of course the best one.  Check out my playlist and there are a few samples of Goblin's work. Like I said before, this movie is like watching a dream unfold.  The colors, the noises, the way people speak even, they all evoke a dreamlike sense.  It's hard to describe, so do yourself a favor and buy this.  Skip the rental and buy this.  


What I Like 
I like how Udo Kier's accent/dub work makes him sound like someone from the Midwest.  
I like how the first murder escalates and gets worse and worse with each development. 
I like the fact that a band named Goblin exists.  
I like that witches are seriously the bad guys in these films and they are actually scary.  
I like how if you listen closely to the soundtrack, the singer pretty much tells you what's going on. 
I like how this movie has the most awesome tag-line on their poster of all time.   


One film down and two to go.  These films are awesome and a really great change of pace from the CSI like level of detail and gore we get nowadays.  Just take a look to the right.  Told you there were zombies in this flick.  See you soon guys, Mater Lacrymarum and Mater Tenabrarum await...