Curse of the Crimson Altar (1970)

Overrated and overhyped

From my favorite movies..

As Good As It Gets

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR is another great British horror that has been all too frequently derided, as though it were a poor film. It's actually very good, with some great nightmarish imagery (for a British horror), great acting and a few interesting twists.Tigon produced a few horror films back in the day. Among their works are THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR, THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR, VIRGIN WITCH, WITCHFINDER GENERAL and THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW. It's the last two of these that are the most well-known and considered their best. I beg to differ, though, since I consider CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR to be their best film.The story concerns an antiques dealer called Robert Manning, who goes to a house in the countryside in search of his brother. He's in for a few surprises when he gets there.This is one of those British horror films with lots of dialogue and seemingly little action. But the script is well put together and the film holds your attention. It helps that the film makes use of the great talents of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, two horror legends who don't disappoint. The hardest part of this film was getting Mark Eden, an actor not known for appearing in horror films, to carry it. But he pulls it off very well. Also appearing is the legendary Barbara Steele, who is famous for starring in a number of Italian horror films in the 1960s. She is arguably at her best in this film, though, playing the villainess in the form of a witch named Lavinia Morley.There is a creepy vibe running through the film much of the time. This is helped in part by the choice of musical cues and the air of mystery surrounding the manor house and its occupants. The nightmare sequences are particularly effective and director Vernon Sewell does a great job in his work generally.Overall, CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR is a very underrated film from a lesser known British film production company. It showed that Tigon at their best could compete with the better known Hammer and Amicus at making horror films.

With a pairing of Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff, you shouldn't go wrong. But there is very little time of the two in the same scene. Robert Manning(Mark Eden)is an antique dealer that is worried about his missing brother. So Manning makes a trip to a rural English village to start his search. Manning tries to prove that his missing brother has something to do with an ancient mansion belonging to a man named Morely(Lee). Robert gets involved with Morley's niece Eve(Virginia Wetherell), who wants to believe that something bad has happened to the American's brother. The two get entangled in the legend of Levinia(Barbara Steele), a witch that was killed 300 years ago. Was Manning's brother a sacrifice to a cult? Robert and Eve seek information from the village's grand elder, Professor Marsh(Karloff), who is an occult expert. The movie stays busy, a memorable one it isn't. Other players: Michael Gough, Rosemarie Reede and Michael Warren.

I'm neither old enough to have seen this sort of horror at the time (barely born, in fact) nor a real horror fan, but this came up late on BBC2.The opening scene is nicely weird enough, with various symbols of witchcraft, with various symbols in sorts of colourful panto vignettes and then soon settles into normal life, old cars, Britishness and all that.Looking for his disappeared brother, Robert Manning (a fairly ordinary, nice Mark Eden) drives off to this lodge, from where his brother's last letter was addressed from. On the way up, he is told that the village in question is holding an anniversary witchcraft celebration and finds cars of men chasing a girl running through the woods.Reaching the Lodge, the owner, one J D Morley (Peter Cushing, no less) naturally denies any knowledge but offers him a room for the night. As one (naturally) does, in a big, strange old house, where there was a party that involved painting young lady's breasts (and similar!), Manning accepts. A joke with one young seductress about 'the sort of old house from the movies, where Boris Karloff appears' is nicely tongue-in- cheek, as the other big star here, is indeed, Karloff himself.He plays a wheelchair-bound professor, who's hobby is collecting instruments of torture. And, of course there's a dodgy chauffeur who goes around shooting at things in the woods (including 'our' man) and who so happens to be mute and an even stranger caretaker. Them there's loads of kaleidoscopic hallucinatory nightmares, with electronically distorted sound FX that our Robert suffers, which are interesting, at least. Then he toddles off, sleepwalking down to the local graveyard.It's all hoary nonsense, of course, but whilst a bit dated, there's enough interesting characters played by interesting - and/or sexy people, if you get my drift, for the film to remain entertaining and enjoyable.I'd give the actual film 5/10 for its real merit and maybe 7 for the other, entertainment aspects, as I've outlined. I don't think many fans of this genre would be too disappointed either and for them it's definitely worth checking out.

This movie was one of the very last accomplishments of the legendary Boris Karloff (not quite sure if those Mexican junk movies were shot before this one but they definitely remained shelved until after his death) and reportedly he got really ill shortly after – or even during – the shooting of "Curse of the Crimson Altar". If this is a true fact, it definitely gives the film some sort of sour aftertaste. With a career like his, Boris Karloff should have enjoyed a well-deserved retirement instead of catching pneumonia on draughty film sets at the age of 82. On the other hand, of course, "Curse of the Crimson Altar" wouldn't have been half as good if it weren't for him. It already isn't much of a highlight in the genre, but Karloff's presence (along with three others horror veterans) provides an extra dimension of horror greatness.This is one of the Tigon Production Company's more mediocre efforts – completely incomparable to "The Witchfinder General" and "Blood on Satan's Claw" – but still a remotely entertaining Brit-horror flick containing all the traditional ingredients, such as witchery, torture devices, old mansions with secret passageways, ritual sacrifices and psychedelic hallucination sequences. The plot revolves on an antique dealer (and ladies' man!) who heads out to the countryside in search for his mysteriously vanished brother. He arrives in a remote little town during the annual memorial of the legendary witch Lavinia Morley's burning. Mr. Manning is exaggeratedly welcomed at first, but he gradually senses something strange and sinister has happened to his brother in the mansion he's staying. When he then begins to suffer from vivid nightmares involving Lavinia herself, he realizes his name is historically linked to the witch and that he's been put under a sardonic curse.Apart from the cast, "Curse of the Crimson Altar" benefices the most from its occasionally very moody atmosphere, the eerie scenery and the impressively staged witchery sequences. Even though these scenes might appear a little silly overall (what with the bodybuilders wearing leather S&M outfits), but they're still definitely a joy to watch when you're a fan of old-fashioned Gothic horror. Barbara Steele is underused and extremely typecast as the malignant Lavinia, but what the heck, even with her face painted green and ridiculously over-sized goat horns on her head, she still remains a luscious beauty. Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee (in their second teaming after "Corridors of Blood") are wonderful together, but the still heavily underrated Michael Gough shines as the weird and mentally unstable Elder. Unfortunately, however, the shoddy script contains too many holes and improbabilities, and director Vernon Sewell lacks the talent and horror knowledge to cover these up.One last and perhaps interesting little trivia detail; although entirely devoid of humor otherwise, "Curse of the Crimson Altar" features one intentionally wit and unsubtle inside joke. Whilst talking about the old and secluded mansion, the main character mentions something in the lines of "I expect Boris Karloff to walk in at any moment" and – in fact – he does only a couple of minutes later. He rolls in, to be exact, since he plays a wheelchair bound character.