The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Brilliant and touching

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Vincent Price has always been a personal favorite of mine and he gets to go full monty here on a host of victims in this stylized, colorful thriller. For those of you wondering how to pronounce the title, I would have been at a disadvantage myself if I hadn't seen a brief intro to the picture last night on Turner Classics. The host pronounced 'Phibes' like the word 'fives' but with a 'b'. So I thought that was pretty helpful or I'd still be wondering about it.The story line borrows an interesting concept from the Biblical 'Ten Curses of the Pharoahs', as the title character, portrayed by Price, begins to dispatch a team of doctors who failed to save the life of his wife during an operation some years earlier. The attack on the first victim brought to mind a 1959 Vincent Price programmer simply titled 'The Bat', in which a fiend unleashes a bat as his calling card when he commits his evil deeds. Phibes' other murders are fairly creative as well, the head shrinker who got his head shrunk was kind of unique (you'll have to see it for yourself). And here's something you don't think about - it's one thing to learn the body contains about eight pints of blood, but to see it lined up on a shelf in bottles is kind of eye opening. Poor Dr. Longstreet.Well I think Vincent Price fans ought to have a good amount of fun with this flick. The picture borrows concepts from a couple of Roger Corman's films - 1959's "A Bucket of Blood" and 1960's "The Little Shop of Horrors". Stylistically, I couldn't help thinking of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", more so for the weirdness of the set design and effusive use of color throughout. One thing you might have to get used to is watching Dr. Phibes express himself without using his mouth, the voice is clearly that of Vincent Price, but in keeping with his diabolical character, it sounds like it was run through a synthesizer.

A very fun dramedy tongue-in-cheek horror. Quite a bit of comedy to keep you entertained and enough horror keep you interested. Classic Vincent Price fun.Dr. Phibes is out for revenge. Nine doctors that Phibes blames for his wife's death and ruined his life. Dr. Phibes is a doctor, scientist, organist, and biblical scholar -- all of which will play a part in helping him get his revenge biblical plague style.Extremely colourful film visually... quite elaborate sets and costuming. Great casting and an enjoyable story. Mad fun.Great afternoon cinema that would be great as a double feature with the follow-up film Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972).8/10

A movie that clearly is more about mystery and atmosphere than a character study. The story is pretty basic about a man calling himself Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) who seeks revenge for the death of his wife and his own disfigurement. Though he cannot move his mouth he was clever enough to invent a machine that recreates his voice. Very nice setting where he lives with some great contrasts. He has his own private opera with organ and wax figures playing other instruments and a beautiful young lady (who I believe never says anything) occasionally playing violin or dancing. When one of the doctors who he holds responsible for his wife's death dies he symbolically burns the face of the wax image he created of them. Even though the killings are technically not by his hands he surely has a creative way of invoking them with 10 plagues from the Thora (Jewish) as his guide. Very creative indeed. Surely this has inspired later movies. With the operation scene in mind I had to think of the Saw movies. And the plagues might have been an inspiration for movies such as The Reaping while the killings also reminded me of the method that the killer in Seven was using. Very inspirational film indeed.

Vincent Price plays the macabre Doctor Phibes. He is a living corpse who is out for revenge on those he holds responsible for his wife's death on the operating table. There are nine he holds to blame, eight doctors and a nurse. One by one they die by strange and varied ways. All are curses from the ten Biblical plagues of the Old Testament. Eight are killed by those various means. The last to be alive is Joseph Cotton playing the lead surgeon Dr. Vesalius. He is called to the house of Phibes to save his son by operating on him for a key that will unlock the son's collar and the gurney before acid will drop on Vesalius's son and kill him. Vesalius conducts the operation in time and moves his son from harm. As this happens Phibes, thinking he has succeeded in his final revenge, goes to the vault where he has his wife's body, inserts needles into his arms, lays down with the body, and is drained of blood while embalming fluid enters. As the police leave they wonder about the final curse, that of darkness. Well the lights go out before they exit the building but no one further is harmed. A fairly good movie all in all.