So my friend-slash-colleague Cinema Parrot Disco recently weighed in on The Abominable Dr. Phibes. This enticed me to slink down into the ol’ crypt here at Castle Blogferatu and dust off my old Dr. Phibes post in her honor.

There was a time in my delusional, misspent early adolescence during the equally delusional early 80s when I wanted to play the organ. It was because of Vincent Price. I’d seen both Dr. Phibes movies a few times throughout the 70s and 80s and was a big Vincent Price fan long before that, but, man, was Dr. Anton Phibes ever it.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Hydra. T.H.R.U.S.H.– rank amateurs next to Anton Phibes. You have to go to Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s Destroyer series, also in the 70s, to find villains operating at this level of sinister creativity.

Phibes’s appeal, aside from Vincent Damn Price, stems from two characteristics. First is his motivation. Like some camped up cross between the Phantom Of The Opera and Dr. Orloff, everything Phibes does is for love.

Obsessive? Indeed. Sociopathic? To be sure. But love nonetheless (incidentally, one can anagrammificate Dr. Anton Phibes into Phanto ‘N Brides, and he is constantly accompanied by his dead wife, Victoria, and his assistant, Vulnavia, which one can anagrammatize into Vulvania, so, yeah, there’s that).

Second, Dr. Phibes can be seen not so much as a villain but more as a tragic, quasi-Gothic figure. Think about it. From Walpole to Radcliffe to Faulkner, there is precious little variation in the elements of the standard Gothic tale.

Eccentric recluse. Possibly wealthy, often an artistic/scientific/scholarly genius. Phibes is a renowned concert organist as well as a doctor of theology. He builds his own clockwork orchestra (a bit reminiscent of Morpho in The Awful Dr. Orloff) and mechanizes his destroyed voice. Check.

Mysterious servant. Often silent. Tobe in “A Rose For Emily,” Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, the aforementioned Morpho, Caligari’s Cesare, and now, Vulnavia. Check.

Creatively ghastly deaths. Some of my all-time favorite death machines show up in these two movies. In third place, the giant scorpion trap–the best part is the fact that the victim has a chance to unlock the device, predating the Saw franchise by decades (to be fair, both borrow heavily from the glory days of EC’s Tales From The Crypt). A close second, the telephone spike through the ears.

Hands down, first place has to be the head-crushing frog mask. Truly, these are three of my Top Ten Favorite Murders (another post for another time, true believers).

Honorable mentions include exsanguination, death by hail machine, and skewering by the horn of a brass unicorn head launched from another location. I’m willing anytime to stack that up against the death by giant falling helmet that starts Castle Of Otranto. Giant red check.

Supernatural incidents. Phibes is dead. I know what you’re thinking: Phibes says, “I was told after my crash that I would never speak again!” Doesn’t that imply that he isn’t dead? I suggest thinking less rationally and, again, more Gothically, and let me remind you, giant fucking helmet. He informs us himself that he’s dead at least twice. We’re not always clear at first if he’s being metaphorical, and for a while it’s kind of being toyed with. But yeah. He’s dead. And why not? It’s a horror movie. Once more, check.

The ghost, memory, legacy, and/or body of a dead spouse or lover. At the end of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, in a scene right out of “A Rose For Emily,” Phibes entombs himself with the body of his dead wife, his obsession with whom drives his every action. Check.

In the end, Victoria and Vulnavia by his side, Phibes escapes down The River Of Life. There is no retribution, no reckoning. Why should there be? Like Faulkner’s Emily, everyone Phibes kills not only has it coming, but isn’t even remotely likeable.

One might argue Dr. Phibes is clearly willing to take human lives. He tries to kill Dr. Vesalius’s son in The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Biederbeck’s wife in Dr. Phibes Rises Again. I would argue they are the only two victims Phibes fails to kill. In other words, the best part, the part I love most–Phibes triumphs.

Well played, doctor, well played.

SKULLS
The Abominable Dr. Phibes 5
Dr. Phibes Rises Again 4
BODIES
The Abominable Dr. Phibes- 6 onscreen, 4 offscreen
Dr. Phibes Rises Again- 7 onscreen

P.S. It’s worth mentioning that remake talk has been circulating for some time. There’s been no official word yet to, but the hot rumors always involve Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Phibes. Yes please.

In which Jorge and JT clip on their Miskatonic University ID cards and join Dr. Herbert West in his quest to put and end to mortality.

NEXT WEEK
Tubi Tuesday: The Killer Eye (1999)

LINKS
https://linktr.ee/podferatu
Skull logo by Erik Leach @erikleach_art (Instagram)
Theme:  Netherworld Shanty, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

In which Jorge and JT dust off the proton packs and fire up Ye Olde Tyme Machine for a look at their favorite science fiction horror.

TOPICS
Altered States
Antiviral
Circle
The Color Out Of Space (and others)
Extraterrestrial
The Invisible Man
Monkey Shines
Scanners
They Live
The Tingler

NEXT WEEK
The Re-Animator Trilogy

LINKS
https://linktr.ee/podferatu
Skull logo by Erik Leach @erikleach_art (Instagram)
Theme:  Netherworld Shanty, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

5/1 Onibaba (1964)

I’ve been meaning to get to this forever, and wowzers was it ever worth the wait. The supernatural element is first rate of course, but the three main characters also have a despicable, everyone is horrible kind of film noir vibe that makes an already mesmerizing film even more intensely watchable. Two women, a younger woman and her mother-in-law, waylay wandering samurai, kill them, and sell off their stuff. A deserter named Hachi returns home and muscles in on this and on the daughter-in-law. There’s a mask. And a curse. And a strange ending.

5 SKULLS

5/4 The Crawlers (1990)

At the other end of the spectrum, was…this. I don’t know where I even heard about this or why I decided I had to watch it, but damn. This was so not good that not only did I forget what it was about, but when I looked it up, I could still barely remember it. Hazardous waste creates killer tree roots. It’s like someone took the tree root scene from Evil Dead and tried to make it into an entire movie. But it gets worse. Remember the octopus/Lugosi fight scene in Bride Of The Monster? Same kind of “acting,” same level of greatness.

.5 SKULLS

5/14 Hex Hollow: Witchcraft And Murder In Pennsylvania (2015)

I do love a creepy documentary, and what could be creepier than a guy who was supposedly killed for using witchcraft or “pow wow” on his neighbors, especially not super-far from where I grew up? Well, turns out that this managed to be boring as all get out, so boring in fact, that I apparently blocked out having watched it before until I’d gotten about 20 minutes in.

1 SKULL

5/16 Matriarch (2022)

May was full of extremes. Onibaba, then The Crawlers, then Hex Hollow, then a big ol’ pendulum swing back to Coolsville with Matriarch. This was cuh-reepy as hell thanks in no small part to Kate Dickie (who I loved in Red Road nearly a decade before her dry dive in Game Of Thrones thank you very much). I can’t think of anything I’ve seen her in where she’s not unnerving at least in some small way, and she more than carries this body/folk horror combo.

4.5 SKULLS

5/18 Bride Of Re-Animator (1990)

I had to watch this (and the next one) because Jorge and I decided to discuss the trilogy for Podferatu. They were fun more or less. I don’t think they hold up to the first one very successfully, and this one in particular is bonkers in the sense that the plot jumps around all over the place. There’s lotsa stuff that just doesn’t make sense. Combs is enjoyable, but for me just doesn’t deliver West’s same sense of snide self-satisfaction from Re-Animator.

2.5 SKULLS

5/18 Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

A more cohesive plot involving West in prison and taking up his usual shenaniganry, but still a number of problems. First of all, zero explanation of how West survived the end of the second movie. Second, a mid-credit dick joke? We really had to go there?

2.5 SKULLS

5/20 Clock (2023)

This was severely disappointing and carried two troubling messages. First, if you’re a woman and don’t want kids, there’s something wrong with you. Second, that also makes you expendable. I have to go with Cinema Parrot Disco on this one: ” just ended up being a dumb film & a dull horror. Not the first time a decent poster fooled me into watching a bad movie! And it won’t be the last.” Same my friend, same (but with trailers). I also totally did not get the ending of this movie, but I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who plan to flush 90 minutes down the shitter watch this at some point. But if it’s the kind of ending that I suspect it might be, well that’s just lame lame lame.

1.5 SKULLS

5/22 Dawn Breaks Behind The Eyes

So Clock I watched before I saw CPD’s review. This one I checked out because of Film Miasma. He friggin’ hated this, so being such kindred spirits, I just had to, had to see just how bad it was for meself.

Woof.

It was so bad I wrote it up, so I won’t be wasting any more precious verbiage on it here.

1 SKULL

5/24 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Ugh. It pains me how cute, entertaining, and superfun this was because it is after all under the auspices of Hasbro and WotC who spent a good portion of the last 365 days or so throwing around their corporate flab and demonstrating their shocking disdain and contempt for their consumers and fan base whom they by and large regarded as idiots only to find out that, uh oh, they aren’t idiots after all. And yet, here we are. Like I said, fun, almost Bullet Train (the best time I’ve had watching a movie in a long time) fun. And of course, as an avid D&D player (at least until I abandon it for Pathfinder), I’m obligated to weigh in on the tiefling druid owlbear question. The correct verdict is this: holy fuck is that so not interesting. And if you want a take on this that is interesting, check out Dungeons & Discourse.

4.5 SKULLS

5/31 Smoke And Mirrors: The Story Of Tom Savini (2015)

I want to like this more than I did. I love love love Savini. The man is a damn legend and is apparently a decent and humble guy, so how did this movie end up being so… meh? I mean, it was fine, and I found out some interesting stuff I didn’t know, but… meh. For some persepective, I watched all 3+ hours of Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched in one go and loved every second of it, but Smoke And Mirrors? Yeah, not quite so riveting as that or as riveting as it could have been.

3 SKULLS