Fantasia Obscura: “Crucible of Terror”
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
In the near past, there was a demand for tales of the fantastic that had a market able to satiate these desires. The ‘B’ slates of the film studios, smaller operations that reveled in ingenious shortcuts, and distributors that could go overseas, had the means to get to their audience through the drive-in theater, the art houses, and especially television.
Unlike today, there were a lot more opportunities for a small theatrical film to get to its audience through television. Network television would have at least one night a week in prime time devoted to theatrical films, and at different times from throughout the 1960s and 1970s they could have films for such times as after the local news and talk shows on weeknights and on weekend afternoons in lieu of sports coverage (say, during the off season or while waiting out a rain delay). And when times needed to be filled by licensed stations and “owned-and-operated” outlets when the network wasn’t transmitting, they would fill such times regularly with films, such as WABC-TV’s The 4:30 Movie:
Local TV stations might have even more opportunities for genre films, especially horror, through “horror host” programming, usually on Saturday nights. Programming blocks under such banners as Chiller Theater, whose opening is presented below, would give films that might not have had more than a handful of ticket sales their first time out a chance to be seen by thousands for years afterward.
Some films found immortality through these outlets: the classic Universal horror monsters became icons through television, as did the films of George Pal and a good portion of the American International Pictures catalog. Others may not have found as wide an audience, but deserve our attention for being daring, interesting, and willing to go where others would not.
And sometimes, there is a failed film that ended with a beautiful surprise…
Crucible of Terror (1971)
(Director: Ted Hooker)
The 1970s were a grand time for British-produced horror films. The pent-up demand created by the Hammer Films output from the period afforded lots of opportunities for smaller productions that came from other studios, and sometimes from operations pulled together for single projects on the fly.
Crucible of Terror was a small British film from 1971 released by a production unit that had only two films to its credit, this one and The Asphyx. Both productions were directed by men who had never directed a film before, nor would never direct another one again after their work was completed. Ted Hooker, who wrote and directed this film, had no further credits listed with imdb.com after this picture’s release; whether working on the film horribly scarred him or just convinced him to sod it all off is hard to say, as he essentially disappears from the record after the film wraps.
What we’re left with, however, is a production that daringly takes the premise of such films as The Mystery of the Wax Museum and House of Wax and instead of building towards a horrifying if easily guessed reveal, revels in the misdeeds of a mad artist in the pre-credits sequence:
Once the reclusive artist Victor Clare (pirate radio personality/BBC announcer Mike Raven) has done away with his victim Chi San (Me Me Lai) by casting from life and leaving behind her metallic remains, we have our artist anxious to work on the next piece, for which he’s “cast” as his model Millie (Mary Maude), while his hanger-ons and circle of acquaintances play petty plots against each other the way small circles around artists tend to do in British films.
And faster than you can make jokes about “Millie the Model,” we’re out in Cornwall where Victor is trying to work on Millie (in more ways than one) and his circle gets smaller and smaller as each meets a horrible end. Each death is unique in terms of how each victim is offed; stabbing in one case, suffocation in another, their only connection being their knowing Victor in some capacity.
By the time we get to the finale, we end up with a resolution that we have not been prepared for. Literally; there’s nothing to indicate who the murderer was offing everyone in Cornwall unless you paid really close attention to the opening sequence, or were willing to give the sloppy laborious explanation given by a character narrating the reveal like a bad Agatha Christie wrap-up. And even with repeat viewings, the only way to accept the end is to contemplate the only question the film offers: How do I kill enough brain cells fast enough to live with this? (Please consult with your physician before undertaking a radical ingestion of depressants or painkillers to handle how left-field the ending was…)
Of course, there are other questions that come to mind: How did something that started so decently go off the rails so badly? Did Hooker have a more developed, focused script that just ran out of money or time to produce? Did his gripping opening get saddled with the murk of another film because he had two films in him, but not enough patience to wait for one to be done before working on the next? Was there interference from the studio, which itself was only capable of two movies before dissolving?
There is so much potential, so much promise in the opening that grabs the viewer, and then sadly it fades while we wait for the better film we thought was going to be screened shows up. Someday, if modern producers decide that revisiting failed properties makes more sense than trying to go back to successful ones over and over again, this one could be at the top of the list for a successful reboot.
In terms of “beautiful surprises”: an interesting post-script concerning Mike Raven, who soon after he finished filming Crucible of Terror gave up his quest to be the next Christopher Lee. After shooting out in Cornwall for this film, he carried enough from the experience that he returned to the countryside, living out the rest of his days there, as a reclusive artist. No word if there were any disappearances out in the Cornish countryside during those years, though considering most of his work was in wood and stone, we could probably take him off the list…
NEXT TIME: We have a film that gave nightmares to the French, inspiration to John Carpenter and John Woo, and a hit song to Billy Idol…
