FANTASIA OBSCURA: What Happens When a Serial Killer Discovers the Plagues of Egypt
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.
Sometimes, you don’t need to say anything; just listen to the music, and let your eyes take it all in…
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
(Dist.: American International Pictures; Dir.: Robert Fuest)
While there are plenty of horror films with darkly comic elements, and more than a few horror films with brilliant scores and soundtracks, there aren’t that many that can claim to be both. And please, don’t scream The Rocky Horror Picture Show from the back row; after all, you know what the crowd’s supposed to shout when that part of the house gets name-checked in the main theme.
Dr. Phibes as it was known before its release, and The Curse of Dr. Phibes in some releases, finds our titular character, played by Vincent Price, performing the second of his ghastly series of murders (the first done pre-credits; as it involved swarms of bees and, this being an A-I picture, the budget probably wasn’t there for it). Quietly, he lowers a cage full of bats into the apartment of his victim, who, on release, scratch his face and drink his blood (supposedly, as they used flying foxes in the filmed sequence, which live on fruit).
Why he does this isn’t immediately revealed; in fact, Phibes doesn’t speak until well into the second act, and when he does, it’s through mechanical means, via a tube at the side of his neck while his face is frozen in place. Most of the time before then he plays the organ (opening the film with a performance of Mendelsohn’s “War March of the Priests”), or listens to either his mechanical wind-up band or the violin playing of his assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North, her last role before retiring from the public eye), reveling in the music between ghastly acts of terror.
It takes a little while for Scotland Yard’s investigator, Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey) to start making the connections between these bizarre murders, finally realizing with the help of surgeon and potential victim Dr. Vesalius (Joseph Cotton) that each person to die so far had been part of the nine-person team that operated on Phibes’ wife in a desperate but futile effort to save her life.
Phibes, in rushing to be with her, suffered a horrific car accident, which destroyed his face and vocal chords. Angry and over the edge, the musical mad doctor turned to his theological training (out of one of his many fields of study) and fashioned a revenge based on the 10 Plagues of Egypt to inflict on the nine members of the team his wife died at the hands of. This includes bats, as described above, putting rats in a victim’s plane that emerge as he’s airborne, and the plague of beasts carried out against the victim (played by Maurice Kaufmann) in a rather unique manner:
It may seem silly, and, on paper, just reading the description does make it seem a trifle, but the presentation is something to behold. Fuest’s choice of setting the picture in 1925 takes advantage of the design motifs of the era and puts them to great use when framed in soft lighting, their primary colors playing off the screen vibrantly. Fuest actually gets more out of his embracing of the Jazz-Age aesthetic than Ken Russell was getting out of The Boy Friend, which was also being shot at Elstree Studios at the same time with a somewhat larger budget.
And the visuals are made to do a lot of work. Because of Phibes’ condition, Price played the character with a waxy build-up over his face to indicate that his looks were a mask applied over what was left of his head; because of the tubing in his neck, he never moves his lips while “speaking” through the victrola. And with Vulnavia also silent as she provides deadly assistance, the two play off each other as though this were a silent film, which allows them to project auras that could not resonate with the viewer were these just exchanges of dialog.
Also filling in for the lack of dialog are the musical choices. In addition to the score from Basil Kirchin, there are a number of song choices that are placed through the film whose presence help propel things forward. Even the songs that are anachronisms and shouldn’t be there, such as “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” and “Over the Rainbow”, work wonderfully within the film; you accept them because the more you think about it, what else would have worked that well in that scene?
The film certainly works for most viewers who find it, a comedy-horror hybrid that’s a lush experience and a treat for the ears as well as the eyes. Audiences at the time certainly reacted well enough to it that it spawned an immediate sequel, 1972’s Dr. Phibes Rises Again, with the Plagues of Egypt motif replaced by Egyptian mythology. The reception to this film was such that American International wanted a third Phibes film but couldn’t come up with what they felt was a proper follow-up for the last two.
Supposedly, Price himself also wanted another Phibes outing, and technically he did get his way with a later film, one that had a string of victims dying according to a grand motif. A string of victims played by some very, very good actors, and with a truly grand motif with which to kill them all.
But that’s a topic for another time.
NEXT TIME: When they finally drop the Big One, I hope I become a Barcalounger…
