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Crucible Of TerrorRating:
Release Date: 15 August, 2000 Retail Price: $24.99 OUR Price: $22.49 You SAVE: $2.50! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
Crucible Of Terror Reviews
"Victor usually gets rid of his birds pretty regularly."
I checked this film out solely based on the title, Crucible of Terror (1972), because I thought it sounded...well, cool...Crucible of...TERROR...oooh, sounds scary, doesn't it? Well, it wasn't...not one wee bit. It was kind of interesting, but more from a curiosity standpoint. Thing is, the whole `artist who creates art by destroying the living' thing has already been done, and in much better films like House of Wax (1953) and Bucket of Blood (1959). Co-written and directed by someone named Ted Hooker (in his one and only film), Crucible of Terror stars former British radio DJ Mike Raven (Lust for a Vampire, I, Monster) and Mary Maude (Scorpio). Also appearing is James Bolam (Straight on Till Morning), Betty Alberge (Disciple of Death), John Arnatt (Hysteria), Judy Matheson (Lust for a Vampire, Twins of Evil), Beth Morris (Son of Dracula), and Ronald Lacey, whom most will recognize as Major Toht from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)...wow, he sure lost a lot of hair since this film...
As the film starts, we see scenes of a forge heating up, a nekkid, unconscious woman (enjoy it because this is it for the nekkid parts in the entire film) being covered in plaster or something, and then molten bronze poured from a crucible into the cast...then cut to a middling art show run by John (Bolam). Seems John is having a tough time of it, up to his eyeballs in debt, but pieces by one particular artist are selling well, and John sees an opportunity, but there's a catch. The artist, named Victor (Raven), is somewhat of a recluse, and John only had access to sell some of Victor's art because Victor's son Mike (Lacey) pilfered said art pieces from his father in order to support his enormous drinking habit (or so I'm guessing because the guy was constantly hammered throughout the film). Anyway, John pressures Mike for an introduction, and Mike suggests they go to the old family homestead for the weekend and bring along the wives Mille (Maude) and Jane (Morris). When they arrive at the remote home (which happens to be built on a haunted tin mine, by the way) on some English coast, we meet Victor, along with his slightly daft wife Dorothy (Alberge), a live-in friend named Bill (Arnatt), and Victor's latest model Marcia (Matheson), whom Victor seems to be tiring of, especially with the arrival of Mille and Jane. Well soon some deaths occur due to a slight case of...MURDER (funny how nobody misses these recently departed individuals, but whatever) at the hands of a mysterious killer, Victor becomes increasingly obsessed with Mille, constantly pestering her to `pose' for him while John is away trying to scrape up some dough to buy some of Victor's paintings, and we learn Victor has instructed Bill to fire up the forge...uh oh...things eventually come to a head, and all is revealed, one way or another...will Millie become the next `piece' in Victor's collection? Who is the mysterious killer prowling the grounds and the mines?
I really didn't know what to expect with this film, as I neglected to read any reviews, but having seen it, I realized I probably could have gone through the rest of my life without having seen it...it's not that this was a bad film, but it wasn't particularly good, either. Given this was the director's first film, I thought he did a decent job presenting the story despite the fact the story itself just felt weak in general. It was slow, plodding, and didn't really seem to get going until about a third of the way into the film. The opening sequence drew me in, but my interest waned as various characters were trotted across the screen, each with their own particular peccadilloes (what was the point of having Dorothy in a state of arrested mental development, showing her acting, and even dressing like a child, reminiscent of Bette Davis in the 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane)? While Victor certainly treated her poorly, I found little to support reasoning for her complete, regressive state). The acting in general was pretty unspectacular, with the exception of Raven who got quite hammy as the film wore on (not necessarily a bad thing), and his obsession with Mille becomes rather two-dimensional...'You inspire me'...'You must pose for me'...repeated ad nauseam...the characters were odd in that most of them had, or desired, multiple relationships...John, who is with Millie, is also involved with a patron who helps fund his business at times...Mike, who is married to Jane, comes on to his father's model Marcia (Mike and Jane's marriage isn't on the most solid ground)...Marcia seems to have an interest in Millie (which never went anywhere...sadly)...Bill has an interest in Victor's mentally challenged wife (to be fair, his interest went way back, before she went loopy), and Victor seems interested in any woman who isn't his wife (even his daughter-in-law Jane...ew...as far as the element of who's doing the killing (one worthwhile scene involves someone getting acid thrown in their kisser), I didn't guess the identity before it was revealed. Oh, the pieces were there, but, I think, my interest wasn't...the finale is satisfactory, but I really disliked the clunky expository sequence at the end, describing in great detail (including extensions of scenes already shown), who the killer was and why...it sort of made sitting through the rest of the film pointless, as the recapping explained everything to the audience giving the impression we had the mental capacity of children, unable to intuitively deduce the obvious or project beyond what we're shown.
As far as the DVD release from Image Entertainment, it was a let down. I'm unsure what the original aspect ratio of this film was, but it's presented here in a full screen format. The picture quality ranges from decent to poor, as a good deal of the source material used suffers from white speckling. The Dolby mono audio is very soft, and I had to crank the volume to hear the dialog. There are three choices for audio in English, Spanish, and a music and effects only track. There are really no special features available, and the film starts playing once the DVD is installed into a player. All in all, a decent effort by a first time director, but hardly worth the hefty price tag.
Cookieman108
By the way, the description under the editorial review section of Amazon seems to have a number of things wrong with regards to the plot, unless I missed something...
Bad treatment of a classic psychotronic film.
A good bad film is a thing to treasure, as with this dark gem that shows character actor Ronald Lacey years before he stalked the screen as the Nazi interrogator in Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, this has ten minutes of the original footage edited out and it spoils the whole thing. To discuss it further is pointless. I have heard similar treatment has struck some classic Hammer films as they made their way here. I am very disappointed.
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