Le Retour de l'abominable docteur Phibes

The juxtapositioning of lame one-liners and overused sight gags with some rather memorable and disturbing murders are what this film is all about. Its all of a rather low quality in virtually all respects, yet with Vincent Price as a diabolical lead, the many foibles are easily overlooked. Phibes has risen from suspended animation and once more has a bee in his bonnet for those who killed his wife and took away his face. He's not content with simply killing them. Oh no, each murder is creative, elaborate and basically nonsensical in their conception. But still horrific somehow. There's no sport in criticizing the plot, questions like why Phibes conjures these nasty deaths for the lackeys of his enemy who are all actually ignorant and innocent of any wrongdoing. Then he chooses to reason with the one man who is actually trying to destroy him. Very EC comic inspired, and if you like that sort of thing, you will like this film. Keep this away formt he impressionable kids though. I saw this when I was really young, and the images were emblazened on my brain for all time. Beware!!!

Years after going into hibernation, Dr. Phibes comes back to life and so has his fashionable female assistant Vulnavia (too bad she has only one other acting credit, "The Great Muppet Caper").

How Vulnavia survived the acid attack from the first film, I have no idea. Anyway, together they travel to Egypt to find the river of life that flows once every 2000 years in order to resurrect Phibes' wife Victoria. Biederbeck, running out of water from the last two thousand years, is racing to get there first. Who will win? Depending on how you look at this, the movie is either awesome or campy or both. I think both. Vincent Price (Dr. Phibes) never fails as a mad scientist and Phibes is a good character to demonstrate this. The supporting cast is also well-picked (with even a cameo from Peter Cushing). And the deaths are particularly cruel -- scorpions, snakes and one of the most painful ways to die you have seen (which involves crushing but you will have to check it out for yourself). Price, good deaths and a smoking hot woman. What more do you want? Well, there's the camp aspect. So many questions are raised here, besides how Vulnavia survived and where she was hiding. How does Phibes survive undetected if his house is torn down? How does he build so many elaborate traps in Egypt? How does he hide the bodies so quickly? And then there's the Clockwork Wizards (his robot friends who play instruments with him as he plays his organ). They are great (and call to mind Argento's "Deep Red") but it seems unlikely they would be able to be transported with such ease.

Oh, and if Phibes needs his special tool to speak, why does he ever disconnect it? It is not like it gets in the way or something, except maybe while sleeping.

You like Vincent Price. You like 1970s horror films from American International Pictures. You will like this film. Some say it's not as solid as the first, other say it's on par. I would suggest seeing the first one first (that makes sense) but there's no reason to avoid this film. It deserved more sequels, but this was not to be.

Some feel that this sequel to 1970's The Abominable Dr. Phibes surpassed the original film with its all-out camp elan, wild-and-woolly murder sequences (it's hard to imagine anything more skin-crawlingly gruesome than the Scorpion Throne sequence in this film), exquisite Deco Egyptienne sets and scenery-chewing performances by such stellar talents as Hugh Griffith, Terry-Thomas (a priceless cameo), Beryl Reid and Peter Jeffrey. Robert Quarry has probably his best role ever as the perfidious Biederbeck, and Valli Kemp makes a fetchingly arch replacement in the role of Vulnavia originated by Virginia North (Kemp's Vulnavia is more in the vein of Maxfield Parrish, while North was arctically Deco). But it's Vincent Price--"how ironic and how clever!"--who rules this bizarre, darkly comic universe of murders and ancient Egyptian occult wisdom. The score by John Gale is also worthy of considerable praise--one of the great horror scores of the latter 20th Century. When is the CD coming out?

I've seen this movie about 7 times, and every time I always notice some little quip or detail that escaped me on first viewing. For trivia buffs, a third film was planned, which was due to bring Phibes face to face with Hitler. Vincent Price was so incensed at the chopping of the original running time of Rises Again that he refused to have anything to do with the third project, so it was abandoned. Director Robert Fuest worked on the Linda Thorson season of the Avengers (the Takeover episode shows some of the Phibes style), and went on to produce a stylish send-up of one of Michael Moorcock's future-sex fantasias.

...as the original. Yes, the design is impressive. Yes, Phibes is nearly as good. The Biederbeck sub-plot (Robert Quarry's best performance by far: check his IMDB credits list to see how many turkeys he's been in) is interesting, and makes him a suitable rival for Phibes. Sort of.

And that's kind of where I'm stuck at. Everything in this movie is "sort of." Biederbeck is "sort of" Phibes' rival, but the two never meet until the end. The movie "sort of" carries on the theme of the original. But without a driving force or motivation of vengeance, or a theme like the Plagues, here it's just a matter of seeing how many nifty ways Phibes can (rather implausibly) knock someone off. And some of those (a raven?) aren't even that interesting.

The humor here is also a lot broader, which wasn't really to my taste, either. Watching Phibes chow down on grapes through his neck hole and almost choking struck me as parodying the character itself, which tends to rob Phibes of much of his menace.

Overall, this sequel is enjoyable, but to me, it ultimately fails to rise to level of its predecessor.

Dr Phibes Rises Again is the sequel to the magnificent 'The Abominable Dr Phibes'. The original film achieved cult classic status through a magnificent performance from Vincent Price as the vengeful doctor of the title, and an over the top, absurd, camp styling that set it apart from most other films in it's field. Both of these ingredients are present for the sequel, but it doesn't succeed like the first one did because there's just something missing. The sequel sees Dr Phibes 'rise again' upon the moon aligning itself in a certain way (or something) and travelling to Egypt to find a river that will grant him and his neither living, nor completely dead beloved, immortality. However, things aren't so simple because the scrolls that lead the way to the river have been stolen and Phibes has a contender; someone that needs to find the river just as much as he does out there in Egypt with him.

What's basically missing from this film is assurance. The first film obviously knew what it wanted to do and so was able to do it and not let anything get in the way; this one is very muddled, and it never completely gives the impression that it knows where it wants to go. Just like the first film, this one delivers some very imaginative and very grisly methods of dispatch for it's lesser characters. However, these death scenes almost appear superfluous to the plot, and appear to only be there to continue what the original started, as Phibes probably could have gotten where he wanted to go without them…but I'm not one to complain about a film that sees a man trapped in a giant gold scorpion while being eaten to death by live ones, and another man killed via a sharp spike shooting out of the telephone, so whether they're needed or not; they're nice. The film also features, like the original did, a lovely camp feeling; but it's never on the same level as it was in 'The Abominable'. Perhaps it's the move to Egypt and the low quality of the set's (as opposed to the grand and lavish ones of the original) what's done it.

As mentioned, Vincent Price returns to take up one of the roles that have helped cement him in the minds of his fans - Dr Phibes himself. This role, frankly, was made for Vincent Price; and he excels at playing it. It can be said that he doesn't do quite as good a job here, but then again; he didn't have as much good stuff to work with. Also making an appearance is fellow horror legend - Peter Cushing. Cushing only actually appears for all of about two minutes, but it's nice to see him nonetheless. Robert Fuest returns to the director's chair, as you'd probably expect; but the most notable performance in the film (other than Price) comes from Peter Jeffrey, in the role of the inept Scotland Yard inspector - Inspector Trout. Jeffrey delivers his lines with impeccable comic timing and steals every scene he's in. I'd even go as far as to say that Jeffrey is just as important a part of these two movies as Vincent Price is.

Overall, this film isn't nearly as good as 'The Abominable Dr Phibes', but fans of the original will find lots to like and despite the fact that it's a lesser film and has many flaws; I love this kind of stuff so it gets a big thumbs up from me.