In the first installment, American International brought us Dr. Phibes and horror fans rejoiced.  However, that same studio, wishing to cash in on the first film's success, wrought a sequel...and it gave meaning to the first film's catch phrase...

By JOE ROMANO

The Abominable Doctor Phibes and Doctor Phibes Rises Again.  Can any highly original movie and its weak sequel be more different than these two?

The original Phibes was a clever, stylistic film   — a delight to watch over and over again.  Its art deco sets and period music set the tone for a delectable visual feast of terror and revenge.  The sequel, although mildly enjoyable in its attempt to recreate the same theme, does not live up to the original's tongue-in-cheek look at a crazed avenger.  While cut from a similar dark shroud, these two campy horror films prove it's tough to draw blood two times in a row.

Missed both these fiendish films from the early seventies?  Well, shame on you!  But here's a quick synopsis of both so you won't be left out of the fun.

Vincent Price stars as Dr. Anton Phibes, a man who has gone mad following the death of his beloved wife, Victoria.  With Victoria's tragic death, Phibes seeks revenge on the medical team that let her die on the operating table.  (While explaining what happened to the beautiful Mrs. Phibes, the chief surgeon somberly tells a police officer "it was an immediate radical resection." Well, no one said this movie was a medical documentary!)

Phibes, a music professor and amateur inventor, was killed in a fiery car crash while rushing to his wife's hospital bedside.  His car skidded over a cliff and burst into a ball of flames, consuming the devoted husband's life.

Or so everyone believes!

Somehow, the evil doctor miraculously escaped the crash and lay low for seven years.  Although he survived a gory fate, extensive burns left him horribly disfigured and forced him to live an existence of stealth and subterfuge.  Not exactly good fortune for Phibes, but definitely bad luck for the doctors that treated his precious Victoria!

While recuperating, Phibes secretly plans his revenge — nine different deaths for the nine people who were in the operating room with his wife.  An ambitious plan indeed, even more so because Phibes is a learned man and his revenge will not result in nine simple homicides.  Oh, no, not for him.   True revenge is in the planning.  Murder is all the sweeter when executed with elegance and grace.  Or as Phibes would say... slowly... in a gravelly voice... to the spirit of his dear, departed wife: "Nine killed you.  Nine shall die and be returned your loss nine times nine...  Nine killed you, nine shall die. Nine eternities in doom."

Wow, this guy's absolutely crazy!

But Phibes has the madness of a genius, not a simpleton, and his wrath rains upon his victims in biblical proportions. Boils, bats, frogs and blood are the frightful weapons of his revenge.  Rats, hail, beasts, locusts, and the death of the first born, are the way to kill in style.  Phibes uses variations of the Curse of the Pharaohs, the plagues thrust upon the Egyptians before the Israelites fled to the Promised Land.  (A somewhat similar theme was used more than twenty years later in the modern film noir classic, Seven.  In that thriller, Kevin Spacey played a serial killer who relied on the "seven deadly sins" for his murderous inspiration.  Some film historians believe Seven was actually a serious attempt to remake The Abominable Dr. Phibes.)

The members of the hospital team drop one by one as Phibes methodically carries out his plan, saving the death of Dr. Vesalius, the head of the surgical team, for last.

In the sequel, Phibes again returns from his presumed death and whisks the preserved body of Victoria to Egypt where he hopes to resurrect her in the "River of Life."  He is pursued from England by Inspector Trout, the Scotland Yard detective who investigated the previous murders, and Darius Biederbeck, one of the richest men in the world.  Although Trout is trying to solve the new series of killings performed by Phibes, Biederbeck is seeking the same life-giving waters Phibes wants for Victoria.  Poor Biederbeck doesn't realize who he's tangling with until it's too late.

Both movies were directed by Robert Fuest, a former art director and the inspiration behind the original Avengers starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.  Fuest is responsible for the zany texture and velvety look of both movies, instilling the Phibes scripts with the same sense of impeccability and sophistication that were Macnee and Rigg's trademarks on the small screen.

But something is amiss in Dr. Phibes Rises Again.   Unlike The Abominable Dr. Phibes or Fuest's old British TV series about the debonair spy John Steed and his luscious sidekick, Emma Peel, the urbane absurdity fails, lacking both wit and charm.

Why?

Let's start with Phibes himself.

Vincent Price is altogether ghoulish in both films, no problem there.  Price imbibes Dr. Phibes with a savory charm that could have easily carried a lesser actor well over the top.  In spite of the ridiculous premise of both movies, Price conveys a macabre, muted type of savoir-faire.  Quite an extraordinary feat of acting since Phibes has lost his ability for natural speech and resorts to a series of mechanical contraptions to articulate his thoughts.

Come to think of it, the way Phibes's speech intrudes on the flow of the story is one of the problems with the sequel.  Phibes spoke with great difficulty while carrying out the Curse of the Pharaohs.  More often than not, he showed his emotions with his penetrating eyes, his sulking body movements, his aloof manner, and his lively organ music.

In some respects, the outlandishly expressive music in this movie, reminiscent of the wild amusement parks and illegal gin joints of the roaring twenties, becomes more important than any actual words spoken by Phibes.  The vibrant musical notes pierce the air like roaring thunder or float softly to the ground depending on the shifting mood of the madman.

Shortly after rising from his dark tomb in the sequel, however, Phibes became downright chatty, gabbing away more and more with each drop of blood his unsuspecting victims shed.  Oh, sure, he still used some type of mechanical device for a voice box.  Let's not forget, he did lose his speech in the car crash.  But while sleeping away the time between movies, entombed in his black marble crypt, he must have enrolled in some sort of astral course on public speaking.

Or more to the point, a course on the "need" to speak publicly — there is a big difference!  Phibes just can't seem to shut up in the sequel, telling the whole world his plans at every chance he gets.

Then telling us all over again!

None of this is Vincent Price's fault.  He certainly wasn't the reason Phibes became a gossiper.  Blame that one on the screenwriters (one of whom was Fuest) who forgot there was something magical in the eerie mystery behind the insane motivations of Phibes.  The silence of Phibes was hypnotic when he was "abominable."  It slowly pulled us under his creepy spell as we waited and watched.  Don't ever forget, as the scripters apparently did, anyone can talk too much, that happens every day.  But silence...

Somewhere between the original and the sequel Phibes also lost his stylish touch for murder.  Why would the methodical doctor abandon esoteric methods for a much heavier hand?  While both sets of murders were inventive, there was no underlying plan in Dr. Phibes Rises Again, no real sense of creativity.  And creativity is what the life of Dr. Phibes was all about, both before and after the death of his wife.

Perhaps, there was not even a need for the murders.   Unusual though they were, some were clearly without reason.  Phibes was no longer delivering retribution for his wife's death, he was killing just because it was expedient.  He had long since vindicated the death of his earthly angel, Victoria, and was now nothing more than a common thug, taking lives simply because people got in his way.

Maybe the change in the modus operandi had something to do with Phibes's antagonists.  In the original, Joseph Cotten presents a one-dimensional but competent Dr. Vesalius.  Cotten's terse portrayal of the chief surgeon is an effective counterbalance to the madness of Phibes.  Vesalius is the caring man of science who tried to save Victoria Phibes in the first place, while Phibes's anger at the medical team is simply misplaced.  Years later, Vesalius, still a compassionate soul, placed his own life on the line and helped the police bring an end to the ghastly killings.

On the other hand, Robert Quarry as Biederbeck is merely cartoonish, a little man who forsakes the love of a beautiful woman to stalk eternal life.  Biederbeck should be trying to woo the lovely lady at his side, not traipsing through the desert after Phibes.  His companion, Diana, played by the effectively precise Fiona Lewis, is fascinating enough to keep any warm- blooded male from digging up dead things in the Sahara.  She is alluring, intelligent, and loving.   Exactly what every man wants in a woman.

So why would a loser like Biederbeck abandon such a gorgeous fiancee to spend all of eternity without her?  That would be a doom darker than what Phibes planned for his original victims.  Without a doubt, Biederbeck could learn a thing or two about love from the everlasting passion of Phibes.

Joseph Cotten's Vesalius was a worthy adversary for the genius of Phibes, Quarry's Biederbeck was not.  Although Biederbeck is acclaimed as a brilliant mind, he is actually an uninteresting, petty bore determined to stomp on anyone who gets in his way.  Frankly, he reminded me of a spoiled little brat, better suited as a buffoon in the Sunday morning funnies than an opponent for the deadly mastermind, Dr. Phibes.  Ultimately, Phibes knows Biederbeck is a worthless foe and doesn't even waste his time killing him, leaving the pitiful man to literally rot in the dust.

Which brings us to Inspector Trout, played by Peter Jeffrey.  Like Vincent Price, Jeffery reprised his role in the second outing.   In The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Trout is a topnotch detective, the latest in a long line of detectives calling Scotland Yard home.  Steadily pursuing leads and tracking down his man, Trout knows the methodical, disciplined approach of Phibes is the madman's greatest weakness.  He predicts Phibes will fail when the Yard disrupts the "maniacal precision" of the killer.
 
Trout does his research well and tightens an invisible noose around Phibes's neck.   He sifts through the tiniest of clues and follows-up the slimmest of leads in order to nab his man. With hardly any effort, Trout easily proves he is more than capable to crack the case the first time around.

It's funny though, how did a cool, calm professional investigator like Inspector Trout become such a bumbler in Dr. Phibes Rises Again?  What happened to the stern-jawed sleuth from the original movie?

You're right!  At the conclusion of the original movie, Phibes slipped away from the clutches of Trout minutes before being caught in the detective's snare.  But Trout did foil Phibes in the end, preventing him from completing his plan and killing Vesalius.  Phibes escapes Trout once again at the end of the sequel, but while Trout was bewildered at the disappearance of Phibes in England, he is actually relieved not to face him in Egypt.

What a pity!  Trout was a good cop, once.   But away from the gloomy London fog and shadow of Big Ben, he was clearly out of his element, a sorry match for Anton Phibes.  I suppose the hot desert sands and crumbling Egyptian tombs clouded his thinking and caused the yellow streak to appear on his back.

Then there's Vulnavia, the beautiful young assistant helping Phibes execute (so to say) his dastardly plans.  As played by the delightful Virginia North in the first movie, Vulnavia revels in the whole affair.   Moving with the grace of a cat — quietly and effortlessly — she does the doctor's bidding without question.  One moment dancing with him, the next moment killing for him, it's all the same to her.  She is committed to her mission and deeply loyal to Phibes.  She is mesmerized by Phibes, her life totally given over to him.

And her clothes!  Virginia North is positively stunning in her designer wardrobe.  Whether on the road in a fashionable Russian fur cap and black cape, or lounging at home in a flowing, sunburst, red gown that is more artwork than ordinary apparel, North wears her dazzling costumes with a confident, can-do attitude.

Unfortunately for horror fans, Valli Kemp, a former Miss World contestant from Australia, cannot compete with the memory of the first Vulnavia.  Kemp comes off as a bit too pretentious, always watching the camera like the inexperienced actress she was, always making her intrusive presence known.  While Virginia North glides over the set with magnificent poise and delicate balance, Valli Kemp plods through her scenes with awkward asymmetry.

Don't get me wrong.  Kemp certainly is pretty, maybe even better looking than North, but her Vulnavia is clueless, never figuring out what it means to work for the diabolical Phibes.  Of course, a few acting lessons may have helped Valli Kemp, too.  While no one in their right mind would call either of these Vulnavias great actresses, North does seem to understand her craft better than Kemp.

North had been asked to return for the sequel but became pregnant just before shooting began and declined the offer, never acting in another movie.  It's just as well she stayed away.  North was probably twice blessed, first with a child, then with her dissociation from the second Phibes movie.

In retrospect, both films are rather silly, but The Abominable Dr. Phibes ignores its silly pretense and delivers the goods.  It gives us a unique mixture of horror and comedy that is truly unforgettable.  Sadly, its limping companion is just plain stupid.

Despite the fact that Phibes is trying to resurrect the spirit of his wife in the second film, even Vincent Price cannot resurrect the spirit of The Abominable Dr. Phibes in the sequel.  Like the jazzy clockworks band Phibes conducts in the original movie, Dr. Phibes Rises Again is a mechanical imitation of the real thing.  It is elevator music compared to the rich symphony of the first movie.

But I won't say I don't like Dr. Phibes Rises Again.

No, I'd never say that.  It is a Vincent Price film after all — and Price makes any movie worth a look.

But it's too bad men can't get pregnant.   Maybe that would have saved poor Price from this one, too.

* * *

Joe Romano authors the regular horror news feature, The HORROR-WOOD Reporter, for HORROR-WOOD.

Thanks, Joe, for dissecting that cinematic corpse that was Dr. Phibes Rises Again.  Since a third sequel didn't materialize, it remains for us to enjoy the first Phibes flick and lets the sequel rest in peace.

Article copyright Joe Romano

Return To Archives From The Crypt