The following is a part of a series exploring Vincent Price films that have eluded me throughout the years. My goal is to see every horror Price film and explore it further. I hope to inspire you all to check out these films if you haven’t seen them or revisit them if you have. Thank you for reading!
Welcome back! If you missed the first review in my Price series you can catch it right here!
I’m a huge fan of The Abominable Dr. Phibes film, and frankly it doesn’t get enough credit as it deserves. I’m not sure why it gets lost in the shuffle, but I was happy to see it in Scream! Factory’s firs Price set and even happier when the sequel graced their second Price set, namely because I hadn’t seen it.
In 1973, one year after the first, AIP released Dr. Phibes Rises Again featuring Price in the titular role again, this time venturing to Egypt with his lovely assistant Vulnavia to find the River of Life within the Pharaoh’s tomb so he can bring his beloved back from the dead. However, Phibes isn’t the only one in search of everlasting life. Darrus Biederbeck, played by Count Yorga himself Robert Quarry, has stolen the scrolls from Phibes’ demolished house and started his own expedition to Egypt.
Essentially, the sequel plays the same as the first. Phibes creates elaborate kill devices to thwart his enemies all while the bumbling detectives of Scotland Yard attempt to stop him. Rises plays for laughs far more than the original, but that doesn’t make the kill sets any less intriguing. There’s a particularly gruesome bit involving scorpions and genitals that made even me squirm.
SIDE BAR: I can’t be the only one who senses that James Wan and Leigh Whannell got the idea for Jigsaw and his “games” from the Phibes movies, right?
The first film was PG-13 but when the second came out it received a PG rating. I assume the drop in MPAA rating was an attempt to make Phibes more family friendly. As it turns out there was supposed to be a third Phibes movie making him the hero and would fight Nazis, the idea was to eventually get him a TV show where he would be the lead and fights crime.
Perhaps the best interactions come from Price and Quarry who had a tumultuous off-screen relationship. Shortly before filming began. Price found out AIP was replacing him as their leading horror man with Quarry. According to one incident, Price walked in Quarry singing opera and Quarry said: “Bet you didn’t know I could sing!” to which Price responded, “Well I knew you weren’t a fucking actor!”.
The film itself does tend to be a little haphazard in how it’s put together, but that’s more than likely because it was written by two people separately and then just sort of smashed together. So it’s hard to tell if the comedic tone was intentional the whole time or if it was just a result from lack of collaboration. There are 10 minutes missing from the film that was cut by AIP, in addition to a dialogue which was replaced mostly by Price narrating the scenes instead of actually being in them.
It’s still a fun movie, though, and I enjoyed the comedy more than I thought I would. I would have really liked to see Dr. Phibes fight Nazis, though. At least we will always have this, though:
