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The beast's eyes fill the widescreen, cracked and teary, the cruel origin harkens back to a Spanish dungeon. Corman's The Masque of the Red Death is the mainstay for the extended first movement, practically a miniature epic about a beggar (Richard Wordsworth), a nobleman (Anthony Dawson) and a servant (Yvonne Romain). The vagabond turns feral in the catacombs, the aristocrat exits bloodied like Marat in his nightshirt, the maiden gives birth on Christmas day. (A distant howl precedes the newborn's cry and holy water boils during baptism, all for the benefit of The Omen.) Scholar (Clifford Evans) and housekeeper (Hira Talfrey) raise the child, who's tormented by nightmarish visions "like in a picture book." The priest sees the lycanthropic affliction philosophically ("A werewolf is a body with a soul and spirit that are constantly at war"), the vexed watchman has a more practical stance ("I can't help it if things won't die when I shoot them"). Terence Fisher in the land of Goya, a full moon over the Hammer set. The main attraction is Oliver Reed's virile brooding in his first leading role, his barrel chest stretching a ruffled shirt as the grown boy sweats under a night sky. "Is there no cure?" "Only love." The señorita (Catherine Feller) does her best, the creature nevertheless bursts through in a flash of alarming impressions—fanged marks on bosom, hirsute hand on neck, blood on upturned mirror. Orange dusk viewed from a barred window prefaces the rampage, the silver crucifix is most useful once melted into a bullet. "There are elemental spirits about us... at all times, my son." The climax up the bell tower helps itself to Welles' The Stranger. With Warren Mitchell, Anne Blake, John Gabriel, Josephine Llewellyn, George Woodbridge, Martin Matthews, and Ewen Solon.
--- Fernando F. Croce |