Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

Vincent Price returns as Dr. Anton Phibes, who is awakened from his three-year slumber by a carefully planned alignment of the stars that brings him back to life, only to be angered that his house was demolished, and the sacred scrolls of life he needs to resurrect his dead wife were stolen. With his assistant Vulnavia, Phibes tracks the thieves to Egypt, where he exacts a terrible revenge against them before retrieving the scrolls, though his arch rival(played by Robert Quarry) does battle with him for their possession.More-of-the-same sequel is made in the same grisly and violent spirit of the first, which sometimes is most uncomfortable viewing. Phibes is a true "antihero" if there ever was one, though if you liked the first, you'll no doubt like this as well.

What can I say?, Vincent Price as the abominable Doctor Phibes really packs a punch. Since the first instalment called The Abominable Doctor Phibes a cult following has been reaching new heights. Basically, a story of a man who was once a brilliant Doctor himself, had his wife under go a surgical procedure for some small problem. Instead, she died on the operating table six minutes into the surgery which caused the Doctor to exact revenge on all parties involved with the operation. Except one thing, by happenstance, he was disfigured by an unknown accident which gave his appearance an ugly result which causes him to use makeup to give himself a new face. And a talent for which he uses a speaker through his neck. Besides this new appendage, an assistant named Vulnavia who is his silent partner, helps him on each excursion for his revenge. Where she comes from, nobody knows. Now with a new journey, he goes to Egypt to find the famed and legendary river of life where the pharaoh's of the past used after death to give immortal life. In the middle is a man named Viderbeck, an archaeological scientist who is also seeking the river is now in the way of Phibes and his goal. But what others do not know, is that Viderbeck uses an elixir to give him life for his continued search. Running low, he and his team mates desperately try to find the chamber, except each team mate dies most brutally with Phibe's brand of justice. With Scotland yard back on the scene, Phibe's begins to mount the pressure by kidnapping Viderbeck's would be fiancé only to coax Viderbeck to give Phibe's a key which opens the gates to the river. This film is an ultimate classic. Of music, chaos, murder in the most heinous ways and a beautiful story of true companionship for Phibe's and his wife Victoria. Whether the legends are true or not, this film gives the audience a glimpse of magic in the forms of faith. For Phibes, it was true love all the way. To go beyond the reaches of morality to save his beloved wife is the calling of one's self worth. Excellent movie for all Vincent Price fans.

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES was a big enough hit to lead to a sequel but you can see right away how little mileage there is in a franchise like that . Despite the action being moved all the way to Egypt it's still the same basic idea as the first film with a genius madman killing people in a series of inventive ways that border on the blackly comical . There's also the camp feel of the first film especially the character interaction and dialouge between Trout and his Superior The sequel has a very strange cast . It includes characters from the first film but we see the return of Terry Thomas in an entirely different role . He's also there in a one scene cameo as are much of the big name cast such as Reid and Cushing which seems like a cynical marketing exercise to bump up the star names when in fact most of the characters are superfluous to the threadbare story

If you watch "...Phibes" and "...Rises Again" as a double-bill, you can immediately see why "...Rises Again" is seen as the lesser film. The thing is, "...Phibes" just gets ON with being camp, hilarious and Art-Deco all over the place, from the start. But it never TELLS us that it's funny - indeed, somewhere there are probably people who think it's a serious shocker!However, "...Rises Again" opens with a summary of its forerunner delivered by a hammy voice-over which effectively TELLS us we're about to watch a comedy. BIG mistake. The re-edit of Polanski's "Dance Of The Vampires" makes the same mistake, by among other things, adding a "funny" cartoon to the start.IF they'd just got ON with it, I suspect "...Rises Again" would have got better reviews from the contributors above this writer. It's actually pretty good and only really suffers from that which ALL sequels to highly original material suffer - the lack of originality.It is truly said that any sequel HAS to be FIFTY PERCENT BETTER than its predecessor to be perceived as being AS GOOD. And what film could POSSIBLY be fifty percent better than "...Phibes"?Somewhere On A World Far Away, where SHIRLEY TEMPLE sang (or more likely mimed to) Somewhere Over The Rainbow, that THIRD entry in the "Phibes" canon was MADE! I wonder what it was like...