The Vincent Price Movie Review

Released in 1970
Directed by Gordon Hessler

“smells like cheese, looks like ham, tastes like chicken…”

Oh my lord. This is the most god awful movie I have ever seen. Hmmm, I wonder who could have made such a terrible movie, let’s see….yep it’s Gordon Hessler…again. Not satisfied with the incredible stinkbomb that was The Oblong Box, Hessler manages to actually make a movie that’s even worse! Let me reassure you, this movie is not bad in a good way - it’s just all bad.

Well, almost all bad. At least it has Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing in it. Vincent Price has a small role, but Lee and Cushing only have a few lines each. Their characters are basically unnecessary.

But let’s get back to the bad stuff:

This script is totally fragmented. It’s as if someone randomly interchanged the scenes from three different movies and spliced them all together in a confused jumble. So there’s a mad doctor who cuts people up and assembles a totally new human out of a combination of different parts. There’s a psychotic maniac who strangles women and sucks their blood. There’s some officer of a faux Soviet country that uses a Vulcan neck pinch to murder people. There’s an extremely long and unnecessary car chase. Bleh. In the end they do their best to try and mesh all the plot lines together but it ain’t happening. Not even Vincent Price can save this movie.

I don’t care much for the directing either. Hessler has this style where he shoots a lot of awkward close-ups. He does it over and over and it’s annoying. Combined with the constant shaky camera it actually makes the film somewhat nauseating. Also there are a lot of scenes where it’s too dark to even see what’s going on. It probably doesn’t matter that you can’t see them though, because about 1/3 of the scenes in this movie have no relationship with the “plot” anyway.

I am seriously not looking forward to viewing Hessler’s next collaboration with Price. (Cry of the Banshee) If it’s as bad as Scream and Scream Again and The Oblong Box I might consider egging Hessler’s house.

Please, for the love of God, do not watch this movie under any circumstances. There are so many better movies with Vincent Price in them.