Director: Terence Fisher
Year: 1964
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Arriving in a small German hamlet, a scientist sent for his studies finds a rash of murders shortly afterward, forcing him to call upon his former professor for help, and together they find the cause to be a legendary mythological figure reawakened in modern times.
Review:
For the most part, this here is one of the best Hammer films and provides some of the best that it has to offer. The main factor to help here is that the atmosphere in this film is completely off-the-charts, providing a ton of Gothic showcases for the film and giving it something to enjoy. The castle here is one of the best, combining everything that the ones employed from the past and it retains a great level of fear to it as it's an effectively creepy and tense place that has plenty to like about it with it's elaborate stone courtyards, giant statues, massive arch columns and stairways which make for a rather fine setting for the monsters' home-base while letting the decrepit, leaf-filled hallways create an imposing air of menace and dread that's welcomed in the best of the Gothic tales.
That goes hand-in-hand nicely with the talk of the different curses affecting the area and the scenes of the first victims turning to stone in the castle walls, where the howling wind and sweeping shots of the creature walking along the area make for a rather dark and chilling Gothic setup. This one also works well at delivering the central mystery of the creatures' origin, as there's the mythological connection to the true beings in history, and then settling into the town under the false pretenses, which is a rather intriguing and enjoyable section of the film. This has more scares in it than most Hammer offerings, which is a welcome site with this allowing for quite a large number of action scenes throughout here that ranges from the opening double-murder act on the couple to her father's confrontation with the creature and the other encounters here with the sudden appearance of the creature's reflection in the pond during a vicious and chilling shock scare which is quite fun. The finale here is also rather fun with the big sword-fight around the castle, and the great manner of defeating the creature at the end makes for a really thrilling finish. These are the film's best points.
This here did have a few flaws to it. The fact that the amnesia angle in here is very weak is something of a weakness, as it's just poorly thought-out, offers nothing of interest, and just feels so tacked on to provide something to make the final battle more thrilling when it actually does nothing at all. The appearance of the Gorgon itself, when shown full-on near the end, is a slight let-down, with this ancient evil looking more like an old woman with too much make-up on and a rubber reptile-filled wig. The snakes are very stiff in their movements and seem to be just wobbling around as opposed to writhing, and the cheesy puppet head during the ending decapitation, highlighting this, is just ridiculous. The short time makes it seem like more could've been done with it, but otherwise, these are the film's flaws.
Overview: ****.5/5
A highly underrated effort and one of the company's best genre efforts, there's quite a lot to like here, which keeps this up quite high over a slew of minor factors that hold it down just slightly from the upper echelon of the style. Those with an appreciation for this era of the genre or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed mild caution.
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