Saturday, October 08, 2011

The Crisp Click of Pratt's Dentures

Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
directed by Vernon Sewell
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched instantly on Netflix

Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee have two of the movies' great voices. Each appeared in his share of bad films, but in Curse of the Crimson Altar at least they appear together. Perhaps the top-heavy casting does a lot with a mediocre script, but I'm more convinced that the script is perfectly serviceable until the last twenty minutes. I've been a little reliant on plot synopses lately, but what matters here is that the protagonist, played by Mark Eden, seems smarter than the average dunce - suspicious of bad explanations but willing to roll with the punches.

His confidence makes him trickier to scare away, and Karloff especially seems freed by this invitation to lay his cards on the table. Initially menacing, he transforms himself into a cantankerous, bored historian who grimaces as the new houseguest swills his expensive brandy. The appropriation of Guy Fawkes Night as tribute to a local witch brings him out in his wheelchair, snug beneath a blanket, cursing the upstarts and their firecrackers.

It isn't disdain but a loose display of confidence. Michael Gough steals the show in the role of a half-mute butler, Lee should have played more fathers in his time, and Barbara Steele, as Lavinia herself, only appears painted green. The protagonist stumbles in on all of this by coming across a woman running screaming through the woods. That gimmick never gets old, and neither does something so outrageous as the mystical dungeon where Lavinia conducts her psychedelic sabbats. An ending might be mundane, unbelievable, and a little confused, but sometimes it's a good road that gets you there.