Dr. Phibes Rises Again! and other stuff

The great thing about cheap DVDs is that I get to watch movies that I've read about but never had the chance to do so (until recently).

Dr. Phibes Rises Again! (1973) - 10/10
The Dr. Phibes series was a comeback of sorts for Vincent Price. A brilliant musician and theologian, Phibes was horribly disfigured in a car accident and whose wife died in the emergency room at the hospital. This is the sequel to the first film which takes place three years after the events in it. In this chapter, Phibes seeks to kill those who are responsible (even indirectly responsible) for stealing a papyrus which contains information on the river of life.

The Abominable Mr. Phibes (1972) - 9/10
While many prefer the first film in the series over the second one, I found this one to be slow moving at times. But still, it is very entertaining and we get to see Vincent Price at his best -- in a very hammy performance (this was by design) which makes you cheer for the clever ways in which he kills the team of surgeons who were 'responsible' for letting Dr. Phibes' die at the operating room table. Modern horror fans will even recognize that the traps laid by Phibes inspired those used in the Saw movies as well. The Dr. Phibes series are highly stylized and take place in the 1920s.

Condemned to Live (1935) - 7/10
I will state up front that I am not a big fan of horror films that were made before the 1950s. While I can overlook the technological limitations, the social mores of the time didn't allow for much gore or scares. In spite of this, this film was actually fairly entertaining considering the time in which it was made and it's obviously low budget. The story is about a Professor who gets into a murderous trance at night time by tearing his victims' throats. He is sort of a combination between Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Dracula. I must commend the filmmakers here for creating a nice Gothic atmosphere and avoiding turning the film into a detective story, which was a trademark of horror during that time. This is the third movie that appears in Mill Creek's Tales of Terror 50 movie mega pack. This was 65 minutes of time well spent watching this.