There is a fine line between ambitious film making and producing an incoherent mess. This early 70's curio veers towards the latter. A movie combining the look, feel and plot lines from The Avengers, Mission Impossible(the TV show) and Hammers much maligned Dracula AD1972 deserves at least one viewing.
A major selling point must have been the appearance in one showing of the mighty triumvirate of Price, Lee and Cushing. The fact is that Cushing is hardly on screen for three minutes before his character is murdered and Price and Lee feature for all of about twenty minutes. Much of the screen time is taken up by Alfred Marks police inspector as he tries to solve a series of archetypal suspicious deaths. He joins a line of wisecracking somewhat incompetent British police officers from 1970's horror celluloid (think Death Line, Doctor Phibes, Theatre of Blood).
The movie plot comes together at the end but initially jumps all over the place. There is the mix of an apparent serial killer, the limb amputations of kidnap victims, a mysterious surgeon (Price), a shady government agency boss (Lee and a nameless Nazi like Eastern European dictatorship straight out of Mission Impossible or The Man From UNCLE. For added hipness add in a couple of now duff looking/sounding night club scenes featuring Amen Corner and you are left scratching your head. Also worth mentioning are one of the worst car chases in film history, a curious music score that until the climatic last 20 minutes seems out of tune with what is appearing on screen and a neat tongue in cheek death at the end. If you are a Vincent Price fan Scream and Scream Again may be worth a look otherwise stick to the cybernauts.
A major selling point must have been the appearance in one showing of the mighty triumvirate of Price, Lee and Cushing. The fact is that Cushing is hardly on screen for three minutes before his character is murdered and Price and Lee feature for all of about twenty minutes. Much of the screen time is taken up by Alfred Marks police inspector as he tries to solve a series of archetypal suspicious deaths. He joins a line of wisecracking somewhat incompetent British police officers from 1970's horror celluloid (think Death Line, Doctor Phibes, Theatre of Blood).
The movie plot comes together at the end but initially jumps all over the place. There is the mix of an apparent serial killer, the limb amputations of kidnap victims, a mysterious surgeon (Price), a shady government agency boss (Lee and a nameless Nazi like Eastern European dictatorship straight out of Mission Impossible or The Man From UNCLE. For added hipness add in a couple of now duff looking/sounding night club scenes featuring Amen Corner and you are left scratching your head. Also worth mentioning are one of the worst car chases in film history, a curious music score that until the climatic last 20 minutes seems out of tune with what is appearing on screen and a neat tongue in cheek death at the end. If you are a Vincent Price fan Scream and Scream Again may be worth a look otherwise stick to the cybernauts.