Starring Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry, Adrienne Corri, Natasha Pyne
Directed by Jim Clark
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A famed horror film star, after losing grip on his sanity after the murder of his fiancee, is later tempted back to star in a television series, but suspects himself when new murders occur.
Although following a similar pattern to other Vincent Price vehicles, this one has a bit more mystery with us not knowing whether Price is the guilty party or not until the climax, and the intriguing hook of Price playing a classic horror film star. I found it unfortunate that despite building Price up as the villainous "Dr. Death," a cloaked figure with a skull-like makeup, which the character apparently played in most of their films, the filmmakers elected to instead show clips from his past films for American International, instead of creating vintage terror sequences for Price to play in the makeup. It's good to see Cushing and Quarry joining Price in the film, whose horror credits made them viable alternative suspects, and we're treated to seeing Cushing in a ironic Dracula makeup in a party scene, which I loved. The film itself is well-made, and I enjoyed the cast, also including Natasha Pyne, Linda Hayden, and Adrienne Corri in one of her more bizarre roles. However, I think the filmmakers were trying to build something up on the back of Price's past performances, rather than something new and different, and didn't find the screenplay terribly solid. Nonetheless it's a fun horror entry and I enjoyed it on that level.
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