CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (UK - 1971) Directed by Viktors Ritelis. Written by Olaf Pooley. Cast: Michael Gough, Yvonne Mitchell, Sharon Gurney, Olaf Pooley, Simon Gough, David Butler, Nicholas Jones, Mary Hignett. (R, 91 mins)
An early release from the pre-Golan & Globus incarnation of Cannon, and shown in theaters on a double bill in the fall of 1971 with CAULDRON OF BLOOD, a Spanish cheapie that was one of Boris Karloff's several posthumously released films after his death in 1969, the British shocker CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (not to be confused with the same year's CRUCIBLE OF TERROR) has a nostalgic following after being in regular rotation on late-night TV in the '70s and '80s. Nevertheless, it's a frustrating film because there's obviously some thought and ambition that went into it, but it's so leadenly-paced and indecisive over what it's doing--the first 40 minutes are incredibly slow--that it eventually becomes self-defeating. And it's got what might be the ultimate ambiguous ending that's just gonna piss everyone off. But there's something here, particularly its bleak and disturbing depiction of the cycle of abuse in a seriously dysfunctional family. The great Michael Gough is Walter Eastwood, the physically and psychologically abusive patriarch of an upper class family. He constantly berates his wife Edith (Yvonne Mitchell) and has not-very-subtle incestuous designs on his daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney), while his dutiful and sycophantic son Rupert (Gough's own son Simon) seems to be following in his father's footsteps. Edith and Jane decide they've had enough and plot to kill Walter, with unexpected complications ensuing, namely a corpse that won't stay put, and a nosy neighbor (actor and occasional screenwriter Olaf Pooley, who would also do some uncredited script work on Cannon's insane LIFEFORCE a decade and a half later) whose dog almost exposes the whole scheme.
Michael Gough, a regular presence in countless genre films like HORROR OF DRACULA, KONGA, and DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, but best known to mainstream audiences as Alfred in the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher BATMAN movies in the '90s, is so good here that you'll wish it was in service of a more satisfying film. His character is an absolute creep, whether he's taunting his wife over her favorite pastime of painting, beating his daughter with a riding crop, or sauntering up to her bicycle just after she gets home and feeling and squeezing its warm seat. His issues also manifest with obsessive-compulsive hand-washing, obviously meant to "cleanse" himself of his deranged, impure, self-loathing thoughts and behavior. Perhaps CRUCIBLE OF HORROR had a troubled production--assistant director Nicholas Granby is interviewed on Scream Factory's new Blu-ray, and while he goes off topic a bit, he does reveal one important tidbit in that credited director Viktors Ritelis (who had a long career in British TV; this was his only feature film) left late in production, with shooting completed by producer Gabrielle Beaumont, who would go on to make 1980's OMEN-inspired THE GODSEND, an early hit for Golan-Globus' Cannon that was also written by Pooley.
CRUCIBLE OF HORROR is confused enough that it could very well be two clashing visions haphazardly stitched together, which would certainly explain why it seems to fall flat on its face every time it looks like it's about to get its shit together. There's a lot here to chew on--Mitchell has some heartbreaking moments as Edith, trapped in a prison of Walter's making and almost at a point of resigned acceptance since it's what she's come to know, Jane promiscuously acting out with older men to get back at Walter, and Rupert practically brainwashed to look the other way and even smack his sister around because hey, Father does it--but ultimately, a film must be judged by what it is instead of it what it almost was or what it could've been. And in the end, despite the flashes of something substantive and serious, it's a crushing disappointment that feels like bottom-of-the-barrel Hammer or a really half-baked installment of Brian Clemens' anthology series THRILLER. As far as Scream Factory's Blu-ray is concerned, the image quality is fine but the audio is, to put it mildly, inconsistent, with the first 20 minutes sounding like a muffled mess before getting relatively clear from that point on. Even when you turn on the subtitles, almost every other word is "(mumbles)," which I'm going to assume wasn't in Pooley's script. One interesting trivia bit that made this an important film for the Gough family: while playing dysfunctional siblings, Gurney and Simon Gough fell in love and have been married since 1970. The younger Gough never achieved the cult notoriety of his father (who died in 2011 at the age of 94), and has only made fleeting appearances in movies and TV since the late 1970s, a few years after 24-year-old Gurney (soon to be in the cult classic RAW MEAT) retired from acting altogether in 1974 to focus on raising the couple's (eventually) four children.
"Half the big-name cast appears to be drunk; the other half looks as though it wishes it were" - Leonard Maltin on VENOM.
One of the most stupidly entertaining guilty pleasure horror movies of the 1980s, VENOM finds a claustrophobic London hostage situation made worse when the party is crashed by the world's deadliest and most venomous snake. Philip (Lance Holcomb) is the animal-obsessed, dangerously asthmatic ten-year-old son of a wealthy American hotel CEO based in London. When Mom (Cornelia Sharpe, wife of the film's producer Martin Bregman, and the Lorraine Gary to his Sid Sheinberg) goes on a business trip with Dad, Philip is left in the care of his grizzled, retired safari guide grandfather (the always wonderful Sterling Hayden, in his last big-screen role) and maid Louise (Susan George). Unbeknownst to Philip and Grandpa, Louise and surly chauffeur Dave ("and Oliver Reed as Dave") are conspiring with Louise's beau, international terrorist Jacmel (Klaus Kinski, who turned down the role of Toht in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK because he felt the script was "moronically shitty" and VENOM paid more) to kidnap Philip and get a fat ransom from his dad. That plan goes south when Philip's package at the neighborhood pet store--a harmless African house snake--is mixed-up with an order for a black mamba placed by an area toxicology lab overseen by Dr. Stowe (Sarah Miles). The box containing the mamba is opened and it immediately bites and kills Louise, then proceeds to hide in the vents, occasionally slithering out to launch itself at someone or just play games by scaring the shit out of them. Meanwhile, irate hostage negotiator Bulloch (Nicol Williamson) tries to contain the escalating crisis from outside the house and meet Jacmel's demands. And, of course, Philip can't breathe.
Opening in theaters in January 1982, VENOM began production in the fall of 1980 with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE director Tobe Hooper at the helm, fresh off of his success with the 1979 CBS miniseries SALEM'S LOT and the 1981 hit THE FUNHOUSE. Shortly into filming, creative differences manifested, leading to Hooper either quitting or being dismissed, depending on who's telling the story. While Hooper went on to direct (or "direct") POLTERGEIST, his hastily-chosen VENOM replacement was found in journeyman Piers Haggard. A respected and consistently busy director for British television, Haggard occasionally dabbled in features like 1970's THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW and Peter Sellers' horrendous 1980 swan song THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU, where he was fired by the star, who finished directing the film himself, though only Haggard--the third director cycled through the doomed project--remained the credited fall guy. Haggard arrived on VENOM with very little prep time and had to not only contend with an already troubled production falling behind schedule, but also with the numerous volatile personalities in his cast. The key focus of the damage control was on anger management poster boy Kinski, whose legendarily bad behavior and near-constant screaming fits prompted even the normally difficult Reed and Williamson to tone down their acts and just stay out of the path of Hurricane Klaus. Haggard contributed a very enjoyable commentary to Blue Underground's 2003 DVD release of VENOM (a Blu-ray upgrade is due out this summer) where he detailed all of the hassles and brouhahas that developed during the shoot (Haggard recounts Miles at one point telling Reed to just punch Kinski in the face to shut him up, to which the usually short-fused Reed quietly balked and said "I'm no fool").
As problematic as everything was, he seems like a good sport about it, and the film works in spite of its silliness. It's hard not to be entertained by Kinski's climactic spaz attack as he flails around wrapping a rubber snake around himself, Williamson's obviously grouchy disinterest in the whole endeavor, and a gun-shot Reed rendered immobile and forced to watch the mamba crawl up his pants leg and bite him on the dick. Also with brief appearances by Michael Gough as the London Zoo's leading snake expert, and John Forbes-Robertson--best known as Hammer's ineffective replacement Dracula when Christopher Lee refused to appear in 1974's horror/kung-fu hybrid THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES--as a doomed cop killed by an impulsive and panicked Dave. Reed apparently had such a great time doing a horror movie about a snake that he did another one a year later with 1983's Canadian-made SPASMS. (R, 92 mins)
