Post by petrolino on Nov 1, 2017 1:09:29 GMT
The satanic shocker 'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar' opens with a ritual sacrifice overseen by bizarre blue she-devil Lavinia (Barbara Steele). Suave antiques dealer Robert Manning (Mark Eden) catches wind of something strange when his brother goes a.w.o.l. so he drives to the manor of Lord Morley (Christopher Lee), surprisingly escorted by the overlord's groovy niece Eve Morley (Virginia Wetherell). There he meets fruity butler Elder (Michael Gough), spooky historian Professor John Marsh (Boris Karloff) and a bevy of party girls.
'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar' is venerable British genre heavyweight Vernon Sewell's strangled take on the short story 'The Dreams In The Witch House' by Howard Phillips Lovecraft which was also filmed for television by Stuart Gordon as part of the two season 'Masters Of Horror' showcase series. It's impeccably mounted by Tigon production figurehead Tony Tenser who was looking to cut a deal with American International Pictures to co-produce and distribute a raft of motion pictures. The screenplay by 'Doctor Who' writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln explores many avenues as it careens towards impending doom.
There's some savvy satirical soundbites in 'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar' which casts a game-playing, dice-rolling hippie commune as a frenzied front for a sinister cult. The script introduces meta-aspects (Boris Karloff is referenced as both himself and via his on-screen incarnations) while revelling in a sleazy shaggy dog story, throwing out red herrings to be caught like rogue neon tetras. The maddening acts being perpetrated by every man and his dog are matched dutifully by cinematographer John Coquillon's intoxicated visuals which rely on expert colour coding achieved through lighting and lens filters; Coquillon also casts subtle shadows in dark corners with some technical camera set-ups which provides a deep contrast to the loud colour schemes. Ideas regarding drug-fuelled hypnosis and mind control give birth to go-go dancing, hallucinations and bondage as the psychedelic party starts to swing. If I can paraphrase the sentiments of Sir Christopher Lee, "the eroticism was truly unsparing".
"This movie is an absolutely quintessential moment of an expression of how that time was in the late '60s. Very psychedelic, very amped up visually: my character seems to me, in this phenomenal dress I have, divine headdress and everything, I am just in this completely separate movie. I should be in 'Satyricon', or something. I don't know what I'm doing in this movie and nor does anybody else, because everybody else just sits around and they're very formal, very repressed, very English."
- Barbara Steele recalls the filming of 'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
- Barbara Steele recalls the filming of 'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
"Curse of the Crimson Altar makes some claim to being based on the H.P. Lovecraft story, The Dreams in the Witch House (1933), although neither Lovecraft’s name nor the story are mentioned in the credits. As has been pointed out by H.P. Lovecraft fans, the connection is tenuous, with the story’s arcane esotericism – like the oddly-angled attic room – having been pared down until the film is no more than a routine variation on the revived-witch-taking-revenge-on-present-day-ancestors story that has been in circulation ever since City of the Dead (1959) and Black Sunday (1960)."
- Richard Sheib, Moria - Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Barbara Steele
Tigon Superstar Vincent Price ~ The Witchfinder General
'August' - Love
'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar' is venerable British genre heavyweight Vernon Sewell's strangled take on the short story 'The Dreams In The Witch House' by Howard Phillips Lovecraft which was also filmed for television by Stuart Gordon as part of the two season 'Masters Of Horror' showcase series. It's impeccably mounted by Tigon production figurehead Tony Tenser who was looking to cut a deal with American International Pictures to co-produce and distribute a raft of motion pictures. The screenplay by 'Doctor Who' writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln explores many avenues as it careens towards impending doom.
"It was in one of the most dilapidated and furthest-flung reaches of that monstrous edifice known as the National Theatre that I met Stuart Gordon, creator of an unnameable motion picture called Re-animator. His greeting to me was not unfriendly, but one could only guess at the unspeakable depravity festering behind that bearded and amiable countenance. The film was awarded a Special Critics’ Prize at Cannes. So the French liked it? “They loved it!” exclaimed Gordon. “They said I’m the next Jerry Lewis!” He chuckled. It was a sound that lodged in the very marrow of my bones. HP Lovecraft wrote Herbert West – Re-animator in 1921/22. It was first published in serial form in a little-known magazine called Home Brew. Lovecraftians will already be aware that West doesn’t reanimate Donald Duck; he reanimates corpses. “The story covers a 20-year period,” explained Gordon. “In the film it’s compressed into two weeks. There were a couple of episodes so gory we couldn’t include them. There’s one episode in which West revives a black boxer, and the guy goes running out of the house, and comes back on all fours carrying a baby’s arm in his mouth…” Re-animator is Gordon’s feature debut, though he has a healthy track record as a theatre and TV director. Brian Yuzna, his producer, arranged for Empire International Pictures to provide post-production facilities in exchange for distribution rights. Empire is the haunt of the Band brothers; Richard Band composed the Psycho-esque score, while Charles is busy mutating into a Roger Corman for the 1980s, building up a stock company of film-makers and actors who specialise in science fiction and fantasy. Gordon and Yuzna have both been signed up for further forays into Lovecraftland."
- Anne Billson, Time Out
"I was completely starstruck meeting him. What an iconic hero."
- Virginia Wetherell on Boris Karloff, 'Creating The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
'The man was a legend in his own lifetime. There aren't many of those about."
- Mark Eden on Boris Karloff, 'Creating The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
- Virginia Wetherell on Boris Karloff, 'Creating The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
'The man was a legend in his own lifetime. There aren't many of those about."
- Mark Eden on Boris Karloff, 'Creating The Curse Of The Crimson Altar'
Boris Karloff
'Everytime I Look Up (I'm Down) Or White Dog' - Arthur Lee & Band-Aid (Invisible Edition)
There's some savvy satirical soundbites in 'The Curse Of The Crimson Altar' which casts a game-playing, dice-rolling hippie commune as a frenzied front for a sinister cult. The script introduces meta-aspects (Boris Karloff is referenced as both himself and via his on-screen incarnations) while revelling in a sleazy shaggy dog story, throwing out red herrings to be caught like rogue neon tetras. The maddening acts being perpetrated by every man and his dog are matched dutifully by cinematographer John Coquillon's intoxicated visuals which rely on expert colour coding achieved through lighting and lens filters; Coquillon also casts subtle shadows in dark corners with some technical camera set-ups which provides a deep contrast to the loud colour schemes. Ideas regarding drug-fuelled hypnosis and mind control give birth to go-go dancing, hallucinations and bondage as the psychedelic party starts to swing. If I can paraphrase the sentiments of Sir Christopher Lee, "the eroticism was truly unsparing".
