4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Viktors Ritelis' Crucible of Horror, June 1, 2002
This review is from: Crucible of Horror [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Michael Gough is the obsessive compulsive patriarch of an English family. His wife, played by the late Yvonne Mitchell, is a dreamy would-be artist whacked out on prescription medication. Sharon Gurney is their sixteen year old rebelling daughter. Michael's real life son, Simon, plays his father's yes-man son here, always agreeing, and discussing business affairs. Gough works in an insurance firm, but dominates his household.
He opens everyone's mail, and does not have a kind word for anyone. Gurney steals some money from the golfing club, and Gough takes all she has saved, then beats her with a riding crop. It is no wonder that the women conspire to do away with their sole source of unhappiness.
"Let's kill him," are chilling words Mitchell says to Gurney, and they hatch a plan. Gough goes to his hunting cabin alone on a weekend. The ladies follow, hold a gun on him, and poison his whiskey. He dies, they put his body into the bed, and go back home. There, they wait for the phone call telling them of Gough's suicide.
Things never go as planned, have you ever noticed? No one calls them. The ladies must go back to the cabin, as forced to by the younger Gough. They get there, and Gough's bed is empty. Mysteriously, his body is in a crate by the back door, with the family's address on it. Gurney and Mitchell get more and more paranoid as someone starts playing on their guilt, causing them to screw up. I do not want to say too much about the finale, but it does leave things up in the air as to what really happened to Gough to begin with.
Michael Gough is far from Batman's kindly butler here. His character is despicable, you immediately hate him. This may pose a problem. You eventually want the women to succeed at their plan, but the film makers put them on the same level as Gough. Gurney and Mitchell are very good as Gough's abused victims. Simon Gough sucks up to his father very well.
Ritelis throws in a couple of dream sequences that do not work. Mitchell sees alter-egos, and then sees herself floating in a pond. This never gels with the waking life, and seems redundant. I wish the ending had a little more meat to it, since most of the actions beforehand did not warrant such ambiguity. A giant shocker of a surprise ending may have worked better than one that will leave you scratching your head.
Despite the cons, I am recommending this. Most of the action of the first half of the film takes place in the family's London home, and is claustrophobic and rife with tension. These are great scenes, and a music score that sounds just like those old Universal Studios horror films really helps. The cast here are all good, I just wished for more. Also known as "The Corpse" and "The Velvet House," "Crucible of Horror" is a definite choice for those out there sick of the slasher film.
My copy had the old disgarded MPAA rating (GP) on it, and I see now that is contains a (PG13) on IMDB. It contains physical violence, some gun violence, mild profanity, some female nudity, mild sexual references, and some adult situations.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Now that was interesting, November 28, 2004
This review is from: Crucible of Horror [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Crucible of Horror is an interesting piece of British pychological suspense. The father in this movie, although he looks like a proper English gentleman is a tyrant and sadist. When he's not beating his wife and daughter he's verbally crushing them. His grown son Rupert, can do no wrong in his eyes and aparently has no problem with what's being done to his mother and sister. Oh one more thing, the movie drops a couple of hints that the father is also forced an incestous relationship on the daughter.
So, you have a villain with no redeeming qualities and two definite victims. When they decide to kill him the audience is with them. They poison his whiskey at the family's weeknend cottage and head back to London expecting a phone call saying that dear old dad has committed suicide.
But the plan goes to pieces. The phone doesn't ring. Nobody seems to discover the body and the son keeps asking where his father is. The mother who's partially whacked out on sedatives anyway can't sleep and has suicidal dreams.
The actress who plays the mother does a fine job of showing what an abused woman can turn into. She's sad eyed, moves hesitantly and hugs the wall like a beaten dog. Her face is pale and washed out. Her eyes are watery from crying too much. Her clothes, including an ugly scarf which she keeps firmly around her neck actually look like an atempt to make protective padding from her husband's blows.
The actress who plays the daughter was also interesting. She's made up very oddly. Her hairline is too low and her thick, fuzzy eyebrows are disturbing looking. She has a feral animalistic look and seems to be in heat. Except for her brother every man in the movie from the neighbors, to the garage attendant all seem to be immediately attracted to her for no particular reason.
The body of dear old dad keeps moving and the ladies begin to fear that he's not dead at all. It shows up in a crate and later in the London house and the 3 day weekend seems to go on for much longer than that.
Finallly, the end comes and it's shocking but makes perfect sense. The scares in this movie are not overt. Instead of whacking the audience with huge buckets of gore the director serves up his horror with the coolness and speed of a stilletto in the darkness. I liked it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Alfred the butler is from hell!, September 6, 2003
This review is from: Crucible of Horror [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Not to be confused with the 1972 horror film about wax museums called Crucible of Terror; This is Crucible of Horror (1970) - British title: The Corpse. The film stars Michael Gough (Alfred from the Batman films) as Walter Eastwood - a wealthy, cruel & sadistic husband and father. Yvonne Mitchell plays Edith, the poor unfortunate woman who's basically lost her soul being married to Walter. Their children are Jane (Sharon Gurney) and Rupert (played by Gough's real life son, Simon). Walter consistently abuses Jane and praises Rupert. In one frightening scene, Walter beats Jane with a reed for stealing money from a friend of his. Rupert is the only one with a reasonably normal relationship with Walter - and why shouldn't he be? Walter puts his son on a pedestal and abuses his wife and daughter mentally and physically. The point of the film is that Edith and Jane reach their breaking point and decide to end their abuse by putting an end to Walter. So they poison him and make it look like a suicide. Then they have to worry about keeping it from Rupert. Things don't go exactly as planned. I won't dare ruin the outcome of this suspenseful british classic. If your a fan of the best Hammer films and horror of the late 60s and 70s, I highly recommend seeking Crucible of Horror out. Turn the lights out when you watch this. You'll never see Alfred the butler in the same way again!
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