Customer Reviews

Mephisto Waltz [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of the best occult thrillers ever made. Direction, acting, cinematography and the music score are superb as is the script based on the Fred Mustard Stewart novel with the same title. Curd Juergens plays a famous concert pianst and Barbara Parkins his adoring incestuous daughter. Wanting to make their illicit love eternal they feel compelled to make ritualistic human sacrifices to Satan. The film aided by an excellent Jerry Goldsmith score manages to create an unsettling and more and more threatening atmosphere as the true nature of these two becomes clearer and a journalist played by Alan Alda gets drawn into their web. His wife, played by Jacqueline Bisset, sees the imminent danger in nightmares. These dream sequences that gradually unveil the shocking truth are extremely well filmed and the music enhances the emotional impact even further. This one is a real chiller with some very frightening moments and a very surprising end. Its many disturbing images will haunt you for quite some time. It proves that elegant filmmaking becomes the horror genre very well. I can recommend The Mephisto Waltz unconditionally and hope that it will be released also on DVD someday.

Coming on the heals of "Rosemary's Baby" and slightly before "The Exorcist," "The Mephisto Waltz, like the other two, was released when SATANISM seemed to be the "in" thing in Hollywood. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the film has a little bit of everything in its plot: incest, dysfunction in the family, corporal transference, Faustian overtures, stereotypically creepy friends and associates, "trippy" camera angles, stalwart genre-actor Brad Dillman, and a truly effective score, provided by Jerry Goldsmith.

As far as the acting goes, Jacqueline Bisset is quite good as the wife determined to rescue husband Alan Alda from a mysterious benefactor, a very eerie Curt Jurgens. Barbara Parkins, best known for her work on television's "Peyton Place" and the filmed version of "Valley of the Dolls," does well in the part of the Jurgens' overly "devoted" daughter.

And what movie about the devil would be complete without a "hound from hell"??? "Robin" the hound scores a few brownie points for his appearance.

Only does Alan Alda seem a bit weak in the starring role. I couldn't help but think he was playing "Hawkeye" doing his best to be less than sardonic.

Inasmuch as Amazon doesn't allow "half" stars, I rounded this 3.5 film up to a 4.

I loved this movie! I just discovered the book and am waiting patiently for it to arrive. Why do people say it is a Rosemary's Baby ripoff? It is nothing like Rosemary's Baby except the satanist angle. Are all satanist movies RB rip-offs? I don't think so. I also thought Alan Alda did a fabulous job. It's the one time I thought he was sexy in a movie. The other reviewers have given the plot of the movie so I won't repeat them. I will just say I am entertained every time I see it.

This very Seventies, post-Rosemary's Baby (1968) horror thriller is remembered fondly by many viewers for its dated aspects. A pre-M.A.S.H. Alan Alda plays music journalist Myles Clarkson, whose own career as a pianist was earlier squelched by critical disdain. He lives modestly with his gorgeous wife (Jacqueline Bisset) and precocious child (perennial child star of the era, Pamela Ferdyn). Interviewing aging musical maestro Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), Alda is drawn into Ely's rich, sinister milieu that includes his far too young concubine Roxanne (an unforgettable Barbara Parkins, in perhaps her keynote role) and other wealthy Satanists. Alda returns to the piano with increased fervor following Jurgens' death, and has appeared to inherit his mentor's death supernaturally. But the devil must be paid his due, and soon lots of innocent lambs begin to die unexpectedly. Bisset, unable to convince others about the conspiracy against her, decides to fight fire with brimstone in a largely unsatisfying fadeout.

The Mephisto Waltz can be interpreted as a reactionary response to the then-current relaxed attitudes towards "alternative lifestyles," be it living together without the benefit of marriage or being the member of a murderous devil worshipping cult. Alda and Bisset appear to be in an "open marriage" living arrangement, with the latter seemingly indifferent to Alda's affair with Parkins. Jurgens' curious funeral in the film, attended by eccentric mourners with arcane rituals performed by Parkins is defended by Alda who declares, "I always respect others' religious beliefs!"

The affluent, bourgeois devil cult in The Mephisto Waltz recalls the Palladists in Val Lewton's The Seventh Victim (1943). Coincidentally, that film's director Mark Robson would later guide Parkins in an entirely different sort of horror film, the execrable adaptation of Jacqueline Susanne's Valley of the Dolls (1967).

Director Paul Wendkos films the proceedings in a wildly expressionistic style, with many eccentric camera angles and lens diffusions. Careful viewers will detect odd, occult images crowding even the most prosaic scenes, with odd bits of décor cluttering shelves and walls. While rich in atmosphere, horror fans may be taken aback by the film's exceedingly mild content. There is no violence, and very light nudity and sex. Discounting a wild costume party, there are no expected satanic orgies, and no appearances from the Cloven Hoofed One, although a human face mask worn by Ely's attack dog makes for an arresting image. The plot, hinging on the hoary old device of "soul transference," was recently disinterred for the now-forgotten horror thriller The Skeleton Key in 2005.

The Mephisto Waltz has often been mistaken for a made-for-TV movie, where many viewers have noted the presence of a boom mike from full-frame TV presentations.

Pretty trippy if your the type, representative of the era I guess? (Dunwich Horror,RB,Etc) bunch of weird stuff, not a movie I would go out and Rent.I do like the Misfits Song though.

Ok, so the book was much better....... but the move is still quite compelling & mesmerizing. Slow at times, yet true to life-I mean, that's how I conjure the Devil when I need him for something!

Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset star as a married couple in "Mephisto Waltz," an uninteresting rip-off of "Rosemary's Baby." The movie opens with Alda, who plays a music journalist, interviewing a reknowned pianist (Curd Jurgens). The pianist and his chilly daughter (Barbara Parkins) develop a strange interest in Alda and befriend him and his wife. Before long, Bisset notices a string of strange deaths and other odd occurrences in her midst. Are Jurgens and his daughter Satanists?

I generally really like 70s horror movies, so I really wanted to like "Mephisto Waltz." The production values and acting are generally good. Unfortunately, the movie is not a bit scary or chilling - oddly, most of the potentially frightening scenes take place off-camera. Based on a currently out-of-print novel by Fred Mustard Stewart, the script is choppy and makes little sense at times. The only thrilling aspect of the film is a very good, ominous score by Jerry Goldsmith, which makes liberal use of Listz's "Mephisto Waltz." Not even a surprise twist ending can save this one - not recommended.

I really enjoyed it and can't wait for it to be made into a DVD.
Barbara Parkins at her chilling best-what a beauty-
how ICY perfect for the part.
She never really gets much credit [what a shame]
Loved the ending twist and cool camera angles and what a soundtrack.

This movie is about devil worship. It takes you inside that world, perhaps known only to the few who have given their wills over to 'the master', and it leaves you lingering there forever. In my opinion, one of the greatest movies of all time, and one of the greatest endings. There will be "children" writing reviews of this movie with something else to say, but keep in mind these are the same tots that are entertained by "Chuckie."

I found this movie interesting. I don't think that this movie is to be so much a scary one, but more a Satanic soap opera. I found the storyline interesting - short on the Romance though. It won't make a good Harliquin story because of that. A Satanic Soap Opera is pretty good with Popcorn.