Actors: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Virginia North, Terry-Thomas, Peter Jeffrey
Review Summary and Plot Commentary about The Abominable Dr. Phibes
A deranged doctor, Anton Phibes, thought to have died in a fiery car crash begins killing nine doctors that operated on his wife, but were unable to save her. Phibes kills the doctors in different ways.
The first doc is killed by bees, leaving him covered with boiles. The rest of the doctors are killed by bats, locusts, hail and rats.
The Scotland Yard inspectors try to protect the remaining doctors, but Phibes is always able to get to them.
The remaining doctor, Vesalius, is protected by one inspector, Trout, and kept safe. However, the plague visited upon him is the death of his first born son.
Phibes kidnaps the boy, locks him to a table under an acid spout and implants the key in his chest, near his heart.
In order to save his son, Vesalius must operate on his son to remove the key and move him before the acid pours out on his face.
Phibes, thinking that his job is done, joins his wife's body in an extravagant homemade tomb and inserts the needles in his arm that drain his blood and inject the embalming fluid.
--Brandon Swenson, Resident Scholar
The year is 1929. The place is London. The music is swingin' jazz. The deaths are gruesome.
Someone has been killing respectable London surgeons in incredibly violent ways, all of which seem to be based upon the biblical 10 Plagues of Egypt. The only thing that the victims have in common is that they all worked on one surgery together eight years ago, in which the beautiful victim of a car accident died.
The killer is none other than the woman's husband, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price), a concert organist, theological scholar, and mechanical genius deranged by grief over his wife's demise and his beautiful-yet-mute assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North).
The police, led by the laughably inept Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey), don't believe that Phibes could be the murderer, and with good reason, since he seems to have also died in a car accident the day after his wife.
As the police remain in hot pursuit of the killer, always arriving seconds after the latest death, and more and more doctors fall victim to ravenous bats, head-crushing frog-masks, bronze unicorn heads, and the like, the head of the surgical team (Joseph Cotten) decides to take matters into his own hands and stop the killer before his own number comes up...
--James Craver, Resident Scholar
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Analysis of The Abominable Dr. Phibes
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Movie Actual chase scenes or violence - 40% Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40% Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Time/Era of Movie:
- 1960's-1970's
Horror film?
Yes
Horror Plotlets:
- mad guy with knife likes to slice
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- killer
- police/lawman
Age:
- 40's-50's
Eccentric:
Yes
- eccentric
- obsessed
- deluded
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Black)
Hair style
- short/standard straight (man)
- very short/crewcut (man)
Body type
- average (man)
Events of movie makes character more...
- aggressive
- tougher
Ethnicity/Nationality
- British
- Eastern European
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Genius
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Male
- Female
Hair color
- brunette (Black)
- white/grey
Hair style
- (man) short/standard wavy
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn, straight
Body type
- average build (man)
- ample bosom & buttocks (woman)
How much in movie?
- 80%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- British
- Eastern European
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 20's-30's
- 60's-90's
Profession/status:
- police/lawman
- doctor
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 60%
- 90%-100%
Hair color
- brunette (Brown)
- white
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- average (man)
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Irish/McCourt
- Eastern European
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
- missing body parts/abilities
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- mean, arrogant
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately messy visuals of dead
- gory visuals of deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- all mixed up
How many deaths in film?
- 8 or more
Sex/nudity in movie?
Yes
How much use of techno gadgets?
- 2 (a little)
Kind of violence:
- hand to hand
Unusual forms of death
- poisoning
- boiling
- eaten
- crushed
- frozen
- impaled
- visually blown into pieces
Check here if B&W
Yes
Any profanity?
- None
- Occasional swearing
If Soundtrack VERY NOTICEABLE...
- Jazz/r&b
