Rating: 
Summary: The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Review: Long thought dead, the victim of a horrible accident, Dr. Anton Phibes (Price) still lives, surrounded by art-deco bric-a-brac, and attended by mute beauty Vulnavia (Virginia North). Outwardly normal in appearance, Phibes actually wears a rubber mask, covering his hideously deformed face. Able to speak only when plugging a special machine into his damaged vocal chords, Phibes engineers gruesome recreations of the biblical seven deadly plagues to kill the doctors he blames for his wife's death. Bees, bats, locusts, frogs, etc. are utilized in imaginative ways. Phibes saves his worst for last: trapping chief surgeon Dr. Vesalius in his lair, Phibes forces the hapless doctor into a race against time to save the life of his own son.
This flick is well paced with a nice mix of laughs and diabolical murders. And Price should get a special award for giving a great performance in spite of being unable to use his best acting tools; his face is either made up to resemble a stiff wax mask or is missing entirely, and his voice is pumped through a tinny gramophone.
Be sure to catch the sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again.
Rating:
Summary: Abominable is Great
Review: Terrific movie. Vincent Price is his classic self. See it !
Rating:
Summary: Art Deco Diabolus
Review: World famous 1920s organist Dr. Anton Phibes died in a fiery car crash, racing to the bedside of his ailing wife, Regina, who perished after only six minutes on the operating table. Now, a few years later, the nine-person surgical team who lost Regina Phibes are losing their own lives. Some diabolical madman is employing the G'tach - the Biblical plagues of Egypt - to dispatch them, in hideously creative ways: one doctor is butchered by bats; another's neck is crushed in a constricting frog mask at a costume ball; a third is completely exsanguinated, his entire body's supply of blood neatly lined-up in pint bottles on the dresser. Who but Phibes would have a motive to kill them? But how could a dead man so materially reach beyond the grave?If the story sounds mundane, rest assured the production is not. Director Robert Fuest was an alumnus of The Avengers T.V. series, and Dr. Phibes follows that famous show's formula for extreme British eccentricity. The entire first ten minutes of the movie is performed without a word of dialogue, beginning with a dark-robed, faceless figure, rising from a subterranean pit into a sumptuous art deco palace, playing the organ; he cranks-up a robot quartet of jazz musicians, and embraces a raving beauty for a waltz; the pair silently glide in a bizarre and luxurious limousine to a sleeping man's residence, and deposit a cageful of bats in his room; and then they retire, to a light tune, as the poor victim is shredded by their pets' tiny teeth. The rest of the movie follows suit, piecing together the macabre mystery that is Anton Phibes even as he pieces his own disfigured face in place with theatrical makeup before embarking to commit each of his exceptionally colorful crimes. Phibes is one of the most memorable characters in horror cinema, a skull-faced, croaking-voiced virtual automaton. He is a proto-Hannibal Lecter, a psychotically creative killer of exquisite manners and taste - which is, in fact (along with the absolutely unique production design), what makes this fabulous film work: Phibes is generally more sympathetic than the callous medical men he dispatches. The cast is terrific, featuring such notable character actors as Hugh Griffith and Terry Thomas, and Joseph Cotten as Phibes' sole survivor. The stunning Virginia North is Phibes' silent but deadly cohort in crime, Vulnavia, and Caroline Munro has a notable cameo-in-absentia role as Phibes' dearly departed bride, Regina. And it goes without saying that Vincent Price perfectly personifies the anti-heroic mad doctor title character. Some of the makeup and gore effects are on the campy side, but the period production is absolutely beautiful. This film can be enjoyed on many levels, whether as a straight horror film or a brilliant parody. It's marvellously entertaining, no matter how you look at it.
Rating: 
Summary: Nine Killed You... Nine Shall Die!!!
Review: From the wonderfully gothic-tinged introduction, where Vincent Price obsessively lets loose on a church organ, to the gleefully dark conclusion, THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES is a fast paced horror comedy that never fails to entertain. Featuring one of Vincent Price's best roles, the film is a must for fans of the genre. Combining the gothic feel of the British Hammer Films from the 1960s with the fun of the Universal Horror Films from the 1930s, director Robert Fuest creates a surprisingly unique and enjoyable movie. The film is a hilarious take on the mad scientist motif (or, in this case, doctor) in which Vincent Price (who's horribly disfigured in a car wreck) seeks his revenge on the nine doctors who he believes let his wife die during surgery. Although the revenge plot has been used countless times before, it's handled with such enthusiasm that you hardly notice. Vincent Price gives another fantastic performance, despite the fact that he's mute for the majority of the film. What makes this movie so much fun are the murders, which get increasingly bizarre as the movie progresses. The climax is surprisingly suspenseful, and the aforementioned dark ending fits the tone of the film perfectly. From a technical standpoint, THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES is fantastic. The production is top-notch, the film boasts elaborate sets, and the cool jazz soundtrack clashes with the violent images to create a general atmosphere of unpredictability. In other words... it's nonstop fun (or, as the back of the case puts it, "phun"). The DVD, part of MGM's great "Midnite Movies" collection, features a theatrical trailer and a beautiful widescreen image that really shows off the film's radical use of color.
Rating:
Summary: Vincent Price has a field day!
Review: How can one describe this movie? It's something between a strange mixture of a Hammer film and Stanley Kubrick, unashamedly low-budget yet imaginative and memorable. Who is Anton Phibes? Another strange mix...perhaps a cross between the Phantom of the Opera and Hannibal Lecter. World reknowned organist Anton Phibes loses his beautiful young wife Victoria in an accident, and she dies on the operating table. Himself "horribly" disfigured in a fiery car crash, comes back from the dead to kill off the medical team with the 10 plagues of ancient Egypt. The effects are cheesy, the make-up terrible, but what a good time we have wondering how the unflappable Dr. Phibes will take out his next victim! The script is quite well written with tongue firmly in cheek, the humor subtle and "taste"-ful. Vincent Price is PRICELESS as Phibes. Being increasingly disgusted with the excessive gore and violence which were overtaking the horror genre, Price gives an almost tour-de-force performance as the demented organist incapable of vocal inflection or facial expression. He is obviously having the time of his life, bringing so much of his own life onto the screen only through his eyes and body language. We see Price the art connosieur, the gourmet cook, the lover of fine wines humor and music all at once. Just watch him as he depreciates Terry-Thomas' taste in art or alcohol...it's a gem! The supporting cast is terrific, including Joseph Cotten and the great Hugh Griffith. Peter Jeffrey is great as Inspector Trout. Among the victims, Terry Thomas is the best as the poor lusty doctor having his pornography interrupted by a nosy house-keeper and a bit of ensanguination.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for dark humor. RevengeRules
Review: Price is priceless (sorry, I couldn't resist)in this role as a vengeful spouse killing those responsible for his wife's death. It is dark comedy with some music thrown in. The Price is right on target for this flick. Get it.
Rating:
Summary: one of price's best
Review: THIS IS ONE OF VINNCENT PRICE"S BEST FILMS.
HE REALLY GIVES A STIRRING PERFORMACE. ------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS IS INDEED ONE OF PRICE'S BEST FILMS.
I THINK THE BEST.
YOU SEE A VERY PERSONAL SIDE TO VINCENT.
YOU ALSO SEE THE ANGER AND HURT AFTER THE SURGEON'S BOTCH HIS WIFE'S OPERATION.
WHEN HE SENDS IN THE LOCUSTS,AGANIST HIS ENEMIES THAT WAS REALLY COOL.
AND WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE ENDING TRUELY STRANGE.
THIS A TRUE MUST FOR ANY VINCENT PRICE FAN,AND A GREAT ADDITION TO ANY HORROR COLLECTION.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing Phibes Anagram discovered
Review: First, Don't let this masterpiece pass you by. 2nd, because I'm the type of person to think about this type of thing, I discovered an unusual, and very appropriate anagram for "The Abominable Dr. Phibes"..... A HIBERNATED BIMBO HELPS. Vulnavia, you are immortal.....
Rating: 
Summary: Campy horror film offers much on so little.
Review: During the height of his film career, expatriate actor Vincent Price played a variety of different roles, but excelled in oily or despicable characters. Witness, for instance, the role of effete Shelby Carpenter in the Otto Preminger classic, 1944's "Laura." But as the 1960's approached, Price was relegated to portraying loathsome villains in a string of low-budget horror films. Still, this gave the actor life, as he proved that his face and that famous creepy voice gave longevity to a career that would have long since been terminated for most other actors who chose the road Price took. Price would take the pigeon-holing in stride with 1971's "Abominable Dr. Phibes", and make the movie and its subsequent sequel, "Dr. Phibes Rises Again", camp horror classics. This low-budget film is saved almost entirely by the fact that Price breathes life into the menacing Dr. Anton Phibes, a chemist with a flair for music who wreaks his own unique brand of vengeance on a number of doctors he felt was responsible for botching an operation on his wife, Victoria, leading to her early demise. The film takes place in the early part of the twentieth century, a number of years after Victoria's death. Phibes, a resident of London, was away on the Continent when he was notified of Victoria's passing; en route to London, he was ostensibly killed in a car accident. However, Phibes did manage to survive, and used the fact that he was presumed to be dead to his advantage in planning the destruction of all the doctors responsible for robbing him of his wife's love, in private. Phibes uses the ten plagues of Egypt, as documented in the Bible's Old Testament book of "Exodus", as the blueprint for the ways in which his victims would die. Inspector Trout (played by Peter Jeffrey) is assigned the case of the second victim, who was killed in his bed by a swarm of marauding bats. He begins to see the pattern, and goes about trying to protect the surviving physicians, including the head surgeon in charge of Victoria Phibes, Dr. Vesalius (Joseph Cotten). Trout stumbles about through the course of the film, as the nefarious Phibes manages to to inflict each of the plagues on his victims with seeming impunity. Indeed, Trout is a bit of a bumbler, and the machinations of his boss, Goldsmith, don't make his job any easier. Even funnier, Goldsmith insists on calling Trout "Pike"! Meanwhile, his elusive quarry is always a step ahead in his murderous mission. You see, Phibes, as it turns out, has other reasons to be angry: He was disfigured horribly in the crash, and wears elaborate make-up to give himself some semblance of human appearance. In one scene, where he cavorts with his silent accomplice, Vulnavia, he drinks a glass of wine through a hole in his neck! Still, we see traces of Phibes' humanity as he talks to a picture of Victoria, and tells her that his murders are done to avenge her death, and when he has finished, he will join her on the other side. To insure this, Phibes has exhumed his wife's body, keeping it preserved with embalming fluid in the mansion's cavernous basement. As with most low-budget films, the special effects are downright horrible. On DVD, the cheapness of the effects is magnified significantly. For instance, in the scene where one of the doctors is attacked by bats, you can clearly see the string propelling one of the winged creatures as it dives in for an attack! Equally appalling is the unconvincing make-up of the skeletal face of Phibes, as he reveals his true self near the end; it seems to have been applied by a trowel. The camp quality is also essential in allowing the viewer to not take what he/she sees so seriously; Phibes has his mansion decorated even more gaudily than Liberace could have dreamed up for his home, as a mannequin big band play accompaniment to Phibes' more whimisical moods. Watch as set curtains fall as the music plays, and Vulnavia arrives to dance with the evil doctor in his spacious parlor. It is the dark humor and Price's eerie, oozy charm that make the movie such a B-film classic. Only "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" has surpassed the "Phibes" duo in reaching a pinnacle of B-movie exalted status. Certainly, "Abominable Dr. Phibes" would not win any awards in any era, but makes for a great Hallowe'en treat. It may just be a refreshing change from the plethora of emasculating slasher films so prevalent in the film world. I'll take Vincent Price's brand of horror any day. The DVD's picture is actually quite decent, as one would expect from an MGM production, as much as one made on a shoestring budget can be. There aren't any extras, either, save for the original theatrical trailer. There's no booklet accompanying the DVD, but for the cost, it is worth having in your collection.
Rating:
Summary: A "Thinking Person's" Horror Movie!
Review: Vincent Price was born to play the role a a crazed musician bent on getting revenge on the doctors that he blames for the death of his wife. The accident that caused her to die on the operating table also destroyed Dr. Phibe's face, by the way. The small touches that carry this film are absolute genius. You will shudder, but you will smile at the ingenious ways that Phibes comes up with to dispose of his enemies. Check this one out and have a good time with it!
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