THE CRIMSON CULT (1968)

 

(a.k.a. CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR. Director: Vernon Sewell. Screenwriters: Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, based on Jerry Sohl’s story, loosely extrapolated from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Dreams in the Witch House.”)

 

Review

Antiques dealer Robert Manning (Mark Eden) visits his family’s English ancestral home of Greymarsh when his brother, Peter (Denys Peek), disappears during a business trip. Peter’s last known location is Craxted Lodge.

Once Robert arrives, he is warmly greeted by Craxted’s owner (Morley), a descendant of Lavinia Morley (a green-skinned Barbara Steele) who was burned at the stake in 1652. Also in residence is Eve Morley (Virginia Wetherell, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, 1971), Morley’s niece, who becomes Robert’s romantic interest and fellow investigator. A cryptic local historian of the occult (Professor John Marsh) also visits Craxted; he is barely civil to Robert.

Robert’s questions get the run-around treatment, so he further investigates, at night having kaleidoscopic nightmares about a green- and red-lit room, and half-naked servants (men and women) who hold goats and writhe around Lavinia, sitting on her throne.

Eventually, all becomes clear with help from surprising quarters, ending in a visually fun (cheesy for some) end-shot.

CRIMSON, is a mostly bland, silly admixture of a straightlaced murder mystery and pseudo-psychedelic hippie-ish Lovecraftian nightmare, with its filler party scenes, a sex scene, and overlong, investigative-dream sequences. By the time Robert has figured out what happened to his brother and why, it’s a great, is this movie done yet? situation. CRIMSON’s behind-the-scenes crew made a good-looking movie, made darker with Peter Knight’s spare, effective music score.

Beyond the seething and sensual Barbara Steele (PIRANHA, 1978), a big part of what CRIMSON gets right is its top-billed leads: Christopher Lee (SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, 1970) as the polite Morley, who is hiding something; Boris Karloff (BLACK SABBATH, 1963), in one of his final roles, as Professor John Marsh, whose brusque manners hide something as well; Michael Gough (DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS, 1965) as Elder, the Morleys’ troubled butler; and Rupert Davies (DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, 1968) as “The Vicar.”

CRIMSON, with its not-quite-psychedelic trial scenes, solid behind-the-scenes work and worthwhile actors, is a “meh”movie, not terrible, not great─and worth seeing if you’re a completist fan of any of its leads, as long as you expect CRIMSON to be one of their lesser flicks.