This is a movie starring horror icons Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing but yet it is still a movie only a handful of people know off and have actually seen. There really is a very simple explanation for that; the movie just really isn't that good.
The main and biggest problem I had with this movie was that for 75% you have absolutely no idea what is going on and what its mystery is all supposed to be about. It's all being told so vaguely and loosely that you simply start to give up to try and make sense of it all. It's of course fine for a movie to be mysterious but they should at least had given the audience something and should have had explained certain things far earlier in the movie. Now, when the big 'twists' comes you just don't care about it anymore because everything that came before it was told in such a terribly non-engaging and uninteresting way.
Even after finishing this movie, it still leaves far more questions than answers. Some things simply happen in the movie and you have to take a lot of things for granted. Such as for instance; what was with that whole Nazi-like group of people? Who or what were they supposed to be or represent and why and how exactly were they in so much control of things?
I can definitely recognize the movie for what it was trying to be and do and I also still could really appreciate it for that. It tried to be more like early '60's mystery movies, that often involved a detective in the search off a killer and it often had a sort of horror/science-fiction twist and vibe to it all. And it's still truly being such a movie with its atmosphere, characters, main plot, music and whatever more, it just still isn't really a good movie at all.
You could say and think that the movie should at least be watchable because it features Cushing, Lee and Price in it but the truth is that most of them are hardly in this movie at all and they get far too little interesting to do. The one that plays the biggest role is Lee, as the good guy for a change. And my goodness, at first I didn't even recognized him since he's using such a thick British accent in this movie and he really isn't using his own, very distinctive, voice at all. I still really liked him in his role and I though he did a great job at it but still his character was a bit of a stiff one and not all that suitable or likable enough to become the main 'hero' of the movie. Cushing's and Price's role is far more worthless. What even was the point of Cushing's character in this? And Price only shows up a couple of times and suddenly only starts to get more important toward the movie its end.
It definitely does has some value to it and the movie also still has its moments but overall it's a far too messily told and written movie to become a good one.
5/10
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