I am one of the select few people who ever saw this movie in its entirety. From what I recall, this was actually made for AMC (I'm pretty sure it was AMC) as a series of vignettes which would run in pieces between the various movies they showed throughout the month of October. To my knowledge, it never ran in one entire piece - except once.
I happened to be up at 2 or 3 in the morning, finishing some Halloween costumes, and was looking for something to watch - the TV Guide channel said that "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" would be on AMC, so I flipped over there. By the time I realized the listing was wrong and this was something else entirely, I was hooked!!!
The Plot: 2 interns at AMC, Catherine and Joey, have been sent down to the vaults to help Dr. Goreman (played by Roger Corman) pick out the movies for the Halloween season. Instead, the crazed Doctor sends them into one old film after another (WONDERFUL parodies of classic horror!!!), advising them to use their knowledge of bad horror movie clichés to survive and escape.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS...
An example of using the clichés is when Catherine, in a "Horror of Party Beach/Creature from the Black Lagoon" spoof, hears the monster following her as she walks down the beach at night. She reasons thusly "In these movies, the creature NEVER attacks until the girl turns around and looks. So I won't look!" and she goes miles and miles, the creature always ten steps behind, and makes it to safety.
My very favorite scene is another one with Catherine, where she is put into an old silent film - she's manacled to a wall, with a fiendish looking fellow menacing her with a branding iron. His subtitle card comes up saying "I will mar your beauty if you don't give into my foul wishes" (OK, so I'm paraphrasing - I only saw this once, a it was a long time ago!!) All you see from her is a vigorous nod "OK". He looks surprised, but puts away the branding iron and unchains her. Then she knees him in the groin and starts jumping up and down, ranting. When her speech card comes up, it is so full of words you can't get through it all, but it basically is a diatribe about the portrayal of women in horror films, and the evils of mixing sex and violence in such a way, etc.
I nearly died laughing.
The only thing I hate about this film? IT'S NOT AVAILABLE ON VIDEO!!!!!! arrggghhhh!!!!!
I happened to be up at 2 or 3 in the morning, finishing some Halloween costumes, and was looking for something to watch - the TV Guide channel said that "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" would be on AMC, so I flipped over there. By the time I realized the listing was wrong and this was something else entirely, I was hooked!!!
The Plot: 2 interns at AMC, Catherine and Joey, have been sent down to the vaults to help Dr. Goreman (played by Roger Corman) pick out the movies for the Halloween season. Instead, the crazed Doctor sends them into one old film after another (WONDERFUL parodies of classic horror!!!), advising them to use their knowledge of bad horror movie clichés to survive and escape.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS...
An example of using the clichés is when Catherine, in a "Horror of Party Beach/Creature from the Black Lagoon" spoof, hears the monster following her as she walks down the beach at night. She reasons thusly "In these movies, the creature NEVER attacks until the girl turns around and looks. So I won't look!" and she goes miles and miles, the creature always ten steps behind, and makes it to safety.
My very favorite scene is another one with Catherine, where she is put into an old silent film - she's manacled to a wall, with a fiendish looking fellow menacing her with a branding iron. His subtitle card comes up saying "I will mar your beauty if you don't give into my foul wishes" (OK, so I'm paraphrasing - I only saw this once, a it was a long time ago!!) All you see from her is a vigorous nod "OK". He looks surprised, but puts away the branding iron and unchains her. Then she knees him in the groin and starts jumping up and down, ranting. When her speech card comes up, it is so full of words you can't get through it all, but it basically is a diatribe about the portrayal of women in horror films, and the evils of mixing sex and violence in such a way, etc.
I nearly died laughing.
The only thing I hate about this film? IT'S NOT AVAILABLE ON VIDEO!!!!!! arrggghhhh!!!!!