Review of Craze

Well, well, well. Craze. I am assuming a GOOD print does not exist. Caught this on Amazon Prime(I also know I have a copy of it somewhere on VHS). It is indeed grainy. The lighting is of a poor quality, and the sound is abysmal. Real abysmal. I had it turned WAY up and still had trouble understanding all the lines. I guess this was shot with a very small budget indeed which is somehow inexplicable when you take the talents involved in total. We have producer Herman Cohen - essentially his last full producer film. Very able Hammer/Amicus director Freddie Francis is aboard to direct - but not with his usual flair for cinematographic vistas. Remember grainy, bad sound, etc... The acting department has Jack Palance in the lead role as an antiques dealer by day/night-time cult worshiper who prays to an idol called Chuku and which looks like a few prop guys put it together with a very small budget and with the aid of alcohol. A very superior supporting cast with the likes of Michael Jayston(Nicholas in Nicholas and Alexandra), cameos by Trevor Howard and Hugh Griffith, and three beauties with Suzy Kendall(To Sir with Love), drop-dead(no pun intended) Julie Ege, and bountiful, curvy, still lovely, in my opinion, Diana Dors as victims present. AND a brief cameo by Dame Edith Evans as well. Well, this brings this picture up a few notches though it truly is not very good. Palance wildly over-acts(OK, I know no one is surprised with that). But the film is workmanlike if nothing else and oddly held my attention. Of course with Diana Dors and Julie Ege in the film, the cards were STACKED in its favor. Craze is not a horrible film at all, just not a good one. It made me laugh quite often which I know was most assuredly not its intent. Notwithstanding all that, I would give it a peek just for its bizarreness.