Antiques dealer, Neal Mottram (Jack Palance), discovers that an African idol, Chuku, which he keeps hidden in his cellar gives him money in return for human sacrifices and he commits a series of grisly murders as a result.
A thoroughly terrible British exploitation shocker from producer Herman Cohen - Remember Horrors Of The Black Museum, that film with the booby trapped binoculars? - well, he produced that too. This features a hilariously bad and over the top performance from Jack Palance who not only goes more over the top the more the thin plot winds down but, as one reviewer put it, utters his lines as though he had been tortured for half-an-hour beforehand. The shocks are often unintentionally funny rather than scary like when Palance jumps out of a closet wearing a skull mask and scaring his victim to death. Yes, lame isn't it? Oscar-winning lighting cameraman, Freddie Francis, became typecast and, somewhat reluctantly, as a director of horror films. Nonetheless, alongside Terence Fisher, he was one of the most influential figures of the 1960's British horror wave and he still made some excellent examples of the genre. Sadly, this isn't one of them and his disdain for the production is evident as he simply sets it up and grinds away. By the early 1970's, Francis was repeatedly being offered poor assignments and, after Craze, he went on to direct the disastrous rock horror musical, Son Of Dracula, with Ringo Starr and Harry Nilson. By the mid-seventies he had given up directing and returned to being a lighting cameraman with distinguished results. Even an excellent cast including Trevor Howard, Diana Dors, Edith Evans and Kathleen Byron are at a loss here.
A thoroughly terrible British exploitation shocker from producer Herman Cohen - Remember Horrors Of The Black Museum, that film with the booby trapped binoculars? - well, he produced that too. This features a hilariously bad and over the top performance from Jack Palance who not only goes more over the top the more the thin plot winds down but, as one reviewer put it, utters his lines as though he had been tortured for half-an-hour beforehand. The shocks are often unintentionally funny rather than scary like when Palance jumps out of a closet wearing a skull mask and scaring his victim to death. Yes, lame isn't it? Oscar-winning lighting cameraman, Freddie Francis, became typecast and, somewhat reluctantly, as a director of horror films. Nonetheless, alongside Terence Fisher, he was one of the most influential figures of the 1960's British horror wave and he still made some excellent examples of the genre. Sadly, this isn't one of them and his disdain for the production is evident as he simply sets it up and grinds away. By the early 1970's, Francis was repeatedly being offered poor assignments and, after Craze, he went on to direct the disastrous rock horror musical, Son Of Dracula, with Ringo Starr and Harry Nilson. By the mid-seventies he had given up directing and returned to being a lighting cameraman with distinguished results. Even an excellent cast including Trevor Howard, Diana Dors, Edith Evans and Kathleen Byron are at a loss here.