The Oscar winning Jack Palance is not one of my favorite actors. He started off fine in films like "Sudden Fear" and "Shane", but ended up in a lot of European dreck. By the time he won the Academy Award for "City Slickers", he was considered just one of several grand old men in being over the top and eccentric, and all it took was some one-armed push-ups to put him into a legendary status. Many of his mid-career films are unwashable, so when a occult horror movie like this pops up, you don't expect much. However, I found it a load of fun and his performance rather subtle yet with that wink that makes you realize that he's having a lot of fun in spite of a rather tacky script and storyline.
As the proprietor of a London antique store, he gets involved in the occult through a strange African statue called the Chuku. By accident, he kills one of his young lovers (by pushing her into the pitchfork that the Chuku is holding), and before long, he's searching for other female sacrifice victims to earn the favor of the weird looking block of wood. Even his aunt Edith Evans gets a quick demise grows.
Evans isn't the only veteran British actor to pop up in this. There are half a dozen others whom I was surprised to see in this, showing that they had a sense of fun at least when the script wasn't a challenge or artistic. The murders are gruesome of course but it's interesting to see to what depths Palance will go. Then of course, it's fun watching him get himself into a corner and meet the gruesome fate that befalls villains like this. So you have to put aside any artistic story in watching this because it is fun, colorful and tongue in cheek, with one demise that Sweeney Todd would have given a meat pie over.
As the proprietor of a London antique store, he gets involved in the occult through a strange African statue called the Chuku. By accident, he kills one of his young lovers (by pushing her into the pitchfork that the Chuku is holding), and before long, he's searching for other female sacrifice victims to earn the favor of the weird looking block of wood. Even his aunt Edith Evans gets a quick demise grows.
Evans isn't the only veteran British actor to pop up in this. There are half a dozen others whom I was surprised to see in this, showing that they had a sense of fun at least when the script wasn't a challenge or artistic. The murders are gruesome of course but it's interesting to see to what depths Palance will go. Then of course, it's fun watching him get himself into a corner and meet the gruesome fate that befalls villains like this. So you have to put aside any artistic story in watching this because it is fun, colorful and tongue in cheek, with one demise that Sweeney Todd would have given a meat pie over.