Oh how I love Vincent Price movies. Although it sounds cliche after all these years, he truly was the master of the macabre. His campy performances and over the top theatrics made him a legend, and his ability to mix a sense of fun and black humor into nearly everything he did made him the most beloved actor of the genre. He never took himself seriously, and that's what made people love him.

The Abominable Doctor Phibes is darkly humorous tale of revenge. Several years ago, a group of eight doctors and one nurse performed an emergency surgery on his beloved wife Victoria. The surgery resulted in her death, and in his rush to get to his wife's side, Doctor Phibes' car crashed, and he was presumed to have been burned up in the accident. While he was in fact burned beyond recognition in the accident, it was not his body that the authorities found in the charred wreckage of the car, but rather it was that of his driver.

Doctor Phibes used the fact that everyone believed he was dead to start plotting his revenge against those who he blamed for killing his one true love. The plot involved visiting the ten plagues of the pharos upon the eight doctors and one nurse that took part in the operation. The curse of the pharos is a story from the bible in which Moses brought ten curses down upon the heads of the pharos that held his people in slavery. The curses, at least according to this film are as follows: Boils, bats, frogs, blood, rats, hail, the beast, the locusts, the death of the first born, and last but not least, darkness. Apparently these are not entirely biblically accurate, but for the most part they are. Each doctor is visited by the curse that was selected for him. Here's a list of how it all went down...

Boils: The doctor was attacked by a swarm of bees and left with boils all over his face and body.

Bats: The doctor was attacked while he slept by a room full of bats.

Frogs: The doctor was choked to death by a self-tightening frog mask he was given to wear at a fancy dress party.

Blood: The doctor had all the blood drained out of his body.

Rats: The doctor was attacked by a bunch of rats while he was flying in his plane, causing him to crash.

Hail: The doctor has his driver stop when he saw Vulnavia by the side of the road and had his chauffeur check on her. The chauffeur was subdued by Doctor Phibes, and then Phibes placed a hail machine in the doctor's car, freezing him to death and dropping the inside temperature of the car to minus 100 degrees.

The Beast: The doctor was impaled by a brass unicorn head that was launched from a catapult across the street from the hotel he had just checked out of. He was about to walk out the door with the police when the head came flying in and impaled him, sticking him to the wall.

The Locusts: The nurse was locked in a room at the hospital for her own protection, and then after taking a sleeping pill, she fell fast asleep. Doctor Phibes drilled a hole through the floor above her bed and dripped a concentrated goo made from cabbage and brussels sprouts all over her. He then fed locusts into the room through the hole and they basically ate her down to the bone, as you can see in the screenshot above.

The Death of the First Born: Doctor Phibes kidnapped Dr. Vesalius' son and locked him down on an operating table. He then inserted a key near the boy's heart, and when Dr. Vesalius arrived, Phibes told him about the key and that he had exactly six minutes to operate on the boy and retrieve it. He only had six minutes because there was a long spiraling tube coming down into a container with a bunch of drip tubes protruding from it that was positioned directly above the boy's head. Doctor Phibes started some sort of a thick acid flowing through the device and told Dr. Vesalius that the acid would take exactly six minutes to reach the bottom, at which time it would kill his child. His only chance to save his boy was to retrieve the key so that he could use it to unlock the chains from the table and move his son out of harm's way.

The Darkness: Doctor Phibes actually visited this curse upon himself at the end of the film when he shut himself in his sarcophagus with his dead wife and began the process of embalming himself.

The acting throughout the movie was first rate by everyone involved. Price himself was simply amazing as the man behind the mask. He couldn't speak, eat or drink through the mouth of his mask, and therefore everything he did was indicated by him flexing his throat muscles like he was swallowing. Doctor Phibes had devised a method of allowing his voice to be transmitted through a phonograph horn with the aid of a device he would attach to the side of his neck. This allowed him to speak and be heard without having to use his mouth to form the words. The brilliance of Price's acting is on full display here, because he can express a full range of emotions through just the look in his eyes and whatever miniscule facial expressions he can manage. Price however wasn't the only great actor in this film. The entire cast did a beautiful job in bringing this film to life. Even those that had rather insignificant parts did a great job in making their characters memorable.

Something else that really stood out for me in this film was the absolutely incredible cinematography. The entire look of this film was nothing short of brilliant. Each and every camera shot and angle was set up in such a way that it perfectly accentuated all of the various characters, scenes and situations to the point where you just sit there watching in awe at the brilliance of it.

I don't know if The Abominable Doctor Phibes is my all time favorite Vincent Price movie, but if it's not, then it's damn close. I wouldn't be exaggerating in even the least little bit if I said that this film is a pure work of art. There's no other way to say it. I can't recommend this film enough, and if you're looking for a simply incredible movie to stay up late with, then this is the one. If you don't already own this film, do yourself a favor and get it. You won't be sorry.