Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

Director: Robert Fuest

Starring: Vincent Price, Robert Quarry, Valli Kemp, Peter Jeffrey, Fiona Lewis, Hugh Griffith, Peter Cushing, Beryl Reid, Terry-Thomas, John Cater, Gerald Sim, Lewis Fiander, John Thaw, Keith Buckley, Milton Reid

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Flesh crawls! Blood curdles! Phibes lives!

Plot: The moon rises at a predestined angle and awakens the sleeping Dr. Phibes three years later. To his dismay, he finds his house has been demolished and his papyrus scrolls stolen, the scrolls he needs to find the Pharoah's Tomb in Egypt, where the River of Life flows. After identifying the source of the papyrus theft, he packs and leaves for Egypt with his assistant Vulnavia, still intent upon awakening his dead wife Victoria. The parties responsible for the theft of Phibes' scrolls suffer an attrition problem as Inspector Trout chases him across the world.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

#85 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 2 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Released just one year after the first film, THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (1971), this one adds to the ridiculousness of the first one by continuing it in a most outrageous and unbelievable manner. At the end of ABOMINABLE Phibes hooks himself up to a machine (all inside a large coffin that doubles as a small tomb) that replaces his blood with embalming fluid. At the beginning of this sequel we find out he had rigged the device to reverse itself after 3 years when the moon shines on the face of the tomb. That's right, the embalming fluid is replaced with his blood!


If you can accept that then you're prepared to watch the rest of it. While it's not quite as good as the first movie it's kind of more of the same with lots of neat kills (my favorite being the one involving the RCA dog filled with scorpions.) and a rather nice and touching finale. It was nice to see they brought Terry-Thomas back (as a different character). It's not a bad picture and I did find it entertaining, it's not something that I'm likely to want to see again. I read that a third film was planned but not filmed which is a real shame as it was to have Phibes return to go after the Nazis or something. THAT has WATCH ME written all over it!