Peter Cushing is at his clinically clean best as an ambitious and "do anything" collector of Historical Horror artifacts. <br />He finally lands on a horror collectors dream the Skull of the "Marqui De Sade" <br />The Skull has a life force that kills at will and floats around in the midst a green fog like cloud. Once Cushings character obtains the skull all kinds of nasty horror stuff starts happening. The dream sequence is very well done. Chistopher Lee stars as the previous owner of the "Skull" who advises Peter Cushing to get rid of it at any cost. <br />An Amicus production. It's a very good 70's Britsh Horror Flick. <br />Excellent Remastering.
Viewer Reviews It's good to see that this long lost film from Amicus productions finally gets a decent dvd release. This classic British horror film from the 60's had its moments but was slightly inferior to the other great Amicus horror films that came out later during the years that followed. Whats great about this film though is it's fantastic storyline which was written by Robert Bloch and it's great cast with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee at their best and a memorable role by Patrick Wymark as a sadistic and evil Judge in a dream sequence (watch the scene as he forces Peter Cushing's character to play Russian Roulette). The film was directed by Freddie Frances and he has such a visual flair adding a gothic look to the proceedings. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing excellent as usual) who is offered a skull and a fleshbound book originally belonging to none other than the Marquis de Sade for a mere £500, at first he is skeptical of its provenance but finally agrees to buy it from Marco a shifty character (brilliantly played by Patrick Wymark) who previously stole the skull and book from Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee) who had fallen under it's sinister spell in the past and was glad the skull and book had been stolen. Matthew tries to convince Christopher of its evil power and advises him to get rid of it as soon as possible, but Christopher being abit stubborn keeps the skull and begins to come unstuck, he also starts hallucinating and having bizarre dreams. All the performances were first rate but this is Peter Cushing's film, he is literally in every scene and gives a convincing performance of a man falling pray to evil.
I can't help thinking that this could have been a true classic if it had had a bigger budget, even though the premise of a possessed skull seemed kind of silly it still worked and was very entertaining. The new dvd doesn't have any special features, however it was shown in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and it looks great for its age. Colors are bright and vibrant while there are barely any signs of aging at all and the sound is in stereo while not particularly that good it still gets the job done, most of the dialogue can be heard cleanly with a few slight problems here and there, but nothing to get upset about. A good story presented here by some true horror legends that anyone should enjoy it's the type of film that doesn't need buckets of blood and gore or a psychotic maniac with a hockey mask walking around to make it entertaining or scary, Highly recommended and two thumbs up!.
