Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Leofwine_draca Even a roll-call of some of the finest talent around in Britain at the period can't save the life of this shoestring horror yarn, done in at the first hurdle thanks to an utterly routine story from Herman Cohen, the guy who once made a highly entertaining brace of movies with Michael Gough earlier in his career. Little entertainment value is on offer here, with some insipid direction from the usually reliable Freddie Francis - who overdoes the close-up lens far too much, it must be said - and rock-bottom production values meaning there is no room for special effects or much in the way of action. Instead, the plot follows a standard murder-mystery template, with the string of murders interspersed with lots of police procedural investigation. Sadly, the investigation is helmed by Detective Wall (Michael Jayston), one of the most miserable, ill-mannered and frankly unlikable characters I've seen in a film, and despite his dogged determination to nail Palance his character is utterly banal and devoid of interest.The one clever aspect of the movie seems to be the infernal idol of the title itself; Palance's theory that sacrifice brings reward is never proved or disproved during the film, leaving a level of ambiguity which is about the film's strongest value. Is Palance's downfall due to the intelligence of the police force, or perhaps because his servant finally took an axe to the idol when he could stand it no longer? CRAZE never makes it clear one way or another. Another strong value is the cast list, with most faces being recognisable to exploitation fans; it's just a shame that most actors and actresses are wasted with poorly-written parts. Take for instance Martin Potter, who excelled as a baddie in SATAN'S SLAVE; here his foppish, bland shop assistant is totally unmemorable in every way.Palance himself overacts with relish, hamming his way through a role which gives him plenty of scope to enjoy himself. Francis seems obsessed with sticking the camera in his gurning face and Palance can't play a scene without his character smirking to himself with pride for getting away with the crimes. I do enjoy overacting here and there, but the incessant nature of Palance's performance does eventually become a bit wearing. Even once-great Trevor Howard (PERSECUTION) turns up wasted as the superintendent, whilst there are only tiny bit parts for Percy Herbert and later Euro-stalwart David Warbeck.The only halfway decent performance is a comedy one from Hugh Griffith (LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF) as a greedy solicitor. As for the female talent, there are plenty of pretty faces around - Julie Ege and Suzy Kendall to name but two - but again they play only one-dimensional victims. The biggest insult is the character of Diana Dors, an ageing sex-starved housewife ridiculed by other characters in the movie; hardly a decent part for one of Britain's biggest former idols.

Red-Barracuda This British exploitation movie is an occult horror about a man who lives a double life as a respected antique dealer by day and as a homicidal worshipper of a demonic god by night. As such he sacrifices a series of women to an idol of his deity, the African god Chuku, which he keeps in his cellar.First up, the copy that seems to be available via public domain for this suffers from truly atrocious sound quality. It's well-nigh impossible to hear all the lines of dialogue and the sound in general fades in and out at will. This does compromise the enjoyment level of watching this somewhat, although it does have to be admitted that the events that unfold before us on screen are luckily self-explanatory enough to allow the viewer to know what's going on even without acceptable audio. And what's going on is fairly standard stuff on the whole. The film mainly benefits from star actor Jack Palance fairly chewing up the scenery in a commendably committed performance. He gives it his all, despite the overall shortcomings of the film as a whole – good on you Jack. In truth, this one sports a pretty good cast on the whole with several names fans of genre cinema will recognise, including the star of a couple of giallo classics, Suzy Kendall, pitching up late on as one of Palance's victims and Diana Dors appearing earlier as one of his old flames. The director here is genre specialist Freddie Francis, who made several horror flicks throughout the 70's and 80's but who would eventually go on to become probably more famous as an award winning cinematographer on all manner of great films, including some by the likes of Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. Truthfully, Craze is pretty far from being his finest hour. I would probably have a marginally better opinion of it if I had seen it with even half-decent audio but even taking that into account, this is hardly essential stuff.

Jonathon Dabell Jack Palance is in lunatic mode in this lethargic and largely uninteresting chiller from veteran director Freddie Francis. A cinematographer by trade, Francis ended up directing a lot of films down the years – mainly in the horror genre – and some of them were pretty good. Others, however, were terrible… The Deadly Bees and Trog being two of the absolute worst. Craze is more-or-less down there with those other two regrettable misfires, crawling along as it does at a snail-like pace under the weight of a hopeless script (Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen to thank – or rather blame – as the writers here, adapting a novel entitled The Infernal Idol by Henry Seymour). The cast is surprisingly high-calibre, especially for this type of film, but nobody in front of or behind the cameras seems particularly motivated and the end result pretty much reaps what it sows. That is to say, not very much! Struggling, debt-ridden antique shop owner Neal Mottram (Jack Palance) has an unhealthy obsession with black magic and ancient rituals. In the basement of his shop, he owns a rare African idol called Chuku which he believes can bring him good fortune via sacrificial offerings of blood. Thusfar however, Mottrram hasn't actually tested this idea with a human life, just a few drops of blood spilled by thrill-seeking guests who seem oddly happy to cut themselves in front of the statue for Mottram's entertainment. When Mottram accidentally kills a woman by impaling her on the statue, he is amazed the following day at stumbling upon a fortune in gold coins. Quickly realising that Chuku rewards death more handsomely than blood, Mottram sets about picking up women and murdering them, each killing followed by further wealth and power falling into the lap of the demented antique collector. The police suspect that he may be involved in the murders but cannot pin anything onto him as, one by one, Mottram uses an increasingly imaginative series of methods to murder his way to a fortune.The idea itself is OK, albeit a little over-familiar. Alas, Craze never goes anywhere with it. Events slink along boringly and lifelessly, with little sense of suspense in the build-up to the killings nor any real development of character. The victims are cardboard characters, injected into the proceedings merely to be slain a few scenes later. Mottram himself should be at the very least an interesting character – is he tormented or thrilled by his crimes, is he mad or coldly calculating, etc? – but the role goes nowhere. Palance acts with his usual twitchy intensity, but his efforts are generally wasted. Much of the film is shot in impenetrable darkness making it rather hard to see what's going on in a number of key scenes. Apart from a couple of neatly engineered jumps – one involving Mottram leaping out of a wardrobe in a fright-mask and literally scaring his victim to death – the film is one long yawn. It's certainly not the finest hour of anyone involved… one for completists only.

g.young working from memory here so forgive the hazy details..... jack palance chews the scenery as an antique dealer who becomes convinced that by sacrificing women to an african idol in his cellar he will have good fortune bestowed upon him. cue lots of crazy 70's fashions,music,drugs references etc etc. the film follows jacks downward spiral as he tries to keep the idol satisfied. cleverly the film never makes it clear whether jacks good luck is coincidence or whether it really does bring good luck. this film is well worth picking up for entertainment value.