Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Spikeopath 1966 was a prolific year for Hammer Films, the company would have 6 films released this year, unsurprisingly the quality of such was variable. Rasputin the Mad Monk was filmed back to back with Dracula Prince of Darkness, yet even though the BBFC afforded it the "X" certificate, it's somewhat tame and more a historical drama than horror film.In truth it's Christopher Lee as the title character who keeps this from plunging the depths of stinkerville, and this in spite of sporting a most distracting and ridiculous beard. Plot simply - and fancifully - shows Rasputin as a hard drinking, womanising bully with a penchant for hypnotism, all of which he uses for his nefarious ends.It's all very colourful, with Lee holding court as male saps and beautiful dames (Barbara Shelley oh my eye!) come and go, which all builds to a furious finale in the Hammer Films tradition. Yet the slow pace, weakness of the story and the overt feeling of watching a rush job, stops this from being anything but a Hammer time waster. 6/10

TheLittleSongbird Rasputin: The Mad Monk is not one of those films where you should expect a history lesson, about two things are true but apart from that the film does play fast and loose with Rasputin and his life, which will leave historians in despair. As a film on its own terms(which I've always found a much fairer way to judge), while not great and while nowhere near Hammer's best(somewhere in the middle for me), Rasputin: The Mad Monk is fun.It has two main flaws. One is that Rasputin: The Mad Monk has some very confined sets- in number and sometimes visually- that look like they were left over from previous Hammer films(quite a departure from Hammer's usual production values standard), when the film could have shown the beautiful Russian landscapes which would have given more of a sense of place. The wealthy also at times could have been more extravagant, the costumes are very attractive don't get me wrong but the low budget stops it from being more than that. The other flaw with Rasputin: The Mad Monk is the rather shoddy script, that contains flat dialogue, one-dimensional character writing(and this is including Rasputin, one of the 20th century's most colourful and interesting historical figures) while ignoring the political state of Russia at the time which would have brought some tension, and a few decent ideas that were sadly vaguely explored.Francis Matthews is also rather stiff and dull, very like how he was in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, and while she does a decent job still Suzan Farmer has very little to do other than look as fetching as possible. As exciting, hugely entertaining and as tense as the climax was, it also was a touch anti-climatic and Rasputin's death was handled too quickly and too easily(from personal view).However, the lighting is both colourful and eerie, and Rasputin: The Mad Monk is filmed beautifully and stylishly. So the film didn't look completely cheap, despite the obviousness of the low-budget. The music score is thunderously grandiose in the most thrilling of ways, giving off genuine chills and excitement. Sharp's direction is efficient enough, managing to mostly keep the story interesting and maintaining the appropriate mood. The story is mostly fun, and includes some horror elements that are handled with tension and creepy atmosphere without being gratuitous as well as some mystery elements that bring glimpses of suspense.The best thing about Rasputin: The Mad Monk is the cast. Barbara Shelley(better utilised than she was in Dracula: Prince of Darkness) is luminous but also brings vulnerability and vast dramatic intensity, and Richard Pasco is effectively twitchy. Christopher Lee walks away with the film though to the extent that he literally IS the film, with his larger than life presence, wild appearance, chilling penetrating stare and deep and very distinctive voice it's a towering performance in every sense of the word, and it's so much fun to watch him.On the whole, Rasputin: The Mad Monk is not a great film as such and people should look to the 1996 film starring Alan Rickman for a more accurate account of the man and his life, but it does provide some good entertainment when not taken seriously and viewed as it's meant to be and is worth catching for Lee alone. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Adam Peters (43%) A meatier role for Lee to get his fangs into and he does a fine job playing a real life notorious figure instead of a fictitious one, only this time the makers have actually given him something to say, and the film is all the better for it. More than a few liberties have been taken on the actual story to fit it into a 90 min run time, as well as to make it more entertaining, but it is not factual enough to be taken seriously as historical account and its not really fun enough to be enjoyed as a B movie romp, it is somewhere in-between. Hammer fans will enjoy it, but everyone else may get a little fed up with its lack of thrills and rather abrupt ending.

JohnHowardReid This is a quota quickie in which the shots are called so fast that no-one has time to tell the cast how to pronounce the name of the lead character. Mr Lee calls himself "Raspoot'n", but the princess calls him, "Raspewtin". It's also one of those movies that unwind at so snail-like a pace – and with such economy of production values – that one has to do something to wile away the time. Not only is the plot agonizingly slow, but it's predictable. Worse still, it's packed to the gunwales with trite, tedious, banal dialogue, and acted by trite, tedious, banal characters like scenery-chewing Christopher Lee. Considering the poor quality of the cast, incompetent director Don Sharp is remarkably free with his close-ups. He obviously wants to make sure that even the most unobservant, half-asleep audiences would be sure to recognize what rotten acting is being presented for their entertainment. Even the women are an unattractive lot – and that is unusual for a Hammer film. Of course, unadventurous photography doesn't help any. Even the most unattractive lass can look like Marilyn Monroe with the proper lighting. Aside from two or three obvious stock shots, the sets are unashamedly "B"-grade. True, there's occasionally a bit of action, but on a scale of one to ten, Hammer fans are likely to give this one a duck. It's way below Hammer's usual blood-and-thunder standard, and even a free beard is unlikely to attract any but the most sold-out Hammer customers.