Warner Brothers, trying to compete with MGM/Fox’s MIDNITE MOVIE series, began releasing a number of DVDs of Sci-Fi/Horror/Cult films from the 1950s and 60s. The Sci-Fi and the Cult Camp Classic series are still with us but the Horror Double Features are now available only as individual DVD-Rs. The presentations are bare bones (not even chapters are included although there are subtitles) but the films are in good shape. I guess the sales must have been really abysmal to pull the plug so early but then whoever came up with the pairings for these discs should have put a little more effort into it. While IT! and THE SHUTTERED ROOM (the other release) at least share the connection that they are both British films, there is absolutely nothing linking CHAMBER OF HORRORS and BRIDES OF FU MANCHU other than the fact they were made in 1966.
CHAMBER was intended to be the pilot for a proposed TV series featuring Cesare Danova and Wilfred Hyde-White as Wax Museum owners who also solve bizarre crimes but the show never materialized. This accounts not only for the dramatic lack of on-screen violence throughout but the unusual ending where a girl is found murdered. Shown in theaters instead, the WB marketing department came up with the “Horror Horn” and the “Fear Flasher” as gimmicks to hook people in which it did as the film was successful at the box office but no sequels followed. Taken on its own merits as an unofficial remake of HOUSE OF WAX (it even uses the same sets), CHAMBER OF HORRORS is pretty good with atmospheric old style cinematography and a delightful turn from Patrick O’Neal as the demented killer building a corpse from parts of the people who sent him to prison. Scary?, hardly, but quite enjoyable nonetheless.
In contrast THE BRIDES OF FU MANCHU is a direct sequel to 1965’s FACE OF FU MANCHU utilizing once again the talents of the dependable but underrated director Don Sharp and horrormeister Christopher Lee. This time though producer Harry Allan Towers cut the budget (Fullscreen instead of Widescreen and Eastmancolor instead of Technicolor) and it shows. Also gone is Nigel Green as Nayland Smith although Douglas Wilmer does an admirable job filling in. The story (written by Towers under his pseudonym of Peter Welbeck) has Fu Manchu kidnapping the daughters of famous scientists in order to coerce them into helping him build a death ray. It’s really more of a thriller than a horror film but director Sharp does manage a few interesting set pieces and Lee does his best with the material. Not as good as CHAMBER but still entertaining, BRIDES really doesn’t belong here and I wish WB had coupled it with the first FU film and found something else to put with CHAMBER.
The Capsule Critic 