Movie Review: Crucible Of Horror

Crucible Of Horror, 1971

Synopsis:

A mother and daughter plot to kill the overbearing family patriarch. But is he really dead?

Tim's Opinion.

For the most part, Crucible Of Horror really isn't a horror movie. It is more of a suspense movie. I think that it got off to a pretty slow start, but the horror movie music throughout the introduction hint at things to come. I wouldn't say that this was a boring movie, but it also wasn't very interesting. As I said, it got off to a slow start, but I was still intrigued enough to watch the entire movie. The acting is certainly adequate, it was just a bit strange seeing Michael Gough (Batman, Top Secret), playing such a domineering and sadistic character. I'm used to seeing him playing much more gentle characters.

There were some things throughout Crucible Of Horror that made absolutely no sense, or at least were never explained. Why the closeups of the cat? Did the cat have something to do with the murder? What was that smoking stuff that the daughter poured into the atomizer? And what was with the guy watching the daughter and calling her later in the movie? At the beginning of the movie, it seems that all of these things would have something to do with the plot, but they don't.

If you're a fan of British suspense, then you will probably want to see this one. The movie is intriguing enough to make it worth watching, especially the twist at the end. If you're expecting a lot of action, then you may want to skip Crucible Of Horror.

Lisa's Opinion

Huh???????? Alfred!! Say It Ain' So!!!!

Crucible of Horror, a movie made in 1971, stars a somewhat young Michael Gough (Alfred from Batman) playing the sadistic patriarch of a wealthily family. Actually, it should be called, Crucible Of Suspense or even Crucible of Various Strange Scenes That Make so Sense. The beginning of the film shows a typical day in a typical middle to upper class  neighborhood complete with the girl named Jane, her brother Rupert, her mother Edith, her father, Walter, the neighborhood boy who is interested in the young pretty Jane and even the family cat all set to scary and sinister music. However, does this film really a typical family? It is later discovered that the young 16 year old Jane, is Walter's punching bag, Edith is a long suffering artist who gets the idea to kill Walter and had dreams of a floating being with very bad hair.The son, Rupert, is clueless the whole time and the cat, who only makes a few appearances, is just the cat.

One evening after Jane was beaten after supposedly stealing some money from a man that was coming on to her, Edith plans to kill Walter and decides to do so when he goes on a trip to the countryside alone. With a gun in hand and a small bottle of poison, Edith and Jane decided to head out to the countryside to kill him. When they reach the cottage and go inside, they hide the gun and greet Walter before going into a room where he has been listening to a recording of a string quartet that somehow gets cranked up very loud while no one was near the radio nor there was any crescendo indicated in  the quartets music whatsoever. Edith eventually slips the poison in his drink, but neither Jane or Edith use the gun. Which makes you wonder why they took the gun when they didn't even use it on the sadistic Walter. Maybe they were thinking that he would just keel over at the sight of it. However, it looked like the poison did the trick anyway so there was no need for the gun. So, dragging the corpse up the stairs and putting him into bed, Jane and Edith made the perfect cover up; but was he really dead?