Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Oh just something short and witty’
Incense for the Damned is a British horror directed by Robert Hartford-Davis,
who had his name removed from the film after extensive reshoots and added scenes,
‘The whole thing is wrong’
Not a great sign, but the movie has Peter Cushing.
‘Glad you could make it’
Patrick Macnee, ‘
All this red carpet treatment’
and Edward Woodward,
‘What’s his sexual status?’
So let’s see how long it takes to blow it.
‘Richard Fountain son of the foreign secretary,’
'Enjoys sailing with his pupil Bob Curley'
'He is unofficially engaged to Penelope Goodridge, daughter of Walter Goodridge'
'Fountain is an authority of Greek Mythology.'
About 90 seconds.
We open with the mystery of a missing Oxford Don
and the mystery of how many times can you get the name Richard into just over 30 seconds.
‘We’re worried about Richard’
‘Richard may not get back from Greece’ ‘
What’s that I hear about Richard?’
‘Bob is Richard’s star pupil’
‘Apparently Richard’s in some kind of trouble’
‘How do you know so much about Richard?’
Wanted by the Grecian police, Richard Fountain has vanished.
‘The Greek government are just as anxious as we are to get Richard out of the country’
Both countries have decided he’s far too privileged to go to jail,
so his friends are rallying round to find the degenerate and get him out of the country.
‘What do you think’s going on? Some kind of intrigue’
He got mixed up with the wrong crowd, notably femme fatale Chriseis.
Sex, drugs and a 7 minute psychedelic orgy,
#psychadelic music man#
Naturally leading to satanic sacrifice.
#More psychedelic music with a whacky sax in for good measure#
Incidentally, the orgy scene was crowbarred in later and sets you up for a completely different film.
‘Behave like adults or go home’
As the party hunts for Richard, his sort of fiancée Penelope is followed.
Oh, that’s handy I forgot my knife.
These are locals connected to the dead girl who think, maybe,
the authorities shouldn’t be hustling a suspected murderer out of the country
and going to really baffling lengths to do it,
‘I have placed a helicopter at your disposal’
We don’t do this for all murderers you know.
But there are mitigating circumstances as we learn more about Richard,
‘Theory is that Walter Goodrich caused his impotence’
maybe more than we wanted to know.
‘Richard came to Greece in search of some sort of freedom’
Specifically…
'To seek his manhood.'
'Oh!'
It’s always the last place you look.
They track him to the city of Heedra.
‘Wait a minute, didn’t Hercules sack the city of Hydra’
Bound to be relevant,
‘The hundred headed monster’
The clues are just stacking up,
‘But that’s mythology’
Oh yeah, right.
They find Richard, just in time to stop another ritual.
At first…
‘He’s in a trance’
but he comes out of it.
‘Grant a safe passage to our friends’
Oh great, he went abroad and caught religion.
‘Look out! The eagle!’
What?
‘I found myself speaking in riddles’
Let’s not mix up speaking in riddles with talking total crap.
At this point we stop for an important announcement.
‘I wish I knew what the hell was happening’
It’s not just you.
All I can gather is…
‘I couldn’t… make love to her’
Seems to be a major plot point but as Chriseis returns, it’s not sex she’s after.
The film was also called Bloodsuckers which completely spoils this unexpected reveal.
Very unexpected because we’ve seen Chriseis in sunlight.
‘So much for the legend of Vampirism, Tony’
Expert Edward Woodward has his own theory,
‘For instance, did you know vampirism is a sexual perversion?’
Always comes back to the trousers,
‘The man is impotent’
I wonder if Richard knows how much people talk about this behind his back.
‘Are you trying to tell me that a girl sucking blood from a man’s neck can induce an orgasm?’
'Yes.'
So it’s not supernatural vampirism it’s a fetish,
but not a healthy one, and the cure is to suppress that sexual desire with...
picnics on the college green, sailing, and of course cricket.
Basically the movie’s premise is that the antidote to sexual desire is being English.
‘It’s a funny old world we live in’
Anyway, it doesn’t work as Richard has a meltdown at a college dinner,
'Worst of all there!'
Kills Penelope,
then himself.
There is something potentially interesting in an exploration of psychological vampirism – which is a thing –
but it’s constantly undercut, particularly by the final shot.
This film had a messy production;
I don’t know what’s original and what’s added on but my guess is that it became more supernatural.
‘It was some kind of orgiastic ritual’
but they couldn’t ditch all the other stuff that now seems pretty random.
‘I’m not homosexual you know.’
So we’re left with this confusing mess neither one thing nor the other,
‘You expect us to accept that story’
and riddled with plot holes.
‘It must make some sense’
You’d think.
It’s possible there were some interesting ideas,
‘It’s really metaphorical’
but it’s also possible that neither version was actually any good.
‘Oh stop being such a bloody bully.’
Thanks for watching. To see other Peter Cushing film reviews, click here.
What other potentially interesting films were ruined by studio interference?
Let us know in the comments below.
'I refuse to continue this conversation any further, will you please leave my room.'