(1970)
Dir - Robert Hartford-Davis
Overall: MEH
Incense for the Damned, (also released as Bloodsuckers, Freedom Seeker, and Doctors Wear Scarlet), is a mess of a film, one that ran out of money midway through and had to resume shooting at a later date with a new director, new actors, and new scenes to accommodate the situation. It certainly shows as it becomes very clear just where the production had to change the entire movie they were making. The primary chunk of it takes place in Greece and follows a single, linear thread, but then the film appears to end about thirty minutes early and the last act seems awkwardly tagged on since that was exactly what it was. Peter Cushing is wasted, only appearing in a single scene at the beginning and then again later on in a far more perplexing fashion. The entire script never explains itself properly and gets more haphazardly handled as it goes on. There is some dated, trippy orgy scenes near the beginning and a couple rather lame action moments, but the rest of the movie goes virtually nowhere and just features people talking, talking some more, talking some more after than, and then occasionally behaving irrationally towards each other while still talking a lot.
(1972)
Dir - Pete Walker
Overall: MEH
Though Pete Walker had directed the thriller Die Screaming, Marianne the year before, The Flesh and Blood Show can more properly be seen as his first bona fide horror film. There is plenty of nudity right out of the gate to fit the sexploitation label appropriately and the script by Alfred Shaughnessy establishes to a tee the "old crazy people vs. the attractive youth of England" motif that Walker would routinely use. The plot is void of the director's typical, tongue-in-cheek morality themes though and instead it is just a straight slasher outing where someone is picking off young, good looking people while we are just waiting to find out who it is. While it occasionally seems that Walker is giving us red herrings as one is supposed to do with this type of fare, he does not play that angle enough and because of this, the mystery is resolved very predictably as well as unsatisfyingly. Up until the final reveal, (which was initially presented in 3-D in theaters), it is just a bunch of naked boobs and people getting scared really. Walker would do far better and interesting work with these themes over his next several movies, but for completists, it is worth a look.
(1977)
Dir - Robert Fuest/Alvin Rakoff/Don Thompson
Overall: WOOF
Most horror anthologies, (particularly ones produced in England in the 1970s), were not only comprehensively solid but more often than not they represented some of the finest cinematic horror ever seen, with Amicus' marvelous series of films particularly coming to mind. Three Dangerous Ladies on the other hand, bletch. Each segment was originally part of a 1975 UK television program called Classics Dark and Dangerous that ultimately proved short-lived for reasons that become apparent upon viewing the collection put together here. Even with some solid talent on hand such as actors Keir Dullea, (2001: A Space Odyssey), Charles Gray, (The Devil Rides Out, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Glynis Johns, (Vault of Horror), John Hurt, and Dr. Phibes director Robert Fuest, the best Three Ladies can muster is in its first story "Mrs. Amworth" which is just a thoroughly unmemorable, poorly written vampire yarn. The two that follow it are aggressively worse. "The Island" is enormously boring and has a underwhelming, head-scratchingly stupid ending while "The Mannikin" has some truly awful, awful music, confused editing, and a surprisingly terrible performance from Nashville's Ronee Blakley.
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