Skip to main content

Crucible of Horror (The Corpse) 1970

If you've been thinking to yourself, "I wish Diabolique had more incest, more dream-like acid montages, and more campiness" then I've found the movie your'e looking for: Crucible of Horror. NOT to be confused with Crucible of Terror - of course.

The short version

A terrible man (played by Michael Gough) does terrible things to his wife and daughter. They reach their breaking point and conspire to murder him. Turns out, he's not so easy to murder.

On the surface - this movie seems like a cheap rip-off of better movies; a simple, throw away flick that is rightfully forgotten. But then again, it may be dismissive to simply call this movie a piece of poorly made crap.

One could read this movie as a shitty version of Diabolique: a conspiratory mind-fuck in which an enemy appears to become a friend but is really setting you up to be killed yourself. When Gough appears at the end of the movie, alive and well, his son seemingly unaware of all the previous dealings, you're left to wonder if perhaps his son was in on the whole damn thing from the beginning. The message here? Trust no one.

Perhaps it's really a Tales From the Crypt type story: they really did kill him but, he's such an angry, horrible man that he comes back from the dead to continue tormenting his wife and daughter. The message here? The evil men do lives after them - or some version of that.

Or maybe the entire movie has been a fantasy: a desperate shared dream of getting revenge on your tormentor. Perhaps it's even the inspiration for American Psycho. The message here? Patrick Bateman was right;
"There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing."
Maybe it's more like Lost: these folks are all dead and they're in some sort of purgatory - or even just Hell - where anything can appear to happen but nothing actually changes. The message here? The afterlife ain't much better than this life.

The message here? Anyone can read anything into any movie, given the opportunity.

No trailer for this gem but, you can watch the entire movie right here.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Witch (2015)

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually...

Mother!

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system  so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right  or only fair  to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th...

The Babadook

Spoilers and typos! Enjoy. We often look back nostalgically on childhood, envious of the joy we felt and the boundless imaginations we possessed. How conveniently we forget the other side of that coin: as children, we experience a depth of terror our adult selves continually try to recreate for cathartic entertainment. When we try to bring those childhood fears to life on the screen, we often end up with movies about "things that go bump in the night," which is a somewhat superficial approach. While it does provide an opportunity for a supernatural experience, it ignores the root of our fear: the unknown . As children, we lack life experience. We lack nuance. We lack understanding. Not knowing creates in us fear. Yes, we fear what lurks in the darkness but we also fear the adult world because we do not understand how it works. The Babadook works to exploit both  those fears. The short story: a widowed mother of a young boy experiences a mental breakdown and tries to...