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7/10
Was great until the ending
jbar1917 July 2010
I was loving this movie until the ending.

Roger Corman the famous movie director plays Dr. Gorman who has trapped 2 film students in a series of dangerous situations based on horror films throughout the ages.

The 2 students are told they must look through a film library to find a movie called 'The Phantom Eye'. The students, a nebbish boy and a hot little blonde girl, are separated and put into scenes from classic horror movies. They have to use their knowledge of the movies to escape.

This was hysterical. There were tons of references to well known movies like 'The Atomic Submarine', 'Day of the Triffids' and even some sly references to movies made by Roger Corman. (Corman yells "Hey, today Little Shop of Horrors is considered a classic!") The writing was superb, crackling with wit and an impressive knowledge of the movies it pokes fun of. I was really having fun with this one. Plus, the girl was adorable.

Then the ending. Boom. It tried to be edgy and semi scary but instead fell flat. Pity. I would have given this an 8.5 or a 9 up until the ending. Still, I give it a 7 just because it is a fun ride for most of the flick.
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8/10
Lucky for me I LIKE Dr. Phibes!
hoversj16 May 2004
Warning: Spoilers
I am one of the select few people who ever saw this movie in its entirety. From what I recall, this was actually made for AMC (I'm pretty sure it was AMC) as a series of vignettes which would run in pieces between the various movies they showed throughout the month of October. To my knowledge, it never ran in one entire piece - except once.

I happened to be up at 2 or 3 in the morning, finishing some Halloween costumes, and was looking for something to watch - the TV Guide channel said that "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" would be on AMC, so I flipped over there. By the time I realized the listing was wrong and this was something else entirely, I was hooked!!!

The Plot: 2 interns at AMC, Catherine and Joey, have been sent down to the vaults to help Dr. Goreman (played by Roger Corman) pick out the movies for the Halloween season. Instead, the crazed Doctor sends them into one old film after another (WONDERFUL parodies of classic horror!!!), advising them to use their knowledge of bad horror movie clichés to survive and escape.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS...

An example of using the clichés is when Catherine, in a "Horror of Party Beach/Creature from the Black Lagoon" spoof, hears the monster following her as she walks down the beach at night. She reasons thusly "In these movies, the creature NEVER attacks until the girl turns around and looks. So I won't look!" and she goes miles and miles, the creature always ten steps behind, and makes it to safety.

My very favorite scene is another one with Catherine, where she is put into an old silent film - she's manacled to a wall, with a fiendish looking fellow menacing her with a branding iron. His subtitle card comes up saying "I will mar your beauty if you don't give into my foul wishes" (OK, so I'm paraphrasing - I only saw this once, a it was a long time ago!!) All you see from her is a vigorous nod "OK". He looks surprised, but puts away the branding iron and unchains her. Then she knees him in the groin and starts jumping up and down, ranting. When her speech card comes up, it is so full of words you can't get through it all, but it basically is a diatribe about the portrayal of women in horror films, and the evils of mixing sex and violence in such a way, etc.

I nearly died laughing.

The only thing I hate about this film? IT'S NOT AVAILABLE ON VIDEO!!!!!! arrggghhhh!!!!!
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8/10
I found this very comedic
ab-29 December 1999
Believe it or not, I actually found this more funny than horror. The movie is about Dr. Gorman who is Roger Corman of course trapping 2 film student interns in AMC's horror movie library. They have find the movie "The Phantom Eye" by midnight and if they don't they die. They have to go through doors that lead to different kinds of movies like there is one door that leads to the House Of Usher. The only way they can get out is by escaping the bad guy. Overall excellent!
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the master is at it again
stimpy-1314 January 2000
i was expecting it to be an overall special but i loved it. i loved how they put some of corman's movies into it and i don't really know his films but if you seen all his early works you'll gonna love it too. i love how the point of the story is they are fighting to stay alive.....
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