Alicia I love this movie so much

TinsHeadline Touches You

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Scott LeBrun "Crucible of Horror" a.k.a. "The Corpse" is a moderately enjoyable, little-seen psychological thriller from Britain. Michael Gough stars as Walter Eastwood, domineering patriarch of a repressed family, and a case study in misogyny. He has little time for his wife (Yvonne Mitchell) and teen aged daughter (Sharon Gurney), and his son (played by Goughs' real-life son Simon) shamelessly sucks up to him. The two females eventually decide that they've lived with his various forms of abuse for far too long, and plot to do him in. They poison him, and make it look like a suicide. Then...when they get back to the family cottage, they find that the corpse has disappeared.Overall, the film is fairly well made by director Viktors Ritelis, who often favours surrealism, close-ups of eyes, and quick cutting. Still, it pales when compared to its obvious inspiration, "Les Diaboliques". It just doesn't have the same amount of style, imagination, or tension. The plodding tale was scripted by actor Olaf Pooley (who also plays the role of the architect Reid), and it's not completely without interest as a look at a dysfunctional upper crust family. It does have an eerie, haunting music score by John Hotchkis going for it, as well as decent use of locations.The acting helps to keep it watchable. Your heart does go out to the sad-eyed Mitchell. Gough Sr. plays this a lot more straight than you would expect him to, in a genre role, and he's excellent. Gough Jr. is okay, but then he doesn't have all that much to work with; his sexy co-star Gurney (soon to be seen in the fantastic Brit horror classic "Deathline") has been his wife in real-life to this day.The ending can be interpreted in more than one way, and it's not going to satisfy all viewers; this viewer has to admit to being somewhat disappointed.Certainly this obscurity is worth a look for the curious; mild doses of nudity and violence add some spice to what is basically a dreary tale.Six out of 10.

VideoXploiter Micheal Gough (Alfred from Batman '89) does a good job at making his character unlikable. You do root for the two damsels as they bungle their way (at first) towards his murder. Speaking of the murder scene, I wasn't sure if this was played for laughs or if the the director was trying to build tension. I suppose it could have been both, in either case I enjoyed the build up. The actress who plays the daughter is very cute. We get some blink-and-you'll miss it nudity from her. The ending was a bit trippy, and felt a bit out of tone with the rest of the film. Overall, it's an enjoyable enough movie to recommend.

BaronBl00d ...oil and water, ice and fire, who knows...Crucible of Horror also known as The Corpse has Michael Gough as a supremely mean, sadistic, patriarchal father who treats the women in his life as servants on his best days and slaves to be beaten when they displeasure him on his bad days. Gough is always good as a hammy performer who doesn't just say his lines but barks them out with precise umph! Whilst I agree with some that Gough seems to have made a mark playing wildly misogynistic men, his performances are always a treat to see for he gets your attention to be sure in just about any film he is the headliner. Crucible of Horror is indeed no exception. Gough plays Walter Eastwood, a wealthy upper-class Englishman with a beautiful wife (Yvonne Mitchell), a son Rupert, and a daughter Jane. Rupert is played by Gough's real-life son Simon and his daughter by Simon's real-life wife Sharon Gurney - okay, that is odd in and of itself. Well, things are bad in the Eastwood home: Mrs. Eastwood spends all her time locked in the room painting bizarre and grizzly caricatures of her husband who she understandably loathes. Jane has taken to petty theft and doing whatever she can to get her father's attention so that he can beat her. What about Rupert? He stays alone in his room with headphones on or visits friends when he can to not see the pain in his home. Mom and daughter cook up a scheme to eliminate Dad and then...well, I could tell you all about it but let's just say things do not remain as they should be. There are shades(very large ones) of Diabolique here. Crucible of Horror has lots of problems, yet Gough is always interesting, the other actors generally good, and the tension runs how early on to end as we see disturbing scenes in what we consider normalcy as well as when things get supernatural on us.

FieCrier This is kind of a remake of Diaboliques. It involves a strict, and in some respects monstrous, man terrorizing two of the women in his life. They resolve to kill him and do, but his body disappears, and then they start getting some clues suggesting he is still alive.Even some details from Diabolique are repeated here. For example, the man (Gough) makes a fuss about his wife having to eat all her dinner, and the women drive home at one point with his body in a large container.Unlike Diaboliques, this is not set at a boarding school, but in a family's home. The home is largely that of a wealthy family, though there are a few odd rooms where the walls are covered with soot, and the things kept in the room are in a jumble. The two women are not the man's wife and mistress, but rather his wife and daughter. Apart from a scene where he squeezes a bicycle seat his daughter had been riding, there's not much of a suggestion of incest.The man is strict, and seems to possibly be obsessive compulsive (there are a number of scenes of vigorous hand-washing). However, he beats his daughter with what looks like a cane or a very stiff riding crop after she is caught having stolen fifty Pounds (this is a British film).There are a number of fairly odd camera angles, though nothing particularly inventive. There is some peculiar editing, some shots that last only a few frames, or some such shots repeating things we've seen already. There are some scenes where there are superimpositions, and also some negative or solarization effects. They are all applied in ways that to my mind were simply awkward and not artistic.The ending differs from Diaboliques and the other remakes of that film. It is not particularly satisfying.