VividSimon Simply Perfect

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

adriangr This is a very poor attempt at a horror thriller in the "golem" genre. The story is wafer thin, the script and character development is dire and the special effects are certainly not special. There are so many disappointing things in the film, you'll feel completely unsatisfied at the conclusion of it - that's if you've lasted that long Where to begin...? Well, plot wise, a fire at a warehouse reveals a previously hidden statue that is promptly put on display in a museum by assistant curator Arthur Pimm (Roddy McDowell). Pimm is a twitchy, suspicious man who lives alone - except for the corpse of his dead mother, dressed up in gown and wig and propped up in a chair! Right from the start you need to know that this element of the plot is one of the most throwaway aspects of the whole story - there is no explanation or background on this, it's just there. Presumably it is just to re-enforce the idea that Pimm is a bit crazy, but they really could have explained it.Right from the start, Pimm starts to wonder about the statue, especially as it seems responsible for a death in the first few minutes of the film. More deaths occur (not very dramatic ones), and Pimm starts to uncover the truth about the statue - that it is in fact a Golem which can be brought to life and controlled. Pimm is an unhappy man with a crush on a pretty museum worker, who dumps him for an altogether more macho American museum curator...I'm sure you can guess what happens next.Well what happens is, a pretty shabby attempt at a "golem on the rampage" film. The film barely shows anything of the creature coming to life. The statue isn't bad, it's actually very ugly and quite creepy, but apart from moving it's arms and walking about slowly, very little mayhem is ever seen on camera. This is a huge fault of the film as a whole, it takes the cheapest way out of every big scene by cutting away from every major event. The golem destroys a bridge...we see it walk under the bridge...raise it's arms in close up and rattle some rubber girders...cut to Pimm and policeman looking shocked...cut back to a PAINTING of a collapsed bridge (the worst effect in the entire movie). The golem springs Pimm from a police hospital. We see...the golem bash down one fake brick wall (from the inside, we don't see stone arm actually hit brickwork on the exterior shot). The hospital is deserted...Pimm and the golem just stroll away through the fresh hole. Oh yes and the golem also kills people...all we see is Pimm (usually) looking shocked while the murder takes place off screen.The worst part of the film is the climax (I guess the spoilers start here...), which sees Pimm and his golem blockaded in a country house. The set-up for this is hilarious, two detectives talk to someone on the phone and then say to each other "It's Pimm! He's got the golem, he's kidnapped the girl, stolen his mother's corpse from the mortuary (which makes the fact that he's had her corpse in his house all this time a total lie), and stolen a hearse!" All of which sounds very exciting, but all sadly not shown on screen. Pimm makes off for a huge remote house with this posse, which is inhabited by one single elderly lady museum worker. Soon they are all trapped inside the house. But why? What is Pimm's great plan? Well, there isn't one, expect to stop anyone coming in. In the daftest scene of the whole film, Pimm sends the golem to defend the front gates of the estate. The army send in guns, big guns, bigger guns and a nuclear warhead (!) to get past the golem. Yet the grounds of the house are massive, all the golem is doing is standing at one gate. What's to stop someone going round the back??? The golem can't move any faster than a snail, yet all they do is point guns at it from behind sandbags and then complain that it's still standing!.Finally, the nuclear bomb goes off (cue stock footage mushroom cloud), and the country house is destroyed - off camera. Who survives? Watch and find out if you can be bothered. It's all totally lame and boring. Roddy McDowell acts over the top for too much of the time, shrieking insanely at a nightmare in which he sees a naked Jill Haworth turn into his dead mother, talking to himself, miming actions to show the audience what he his thinking (terrible direction here, getting him to flap his arms stupidly about to represent him thinking about how the golem's arms have changed position when no-one was looking). The character of Pimm seems to have no motivation. Sometimes he wants to steal jewelry for his mother, sometimes he wants to get promoted, sometimes he wants the girl, sometimes he wants to get rid of the girl, sometimes he wants to get rid of the golem. I guess that's crazy for you, but I got very lost and a film needs to give it's audience something to hang on to! I got the DVD of this to satisfy my curiosity...it wasn't worth it.

Paul Andrews It! is set during the 60's in London where a large fire has destroyed a warehouse, museum curator Harold Clark (Ernest Clark) is called to see if he can salvage anything so he & his assistant Arthur Pimm (Roddy McDowall) take a look through the burnt out ruins. Amazingly the only think worth saving is a seemingly perfectly preserved sixteenth century Czech carving of a large man, Grove mysteriously dies in the ruins & the statue is taken back to the museum where it is put on display. Then an electrician also dies near the statue as it suddenly falls on top of him, Pimm is sure that the statue has something to do with the death's & when American expert Jim Perkins (Paul Maxwell) says he thinks it's an authentic Golem his suspicions are confirmed. Pimm discovers the secret behind bringing the Golem to life in order to do his bidding but the power soon goes to Pimm's head...This American British co-production was written, produced & directed by Herbert J. Leder & is a rather odd little film that I imagine many won't have even heard of let alone seen. I am not quite sure what the makers of It! were thinking but the overall message seems to be that absolute power corrupts although in the case of Pimm who just happens to stumble on an infinitely powerful Golem he's more than a bit mad to start with as he steals jewels from his museum to give to his dead mummified mother whom he keeps at home. Yeah, there's a definite Norman Bates from Psycho (196) vibe going on here even to the extent Pimm steals his mothers corpse back at the end. The story starts off alright with this living Golem thing but then is looses it's way as Pimm who finds a way to control the Golem uses it's infinite power to try & impress a bit of skirt, yeah sure the blonde chick is sort of cute but she's just a bird & if I had infinite power in my grasp I can think of better ways to use it other than to try & get inside some girls panties. At almost 100 minutes it's a bit too long with a laughable ending in which this slow lumbering Golem manages to keep the entire British army out of a fenced castle where Pimm is holded up, can't they just go round the back or something? So while It! has a message & is watchable for what it is it's a little bit too odd to appeal to the masses & a really prolonged silly climax spoils a fairly decent build-up.It! does look very much like a Hammer horror production from the period with lavish sets, costumes & nice colour photography & the Golem itself does look quite imposing & creepy at times to start with but once it comes alive & starts walking around it looks a lot sillier. There's no real violence or gore & little actual horror either as the film focuses on it's moral message about the corrupting influence of power. There's a poor sequence trying to show the destruction of Hammersmith bridge & the dropping of a nuclear warhead which date the film badly & are also sloppily edited. At one point Pimm is given a 3 pound a week rise which at first I thought was rather low but then realised that I have never even had a pay-rise that much even more than forty years after this was made.Filmed in the UK this has nice enough production values although it's maybe not quite as good as the best hammer films from the period. The late veteran actor Roddy McDowall gives an suitably unbalanced performance while Jill Hayworth ably provides the glamour.It! is a strange film that is hard to categorise & as such maybe it's worth a watch if your after something a bit different but the ridiculous climax & an overall lack of something stops It! from being a forgotten gem, more of a misplaced piece of costume jewellery.

Greg Surman I saw this film in the theater when It came out when I was 11 years old. I'm surprised how much I remember of It after viewing It over 40 years later. The basic premise is if a Norman Bates type character(Roddy Mcdowall) had a Golem to do his bidding. It scared me in 1966 and its great fun to see again. The Golem reminds me of the tree creature in "From Hell It Came", great Saturday matinée movie fun. Roddy McDowall is always fun to watch and would have made a passable Norman Bates. His character in It, Arthur Pimm , Is sometimes crazed, sometimes remorseful, sometimes sad and definitely quite madly insane. The writer/director was also responsible for penning the "Fiend Without A Face", which still holds up as one of the most frightening movies of the 50's.

Woodyanders Deranged mama's boy assistant museum curator Arthur Primm (delightfully played to the sniveling wimpy hilt by Roddy McDowall) brings a deadly and grotesquely ugly golem statue to life so he can bump off his enemies. Unfortunately, the power of the golem gets out of hand and poor Arthur finds himself in a huge mess of trouble. Writer/director Herbert J. Leder treats the potentially silly premise with admirable seriousness, maintains a steady pace throughout, and relates a relevant and provocative central message on how power can corrupt and destroy the human soul. This film further benefits from solid and sincere acting from a sturdy cast: McDowall in particular shines as the wimpy and weaselly Arthur (having him live with the skeletal remains of his mother's corpse is an especially nice macabre touch), plus there are fine supporting turns by the gorgeous Jill Haworth as the fetching Ellen Grove, Paul Maxwell as affable visiting American history expert Jim Perkins, Aubrey Richards as the stern, fussy Professor Weal, Noel Trevarthen as the meddlesome Inspector White, and Richard Goolden as a wise old rabbi. The golem makes for a very cool and original indestructible monster. Both Davis Boulton's crisp cinematography and Carlo Martelli's roaring, dramatic score are up to par. Moreover, the movie offers a few inspired moments of wickedly black humor and concludes on a properly gloomy note. A nifty fright flick.