A Disk Jockey Tries To Become A Horror Movie Icon In Cornwall Double Feature:
Crucible of Terror (1971)
Not to be confused with Crucible of Horror, released the same year, which has a completely different plot. This one features Mike Raven (former DJ who had supporting roles in Lust For a Vampire and I, Monster) as an artist who starts the film by covering a naked, unconscious woman with some kind of goo and then pouring molten metal into it through a hole over her eye (I think) thus rendering her a statue. Cut to the statue on display in a gallery.
It seems the artist's estranged son stole it, and some paintings, and gave it to his buddy's art gallery to get some cash and to punish his father for turning his mother into a woman with the mind of a child, carrying a doll or stuffed animal throughout the film. Rich guy becomes obsessed with the statue, even breaking into the gallery at night, which only gets him killed by our movie's giallo-like unseen murderer.
Anyway, the son, his wife, his buddy, and his wife head out to the artist's remote home in Cornwall, near an abandoned tin mine. (Nice scenery to look at, anyway.) Also in residence in the artist's current model/mistress. Son's wife gets killed first, then son, then model. While buddy is away trying to raise money to buy the artist's works, his wife nearly falls into the artist's clutches. Then we get our Shocking Twist Ending, which ties together the woman in the statue, the wife's feeling that she's been here before, and, believe it or not, a kimono.
Less coherent than I've made it sound.
Disciple of Death (1972)
Set in Cornwall in about 1800 or so, I guess, although the scenery isn't as nice in this one. A pair of young sweethearts pledge their love by cutting themselves and mixing their blood. A drop of blood falls on the grave of a suicide and disappears. Next thing you know, Mike Raven shows up and folks get killed. It seems he kidnaps young women and offers them the choice of 1. Being killed and joining him in eternity or 2. Being killed and becoming his undead slave. For some reason they go with 2, although 1 would end things. He cuts out their hearts and squeezes the blood into a chalice and drinks it, so sort of a vampire, I guess. (A gory but fake-looking scene.) The undead slaves are covered with dead white makeup, red makeup around their eyes, wear long white flowing gowns, and have long hair, usually black. It's like a convention of Theda Bara wannabes.
The local parson (Hey! It's the Nazi who got his face melted in Raiders of the Lost Ark, who also played the son in Crucible of Terror) joins forces with the boyfriend of one of the kidnapped women (they were the couple we saw at the start) and a Jewish cabalist (who really chews the scenery, speaking in Yiddish slang and offering them "kosher magic") to fight the bad guy, who has conjured up a fanged dwarf who fights them with black magic.
Goofier and more amateurish than the first film, although neither one is a good movie.
) are detailed in his diary, read immediately after his funeral. Thus, the bulk of the story is told in flashback. While visiting a condemned man, who committed murders under the Horla's influence, Cordier himself becomes possessed by the Horla; which, then begins to manipulate him, as it did the 1st guy. Cordier finds himself under too much stress, and goes to an Alienist (shrink?) for help. he is advised to resume his hobby of sculpting. While this does give him some relief, the Horla wants him to kill the woman who had been posing for him.
