Historically significant in its own small way as the last movie Vincent Price made for AIP - although this is really more of an Amicus movie (it was shot in England with Amicus producing and AIP providing the finance). It was not a success at the box office and helped end the second horror cycle.
Price plays a fading horror star whose career was hurt by a scandal and who comes to England to make a TV series. A woman turns up murdered and fingers point at him - then there are more murders, committed by the character Price plays.
This doesn't have much of a reputation but I quite enjoyed it. Vincent Price did seem to suit the 60s more than the 70s (something about the colour stock; that decade was more expressionistic, which suited his acting more) but he's always fun, and as an extra bonus he gets several scenes with Peter Cushing, as a fellow actor. Plus there's footage of old AIP Price films, such as The Pit and the Pendulum and The House of Usher - including cameos from dead Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff - and Vincent warbling on the soundtrack.
There's also some grisly murders; Robert Quarry having fun as a sleazy producer; Hammer starlet Linda Haden as an opportunistic starlet turned victim (there's a scene where she tries to seduce Price in bed - was this the first such scene anyone played with Price?); Adrienne Corri is fantastic as a crazy actress living in a house of spiders; Natasha Pyne likeable as a nice PR person (her death made me a bit sad - it wasn't necessary, surely?); Michael Parkinson appears as himself.
No classic, not by any means, and I may have been unduly influenced by sentiment and horror movie in jokes but I enjoyed it.
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