"The Evil of Frankenstein" allowed Hammer to adapt Jack Pierce's classic monster make up for this film when Universal agreed to finance it. Cushing plays the doctor once again. It's one of the lesser Frankenstein films and the only one featuring Cushing not directed by Terry Fisher. While it isn't the best of the Frankenstein films, Freddie Francis (cinematography on one of my favorite classic horror films "The Innocents" and other films such as "The Elephant Man".
Mysterious puzzle of who or what is behind a young girl, having just returned from a boarding school in the English countryside, becoming increasingly paranoid and psychotic. The girl witnessed her mother killing her father years ago and has nightmares of the event. She believes that she has the same mania and starts seeing her mother, other apparitions, and various things connected with the event that happened on her birthday so long ago. She is heir to the house, but her uncle manages her estate.
"Paranoic" features Oliver Reed in a clever thriller with as many plot twists as "Psycho". Featuring a script by Jimmy Sangster and sharp direction by Freddie Francis, it's a memorable thriller but derivative thriller. It doesn't measure up to Hitchcock's classic but has a number of marvelous sequences in it and a great performance by Oliver Reed. A very nice transfer with rich blacks, "Paranoic" and "Nightmare" (another Jimmy Sangster "Psycho" knock off of sorts) both look positively beautiful in this presentation.
A village trembles in fear. A priest forsakes his vows in the service of evil. Young beauties fall victim to a mysterious seducer. And each night brings the threat of death. Because Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. In his third incarnation as Bram Stoker's infamous vampire, horror great and 55-year movie veteran Christopher Lee goes fang to cross with the forces of good in this atmospheric Hammer Studios film directed with stylish menace by two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis.
