Director: Freddie Francis
Script: Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen
Cast: Jack Palance, Diana Dors, Julie Ege, Judith Evans, Hugh Griffith, Trevor Howard, Suzy Kendall, David Warbeck
Running time: 96 minutes
Year: 1973
Certificate: 15
Based on the 1968 novel, Infernal Idol, by Henry Seymour, Craze was the resultant film adaptation, following producer Cohen’s purchase of the book rights. Herman Cohen then co-wrote the script with his regular collaborator, Aben Kandel, and hired American star, Jack Palance to take the lead. The resulting film has one foot in the Sixties and the other in the Seventies.
Craze sees Palance playing antique dealer, Neil, who has a side-line in being the head of a cult, who worship an ancient African god, Chuku. Neil and his coven of believers regularly meet up in his basement to perform blood dance rituals in front of an unsettling effigy of said god. After one such ceremony, an ex-coven member turns up demanding that Neil return the statue to her as she was the one who originally found it. After a verbal fight turns physical, the woman is pushed into the idol and is impaled on its ceremonial spear. Neil offers up the dead woman as a blood sacrifice to the deity and the next day appears to be rewarded for his offering when he finds some hidden gold coins secreted inside an antique desk. Believing that he’s onto something Neil begins offering other sacrifices to his new master; killing off a couple of younger women and his aging aunt in the process.
However, the ritualistic murders haven’t gone unnoticed and the police begin to suspect that Neil might know more than he’s letting on, and start to have him followed. The film culminates in a violent showdown, in Neil’s basement, between the, by now, crazed cult leader and the cops who, rather unusually for 1970’s British policemen, bring guns with them.
Once thing that cannot be said about Craze is that it’s dull; it’s a rollercoaster ride of an exploitation movie. Right from the opening witchcraft ritual to the crazy axe-swinging finale it’s a wild ride. And, central to everything is Jack Palance’s over-the-top performance, which makes some of Nick Cage’s exaggerated performances seem tame by comparison. However, what really makes the film work is the amazing cast that surrounds Palance, including the likes of Trevor Howard, playing a chief inspector; David Warbeck, playing a normal detective; and Suzy Kendall, playing a dominatrix. In fact, pretty much everyone in the film is a well-known British theatre / film actor, and the film is much richer for their presence, even if many are just present for extended cameos.
While it’s clear that director Freddie Francis was losing interest in directing horror films by this stage in his lengthy career, resulting in a fairly pedestrian feel to how much of the film is shot, there are still enough crazy zoom shots and interesting locations used to keep the production from feeling like a made-for-television film.
Craze might not be one of Britain’s best horror films, but it’s certainly fairly memorable and includes some great supporting roles for the likes of Diana Dors, who always added gravitas, heart and glamour to any film she was in. Plus, there’s a rich vein of black humour running throughout the movie, with some memorable lines, such as – ‘You’re quite the lady killer, aren’t you’ said by one of Neil’s admirers; to which he responds; ‘Well, I do my share’…
88 Films have done a great job on the presentation of the film as it looks good and the sound is very clear too. There are a number of special features on the disc including;
Audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson – A solid commentary track filled with plenty of interesting facts about the film and its makers and cast, such as the fact that Freddie Francis was only announced as the director of the film one week before shooting commenced and that some of the scenes around the town were actually shot on old sets from the musical Oliver.
Crazy Days; the making of Craze (31 mins) – Author Jonathan Rigby talks at length about the original book, and how the film came about, and gives a nice potted history about the film’s notorious producer, Herman Cohen, who’d previously produced Horrors of the Black Museum and I was a Teenage Werewolf.
Vicious Voodoo (21 mins) – Journalist and author Kim Newman talks about the film in detail, in particular about its volatile star, Jack Palance, who apparently everyone was scared of, including the film’s director. Apparently the novel is sleazier than the film.
Original trailer (2 mins) – The trailer pushes the film as being a psychological horror film, which isn’t entirely true.
Freddie Francis trailer reel (52 mins) – Out of the 25 films Freddie Francis directed 88 Films have managed to find 23 trailers and have clearly remastered all of them, as each looks pristine. Sadly, his first two films, namely Two and Two Make Six (1961) and The Brain (1962) don’t have trailers, just posters. This is a stand-out special feature and it’s great to be able to see so many great trailers from an excellent director, all in one place.
