Tubi Thursday: The Crimson Cult (aka The Curse of the Crimson Altar)

 If a Film is historically-notable, does that make it good?

I sure hope so in this case.  This is...

In a Cold Open, this man is surrounded by a bunch of weirdos- including a mostly-topless lady with a whip and a guy holding a goat-, signs a contract and then is branded by them.

Also this random lady dies.  
She's actually too random and disconnected to even count as a Poor Bastard of Cinema!

A man gets a strange letter from his brother, who's been missing for about a week.
Was it that guy in the Intro?

He starts a weird relationship with this lady, where she keeps telling him to 'go to his room' and he keeps trying to get invited into hers.

Ah, '60s...why?

After a good 15 minutes, one of our top-billed Stars appears.  It is Christopher Lee, who has disowned the Film many times and says that he thought that this would be his last chance to work with Boris Karloff.

He was right.

He's a Witch Expert, which explains the tiny Napoleon and Josephine figures...right?

The Town is celebrating the day that they burned a Witch- played by Barbara Steele.

What's really going on?

Another expert- a top billed Karloff in his final British Film- gives them the usual Exposition Dump about the Witch.

He's great, even if he's delivering cliché dialog in a wheelchair.

Weirdly, his appearance is teased in Dialog as the duo joke about the look of the House being 'out of one of those cheesy Horror Films' as they 'expect Boris Karloff to show up any minute.'

Weird choice for a Film that is not remotely-comedic.

As it turns out, you can't trust Christopher Lee in one of those Films.  Shocking- I know.

Also isn't that guy on the left from Undertale?

To find out the mystery, stream the Film now.

It's not bad.  It's not great.

Shockingly, picking Films mostly at random doesn't yield consistently-good or bad results.  I can't believe it!

Crimson has some neat ideas.  It doesn't exactly do much with them, but that's still something.  Like Witchcraft, it just doesn't have much going to to feel original.  Like The Black Sleep, it has some good, name Actors in it with little to do.  Seriously, look who's here...

Barbara Steele
Christopher Lee
Boris Karloff
Michael Gough

There's not much to say here, really.  The Film is fine.  It looks nice in HD.  It has good Acting.  It just doesn't have a really good Twist to justify the pretty-nothing Plot.  The most you get is one guy you think is evil turning out not to be.

At least I got a reminder of the fact that you can't keep a good Alfred down.

A perfectly-watchable Film, but nothing more.  It has so many great Actors...and so little to offer otherwise.