Hello and welcome to Retrospection, the podcast where we take an old film or TV show, I decide if it's an immortal piece of art or should be taken to the beach and stoned mercilessly. Right Ron! Yes, that's what happens to me. It's alright.
My name's Paul and one day I'll show you, I'll show a lot of you, you'll appreciate that one won't you? Yes, I do appreciate that, yeah. Hi, I'm Chelsea and you can't turn me on and off like a damn switch. You know, Colin says the same thing to me all the time, you know, but...
Oh, I can make me sick. I just laughed and laughed about things, it was just so silly. For this episode you probably can tell that we are missing Colin again, it's a nice little break from ease, he's decided to take a trip somewhere, he won't tell me where but he's gone somewhere. So in his place I'd like to welcome back Chelsea Moss.
Hello! Oh, hi! Thank you for having me back. This is your third stint in college, Cheer now.
Are you a sucker for punishment or are you just being coming to us? Yeah, yeah, have a glutton for punishment. Yeah, I mean you, you pay well. I'll give you a paycheck at the end of the month.
Right, well that's noose to me but alright. I wish I got one. I'm still waiting to do this, you know. Oh yeah, it's like Peter Cushing in Markman Wise, you know, you're going to keep pestering me for it but you might have a long way.
Yeah, so thank you for coming back. I hope that the, I'd like to apologise if there's any odd stains on Colin's chair because you know, he's got issues sometimes and so I'm sure you'll come. I didn't notice but I wasn't saying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not to say, it gets embarrassed.
I just want to blank it over it, you know. I always have a thick one. Yeah, he'll hate it. He'll hate it.
So on this episode, there is a reason why you wanted to come back for this episode, we're going to be discussing the film Crucible of Terror from 1971. That's right, starring Ron and Lacey and on Sothe's. And the other was a reason. Yeah.
So IMDB says, an obsessed sculptor kills a young woman to make a perfect sculpture of her years later that he secluded home, a number of people become trapped in a web of revenge, murder and horror. That's pretty much bang on there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that just hits the nail on the head right there.
That's what happens. So do you want to give us the cast list, Chelsea? I certainly will. I certainly will.
We've got Mike Raven, of course, please, Victor Clare. I'm sure we'll discuss Mike Raven at length through this. Absolutely, he is. He is the film, isn't he?
It's his film. Yeah, so he's the obsessed sculptor. Then we've got the two heroes. We've got James Bolham.
Absolutely wonderful. And then Ronald Lacey as well. And so James Bolham is John Davis and he is an art collector. He is, well, we'll find out as we're following in the film, but he basically goes to see Mike Raven's son in the film, play by Ronald Lacey.
Says come on, go up to our little cottage highway there. And that's when all the film starts. Fun. Right.
Absolutely just epic fun. And then we've got other characters. The cast is Mary Mould. She plays Millie.
We've got Betty Alberg, John Arnott. I'll just talk a little bit just a little bit about James Bolham. He and Ronald Lacey were friends in real life. They were very good friends.
And I haven't been in touch with James Bolham yet. I might, you know, it might come up. I might be able to. I'm hoping to.
I don't know how open he is talking to weird people like me. Yeah, but they were friends in real life about telling me that they actually owned a race horse together. Oh, really? They did.
Yes. And I don't really know much more than that. Except it probably didn't do very well. I mean, but they did have a race horse together.
They were both interested in that kind of thing. And yeah, they were sort of very similar in the personalities of very private. You know, they weren't really, you know, shame, hunger, people. And yeah, they were good friends.
James Bolham, we should say he's not familiar with him. He's probably best known for over in the UK for the like, isn't he? Yeah. And I mean, it's just so nice to see them in a film together.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny that Ron is playing, because I'm guessing that they're supposed to be round about the same age, Bolham and Lacey. So yeah. But he's playing Mite Raven's son in it.
And there doesn't seem to be that much of an age gap, really. Does that not enough to be farther in son or that thing? Possibly not. I'm not sure how old Mite Raven was in the film.
Mm-hmm. And I guess Ron did. Oh, he always looked young. He always looked young.
Yeah, he did have one of those faces, didn't he? He's kind of kind of kind of a cheruby, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, he's just kind of always like that.
Yeah. Yeah. But I think Mite Raven just kind of had an old. That's just where he always kind of looked old.
Yeah. He's a strange guy, Mite Raven, wasn't he? I believe so, yeah. He was a pirate radio station DJ for a long time, wasn't he?
Yeah, he's listed as being a DJ. And then he had some interest in the occult, and he wanted to become a horror movie star. And it didn't really work out. I wonder why.
Yeah. Well, it really didn't. I think acting is not one of his major talent. Not at all.
I'm sure there's plenty of scenes in this movie that illustrate that, and I'll talk about it when they come along. He didn't work out to the point where, didn't he? I think he actually financed this film, didn't he? He did.
He did. And what was the other one called that he did that Ron was in? Disciples death. Sounds the world.
That was particularly dreadful. I did agree that that film was destroyed by one critic as incoherent. Yeah, it really is. It's just a complete mess.
That's not something you want to put on the poster, is it? No, I mean, Ron, you know, does his best. He always did in those kind of awful films that he did every night. You know, they all do things now and again, all the actors, they just make absolute turkeys of films.
And that one was particularly bad. And you know, Ron just kind of does it, you know, completely without irony. He just gets on with it. But in this one, it's not too bad.
You've got like, Judy Mathison, and she's just fantastic. She's lovely, lovely lady. And you've got James Boland, and Ronald Lacey. I mean, those two Jews really kind of carry the film.
It's great, you know. It's not too bad. It's just kind of raving himself is just kind of... He's the weakest link.
He is the weakest link and he's not supposed to be. Yeah, but I've got something that I'll talk about at the end. I've got an idea that would have made this film a little bit stronger, I think. But we'll talk about it as we go through.
I was just saying, Judy Mathison, you say that she's lovely. She is. We interviewed a couple of years ago on the podcast. And we had such a good time talking to her.
It was an absolute pleasure. She's got so many stories as well. Yeah, Judy has been an absolute lifeline for me about Ron. And she just says, you know, just like everybody else in New Ron, just nothing but nice things to say about him.
And she said he just... Ron, it just made the whole experience so much fun. Because he just made people laugh all the time. He does look like in this movie that he has enjoyed himself.
But then he kind of looks like that in all the films he's in, doesn't he? Yeah, I mean, he always... He got on with everything. He did it all so well.
And he enjoyed everything he did. And what you said about making movies that are always necessarily going to be great, you know? Yeah, yeah. He was a job in actor, but he's one of those people.
I think it's a famous quote. I can't remember who said it. It might have been Peter Kushner, Christopher Lee, who said that he'd made a lot of bad movies, but he'd never given a bad performance in them. Yeah.
And I think that passed to Ron as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And it just, I mean, like I said, him and James Baldwin were just great in the movie.
Yeah. We should say as well that the film was written by Ted, I think it's Hooker, and Tom Parkinson, and it was directed by Ted Hooker as well. I had a look at his IMDB. He's not done a lot this guy, so...
I can't imagine that anybody... No. No, he hasn't done it. There's not a lot on his CMB there, is there?
No, no, there's not. I've just looked up here. Betty Alberg, she plays Victor's wife, and at Michael's mom, by the ladies' mom in the film. She's not quite a good career.
She was in Coronation Street. Let me see. And she had a fling. She was in...
She was in Chippin' to Play Coronation Street. She played for Laurie Lindley, Coronation Street, from the first episode. Oh, wow. Okay.
And she, her character had a fling with Frank Barlow, who was Ken Barlow's dad in Coronation Street. That's going back some time, isn't it? Yeah, that was one of her big storylines. Yeah, so that lady there with the pig sales, in Crucible of Terra, you just look big, would you?
It's a great performance, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, she's very, very well established. Okay, so let's get into it.
So we open with Mike Raven's character, Victor Claire, and he's kind of making a human sculpture. How do a woman is pouring hot? Is it lead or bronze onto her? It's some kind of something, and that actress is Mimi Lei.
Mimi Lei. Sorry, I don't know how to pronounce that name. And she was a... She was born in Burma in 1952.
Okay. Moved to England and worked as an actress on an off, and she didn't do an off a lot, but yeah, that's her. Well, she gets immortalised in metal in this film. It's kind of a arts and craft for me, a cult ceremony combo going on.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it was well shot. It was quite atmospheric.
It does its job. Yeah, it's quite a shocking start to the film, isn't it? It is. It is.
Yeah, a bit of a hoe. Well, then we go straight to the credits with a good music score by Paris Rutherford. It's kind of of its time this music, you know, it's very hammer-esque, isn't it? Yeah, it's the obvious time, isn't it?
This film is trying to be like a hammer movie, isn't it? Yeah, of course it is. Yeah. And then we see John played by James Bowlin, and he's at an art exhibition, and he's benefactors of the, there are a maricot, the wife's played by Melissa Streepling, who I remember most as Mina in the first hammer Dracula.
She, yep, she was Mina Homewood in Dracula. That was in 1958. Mm-hmm. Yep.
And she plays this character as if she's kind of attracted to John, right? I thought. Yeah, it's a bit flirting. She's a bit flirting.
I mean, you can't blame her. I'm a flirting. Her husband must be about 20 years a senior. Yeah, I think he's the most northern man who's ever lived.
I wrote the exact same thing. Yeah, he's extremely northern, and he's a bit like a dad. I've also missed my dad at first. Yeah, he's kind of like a dad, isn't he?
Yeah. We can say this stuff because we're both northern, but he couldn't be any more northern in the out of cloth gap. I don't know, with it Danny Strauss, is good, I mean, he's... Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. He looked a bit like he had a whippedy dummy trousers. He did a bit. He did a bit, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And taken by a piece of sculpture, which is basically a naked woman casting bronze. And I'm guessing that this is supposed to be the woman that we saw just before being made.
Yeah. The same woman, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
He desperately wants that sculpture. He does, but he doesn't know why. Yeah. He's just...
It's a psychological... Just... Parapsych-archology. What am I trying to say?
He's drawn to it. He's drawn to this sculpture. Yeah, I had a flashback then. You said it like calling at one o'clock in the morning when he's at a few.
Trying to get your words out. Do you like about a few? What's the way I'm trying to say? Um...
Parapsych... Parapsych- Hang on. Is he something... It's like a phenomenon.
It's like... Something. You never can have your back, are you? I don't know either.
He's a Yorkshire, and he gets all northern about it. He gets very northern about it, yes. Yeah, and he gets even more northern when he says you can't have it. He's just...
He's a Yorkshire northern accent that he's doing. I think so. Is it? Because I feel like he's language-er.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm laughing. Uh... But then there's a commotion over in the corner and a drunk knocks over a tray. And it's the artist's son, Michael, and this is Ron, isn't it?
It is. Yeah. Yeah, and he was definitely acting because Ron didn't drink in real life. I think you said on the previous...
When we talked to you on the previous episode... Because he played a lot of roles that were kind of like this, didn't he? And you think that's where all those rumours came from that kind of stuck. It must've.
He was still saying to me now, oh, he was known for... You know, he died young, he abused his body all day. I said, he didn't drink. He's probably new, he knew his friends didn't drink.
He never... he couldn't drink because of his all-tritted colliders. He couldn't do it. But yeah, he plays drunk very well.
I mean, he was good friends with Peter O'Toole and John Thor and Ian Hendry. And I think that's just kind of... He just got sort of cast in with those japs. And then when he died young, it just kind of...
We put two and two together and came out with five. Especially hanging out with people like Ian Hendry and Peter O'Toole. I mean, that's going to... You know, I was mostly self-untied with it, isn't it?
Absolutely. Yeah. And he owned another racehorse with Peter O'Toole, or they wanted to, I believe. Anyway.
Oh, brilliant. I suppose it's a testament to the fact that he was always convincing in the parts that he played that they stuck. But you don't go around calling him a Nazi, do you? You know, that...
And he was very good at raiders. So, you know... He was, yeah, but his face didn't melt off. You know, that was all he had to face.
He didn't drink. None of it's real, it's all fake. None of it's real, yeah. He's just a good actor.
It turns out that the artist Victor, he lives in a secluded... It's a cottage, isn't it? And his son Michael has been providing the pieces of art that John's been putting into this exhibition, but he's been doing it a little bit shadily, hasn't he, guys? Yeah.
Yeah, a little bit, Doctor. I don't think Daddy knew how much he was taking. No. If he knew how much he was taking.
I say, when we do see the cottage, I was not that big a cottage. I did not know that things were going missing. And how was he getting him out? Don't his toes are legs?
What was he doing? Huh? He was a little bit... Yeah.
How did he get that... How did he get that massive sculpture of that woman out of him knowing? Maybe he must have had a shed. He's shed.
On wheels. You've got a shed on wheels. All right. He must have had a little...
I don't know. He must have just put a bit back at car or is that a van or something? I don't know. I just don't know.
This film. Maybe he got a mask to distract him while he did it. Well, yeah, she's very distracted. She is very distracted, yeah.
We'll get to that. Yeah. And Michael has... He's got a difficult relationship with his dad, to say the least.
We've got some Millies. Yes. And she's looking at some clothes in a market store. And she's been stalked by some strange guy that we never see again.
Yeah. It's kind of where she buys the... She buys the Komodo. She does.
But who's this guy that's following that? I... Is it the ghost of the... Go on.
Go on. Oh, yeah. Is it maybe it's just the market store holder? I'm wondering if he's...
Yeah. No, he's definitely not. Maybe it's some sort of psychic phenomenon thing where she then buys the Komodo because of him. Okay.
All right. In the other explanation, really. Because all of a sudden she buys the Komodo after he's been looking at it. And it is the Komodo that the lady that turned...
Got turned into a sculpture was wearing before she got turned into a sculpture, isn't it? Yeah, we believe that it is because that's watching through on the floor. Yeah, sure. Okay.
So John needs to get a hold of more victors out to pay back his benefactors. The Northern fellow and his wife. The Northern fellow and his wife, yeah. Daughters.
And he... Daughters. Why Daughters? He knows.
He knows. He was the 70s. You know. I'm not...
Just yeah. Okay. And he and Michael hatch a plan, don't need to go and see Victor. And they're going to try and offer us to pay for more of his work this time.
And he's not an easy man to get on with. He's not. He's not. He's going to be a little bit nasty.
Yeah. And I've heard that about the actor as well. We'll get to that. Yeah.
Yeah. Michael is reluctant saying that his dad is, he says he's a volatile character. But they got to say him at the remote... They decide that they're going to go and see what the remote family home, that weekend.
And they take Millie, who... I presume it's never really said, but I'm guessing that she's John's girlfriend, isn't she? Yes. I'm just wondering which one is the blonde one.
Is that Jane? That's Jane who's Michael's sister. That's Michael's wife. Michael's wife.
No, I think she's his wife. I think you're right. Yeah. It's all a bit better.
Yeah, you get it. Yeah, no, she's not his sister. No, she's his wife. It's a good thing that she's not his sister, considering I just remembered what Victor tries to do to her later in the film.
Oh, yeah. So, yeah. If that was the book as much, then he would be her dad, and that would just not be right. No, so he's definitely definitely the wife.
So, this is on Raveline, isn't it? Later that night, Northern Manne breaks back into the exhibition, because he's so obsessed with that sculpture. Yeah. As is Northern as I tend to be.
We do. We are. Yeah, we love a sculpture, don't we? You love a good sculpture.
And you love a good theme and you love a good sort of a sculpture. So, next time I'm back in Wigan, I'll be taking that one of... What's his name, George Formby, that's in the town center. That's mine, that's coming out with me.
Yeah. That's your psychology, that's your psychology, that's your phenomenon. That's right. Do you need to use inside that?
Like, in this movie, do you want to use in George Formby's inside that sculpture? You don't know what I'm doing. You don't know. That's all concerned.
I kind of hope that he is, but in another way I hope that he is. I'll let you know when he comes home with me. I'll look into it. Are we going to get it out?
We're out of people seeing it. You have to put it in a van. Well, I'll do whatever Ron did in this movie. Yeah.
Yeah. But we jump up. Yeah. So we...
We had to walk alongside it, you know, in like sort of... I don't know, it's like you sort of... You have to hide it behind you and then just kind of walk with it alongside you. Yeah.
And nobody will know. Well, if I put a big overcoat on you, I could say it's me dad. Yeah. There you go.
He just doesn't say a lot, you know. Yeah, he doesn't say a lot. He looks a bit, you know. Funny colour.
Just on his face. Yeah. He's got a bit green. But, you know.
Yeah, there you go. Oh, yeah. But Northern Manny's murdered. It's a hard track now.
What was that? I think it was a big bit of a sidetrack now. Oh, don't worry. It's part of the course on here, I tell ya.
Yeah. Northern Manny's murdered for his trouble, though, by someone put some plastic bag over his head. Who is that? Who did that?
Why? I'm guessing it's the same guy that we were talking about was following Millie. Millie on the market. Yeah.
With the shades. It's almost like there's some kind of connected tissue between certain things in this film that's not there anymore, isn't it? Yeah. Like, they couldn't afford to film it.
Like, the stuff that they had to lose from the script, that they were up against anymore anymore. But it seemed like the stuff missing, doesn't it? Yeah. I think all the budget went on that first scene with that lovely sculpture of that woman, and then the rest of it was just, you know, lovely.
Well, considering that Mike Raven put most of the budget into it himself, then, you know, which shows. Yeah, I'll find a re-in five in there. Yeah. Yeah.
I should have asked her to do that. We should go pay for this movie, but he's super like to ask about the cash, isn't it? Yeah. So they drive up to the group, drive up to the country to see Victor.
And there's some great Cornish locations in this film. I will say that about it. It looks right. They're a cool stuff.
Look, cold doesn't it? Yeah, there's a lovely scene with the... a lovely scene. There's a great scene with Ron and James Boland just sort of talking.
Is it about some ruins or something? Is it by...? Yeah, near the abandoned Tin Mine, I think it is, isn't it? That's it.
Yeah. And that's a really good scene. I like that one between those two, because they were just fine actors, just a joy to watch. Yeah, absolutely.
Unfortunately, the film then carries on after that scene. There's a few. There's a couple of good scenes in this. We'll talk about it.
I shouldn't bash it too much. It's not that bad. It's not. Put that on the poster.
It's not that bad. It's not that bad. We meet Claire's mother who is played, as you say, she's played magnificently broken, isn't she, by Betty Alberd? She said...
Betty Alberd, yeah? Great performance. She is... yeah, she's convincingly sort of docile, isn't she?
Like, she's sort of... Yeah. Infantised. You know, she's got a little teddy bear, she carries around with Erwin.
If she creates a victim, I've taken it to the table. We do find out later, though, that she's not... as out of it as we think she is, is she? She kind of knows what's going on, doesn't she?
But we'll get... She knows more than she likes that. She does. And I think she's quite friendly with the chap there that lives with them, Victor's friend.
Bill. Bill. Bill. Does he live with them, or does he just drop round all the time?
I think he just popped round occasionally and stokes the furnace for Victor, doesn't he? Occasionally. Yeah. He's got to look after it.
I think we kind of get the impression that those two were in love quite some time ago. Yeah, they had a thing. They had a step in and switched her off with E to... Yeah.
You know, wanting to paint her and all that. But that's later on in the film. Yeah. We also then meet Marcia, played by Judy Mathson, who's modelling for Victor in his studio.
Judy's great in this film because she's so dismissive and aloof of everyone else in it, isn't she? Yeah. She's fabulous. Wonderful screen presence, as always.
You get a sense from her character that she's using everyone here and it's all frightfully amusing to her. You know, they're done after. Yeah, like she's almost as sort of nasty as Victor. Yeah.
In fact, I would say she's nasty on Victor, but again, I've got an idea that I'm going to talk about at the end that I think would have made this film work better, as I said, I'll get to it. It's a less than happy reunion between Michael and Victor. You've got to say. Michael tells John about, as you said, about the scene with the haunted tin mind that's nearby.
And about as he refers to, and this is the lady from the that got turned into the bronze statue. He refers to Victor's Japanese bird. So your Gbler for details. Japanese bird.
Well, they've all got one happening. Yeah. They've all stopped. This is all the Japanese bird.
And apparently the Japanese bird is she's the person that got Victor involved with a kind of a strange, weird occult movement that she went into. Yeah, it's all down to her. She's kind of a vibrate on herself really. I mean, I'm not victim blaming her anything, but you know, she's never thought she was going to be turning to a statue, did she?
Millie goes for a walk and he's frightened by someone throwing stones at her. So much so that she nearly falls off a cliff. That's when James Baldwin kind of says, you know, what's it doing here? You shouldn't be out on your own.
His clips are very high. Because women in the 70s couldn't look after themselves. No, not at all. No, I'll say you're sweetie.
Yeah. Yeah. The became statues bringing it on themselves or they fell off cliffs. You know what she needed?
She needed a good northern man. Like that other guy. You just sort of dragged her out. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Um, who was coming to stones by the way? I don't know.
The man in the shades. He said it. It could have been, it could have been, it could have been, is it Marzia or Masha? Marzia, it could have been Marzia, couldn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. It could be her because she seems to like throwing stones. She seems to.
Yeah. Although, she's not wearing good at it. But I think she would be the first to admit that she's not wearing good at it, wouldn't she? She said that she, she said she laughs at that scene so much as how bad her throw is.
Yeah. I don't know who was throwing the stones at Ron, but it wasn't her. Yeah. It works when you cut it together though, doesn't it?
Yeah. Very, very clever at editing, especially for back then. Yeah. Um, and then we get another, another good scene.
It's the dinner scene. Oh, well. We meet, um, Kenneth Kean playing Bill, who's, have we say he's Victor's friend. And, um, there's a great sense in this, isn't it?
That everybody in this house is a bit sort of off-center and a bit, a bit strange. And there's a fake pleasantness to everything, isn't there? There's a lot of tension brewing. There is a lot of tension.
A mercy just sits at the table in a robe. And she's not pretending to be nice to anybody though, is she? No. It's almost like, you know, it's almost like she's kind of moved it.
You know, she's, yeah, yeah, she's sort of his girlfriend, I would say Victor's girlfriend, not just a model. Yeah. But the look on her face, she's watching everyone else. She's just like, you're all utter just beneath me, aren't they?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's on the arm of this wonderful sculptor who's, you know, quite possibly a psychopath, you know.
And yeah, she just looks so amused about everything. Victor's just passively aggressively insulting everybody, isn't he? Yeah. He does.
Great pleasure. Lovely to see you all. But I hate you all. Get out.
So, no, we've got this first proper scene with Mike Raven. I suppose it's as good a time as any. Um, we don't rate him much, do we? I'm getting that vibe from you.
And I think I'm giving that vibe off. I don't know a lot about the man, except sort of negative things. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
He wasn't particularly pleasant or easy going, like, easy to be around. He wasn't very easy to work with. Mm-hmm. I believe he was very sort of insufferable.
Was the word used. He does come across that way, yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And just from his performance in this movie, as we said, he's definitely the weakest link, which is a disadvantage for your main villain in a movie, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, because you kind of need it to work. And it ain't working.
It sounds like he's reading his lines for the first time. Like, he's not actually read the script before. There's no gravitas to anything that he says or does, isn't it? It might, I think the script might just be on like a little piece of paper next to the camera.
And he was just kind of like, also cute, but not any autocutist. You know, and he just stuck to things. Yeah, little notes stuck to things. Yeah.
The back of other actors' heads and things like that. When he tries to do something like with a bit of blue tack. Yeah. A bit of blue tack.
It's just kind of a thing. Yeah. When he tries to do something a bit weighty as well, I find it all a bit comical because he's not got a voice that works. He doesn't know.
Because the worst-speaking voice of any man in film. It's not great. It's not great. Yeah.
It just sounds like there's a few cotton balls that the back of his throat. It just doesn't work. It does. I think he thinks of himself.
I get the feeling of the thought of himself as another Christopher Lee. Oh, definitely. You definitely get that thought from him, don't you? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, he wasn't even Christopher Higgins. No. No.
Just does not. It just doesn't work. Christopher Higgins in this role would have been great. That would have been actually pretty marvellous.
Yeah. I believe he's just as insufferable as well. Oh, he's in. Oh.
I've got the contact of Christopher Higgins. I know he was in Paris with Ron, but I've just skipped that one. I'm bothering. Okay.
All right. Yeah. So, Christopher Lee, he is not. And Christopher Lee would have been so great in this film.
Oh, yeah. Could have left everything as it was, and it would have played out beautifully with Christopher Lee in it. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But because we asked that with Mike Raven, this is where I think I'm going to talk about. I think the thing that could have fixed this film is to spin the relationship on the head between Victor and Marcia's character. Marcia's, she should have been a villain in this movie, I think.
There should have been a twist that it wasn't, because you don't see who's making the sculpture in the beginning. You don't see who's killing people or any of that, do you? And another twist layer is that it's not even Mike Raven, Mike Raven's character did the sculpture, but it's not Mike Raven that's doing the killing. You could have kept that the same.
Keep the main person doing, so you make the person making the sculptures Marcia, not Mike Raven's character, but you make the audience think it's Mike Raven's character. You keep the same outcome, it's still going to be how it turns out that who is doing the killing. Yeah. The Camonal.
Yeah. The Camonal. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's Marcia that ends up getting killed by the possessed person at the end of the movie instead of Mike Raven. Marcia is the one who actually killed the other people. No, no. You can leave everything as it is.
Okay. Just make it that make you think that it's Victor that's doing the sculpting, but it isn't Victor that's been doing the human sculpting. It's Marcia, because Marcia is really, she's really the villain of the movie, and Mike Raven's character is just a bit of a red heron. That would have worked, I think.
Yeah. You could have kept everything else the same, but just changed those. That would be a definite, it's sort of like, I think we're in an age of twist, start with that kind of, when I start to watch a film or something like a horror or something, you always think, okay, what's the twist? Yeah, definitely.
Is it her? Is it them really? Are the old ghosts? Are they all, are they all in statues?
Are they all in statues? Are they all being made into statues? You know, what is the twist? Yeah, so...
Then you've got two twists, and if you did it that way, you've got the twist that it's not Mike Raven that's been doing the sculpting, it's Marcia. And then you've also got the twist that we still have with the possession of the other girl, and she's the one that's been taking revenge. Yes, because that did, I mean, I watched the film, and I honestly had no clue who was doing the killing. Yeah, I'd forgotten, to be honest with you, until it happened.