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Land Of The Minotaur
[Deimos]
1977; color
Directed by Costas Karagiannis
Starring: Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence & Luan Peters
Terror
[Deimos]
1979; color
Directed by Norman J. Warren
Starring: John Nolan, James Aubrey & Michael Craze
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Another entry in Crypt Of Terror's ongoing horror double feature series brings us two films that, aside from being made in the late '70s, have absolutely nothing in common. First up is Land Of The Minotaur, a fairly ridiculous devil worship flick shot in Greece. Despite the presence of Donald Pleasance in the starring role as an Irish priest trying to get to the evil he senses is at the root of a string of disappearances of 20-somethings, and Peter Cushing as the leader of the satanic Minotaur worshipping cult, Land Of The Minotaur makes Satan's Cheerleaders and The Devil's Rain seem Oscar-worthy by comparison. Cushing, moreso than Pleasance, carries the movie, which is interesting because Pleasance has much more screen time. As the wealthy, evil Baron-by-day and wealthy, evil cult-leader-by-night, Cushing is clearly the person everyone pays the most attention to in every scene he's in. (Personally, I prefer him in the bad guy roles like Victor Frankenstein rather than do-gooders like Prof. Van Helsing.) As mentioned earlier, Pleasance is a local priest who's become concerned with the disappearances of young tourists and students in the area, and the subsequent lack of concern by the police. He's so sure something evil is going on that he enlists the help of an old student of his who happens to be a private detective in Manhattan. The fella flies over to help Pleasance and the two of them locate an ancient underground temple which has a giant Minotaur statue that shoots flames from it's nostrils. The temple is old hat to the viewing audience however, because it's been the scene of a few sacrifices we've already seen. As it plays out, the whole town is involved (that's the way it always works out in these small towns, everyone's got a thing for Satan) and they're all in some kind of trance when they're doing the Minotaur's bidding. Just as the final couple is about to be sacrificed, Pleasance and the PI burst in to save the day. Actually, only Pleasance does anything effective, holding Cushing at bay with a cross while his friend is restrained by two goons. Then he tosses some holy water on the Minotaur statue and it, along with Cushing and everyone in the cult, explodes. (Except for the children, whose innocence apparently protects them.) An interesting side note: the score is entirely by Brian Eno, not someone you'd normally associate with horror but he does a pretty good job setting the mood.
Terror, the second feature, fares slightly better… but not by much. The film revisits the old witch's-curse-on-future-generations plot but at least it tries to do some new things with it. A film producer / studio owner screens his latest flick to a group of friends and the cast in his home, which features your basic medieval witch storyline with a witch-burning and subsequent curse throw down. When the lights come up and everyone's chatting, the producer alludes to the fact that his family really did hunt down and burn a witch, and that the plot is essentially a true story. Then, as one couple put on a bogus hypnosis act, a young woman who's a cousin of the producer falls into a weird trance, tries to hack his arm off with a sword and then runs off into the night. A little later, the girl who faked being hypnotized starts to walk home and is suddenly blown to the ground by a powerful gust of wind. As she stands up an unseen attacker lunges at her with a knife. She runs through the woods, hides in a shed for a bit, and when she thinks the coast is clear goes back outside. She starts to walk to the lights of a nearby highway, only to be attacked again and killed. Some time later, her partner in the hypno stunt is driving down the road and finds her quite dead, pinned to a tree with a knife through her throat. (Laughably, the actress can be seen CLEARLY BREATHING in the shot - particularly in the close-up.) The producer gets freaked out as more crazy deaths start to happen, including in a spectacular, and unintentionally hilarious, sequence where his partner gets attacked by the studio itself. (The props and cans of film try to do him in.) Eventually he tumbles down a flight of stairs and gets killed by a pane of glass through the neck. (For some unexplained reason, the witch's curse involves not only the producer's family, but anyone who was at the house the night it was screened.) Finally, only the producer and his cousin, AKA the girl who tried to hack his arm off, are left. She's been walking around thinking she herself might be the killer and decides to go back to her cousin's house. On the way she almost gets killed by a flying car in the woods. (Don't ask.) When she gets there, she breaks in, flips out, grabs a battle axe and starts swinging wildly. Her cousin, who is upstairs, hears all the destruction and goes down to check it out; he makes a bit too much noise in the dark and ends up getting sliced through the chest. As the girl stands back in horror, the fireplace erupts and the actual witch appears. She cackles and howls as a large spear impales the girl and pins her up about ten feet up on a wall. And that's it. Everyone dies and the picture goes nowhere in a completely unimpressive and possibly botched ending that made me wonder if there was a different version that ended up getting cut for some reason.
—the Kommandant
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