5
(evil spirits)
6
(disturbing concepts, mild sexuality, mild violence)
2
(barely tolerable)
Crucible of Terror, according to IMDB, is the same movie I saw under the title "Unholy Terror." It appears to be available in different places under the different names. I guess it doesn't much matter because I highly doubt many people are looking to add this to their collections. And if you are, please allow me to shake some sense into you.
The disjointed and confusing story revolves around a couple (Jack and Millie), one of whom is an art dealer, and Victor, a strange, reclusive artist. Jack wants to convince the artist to part with some of his works while Victor's main desire is to consume women, figuratively speaking. He likes to paint, seduce, and discard them although occasionally he'll cast them as statues – not just using their likeness but by actually turning them physically into a statue. Victor is quite taken with the dealer's wife, Millie, and plots to get rid of Jack long enough to have his way with the girl. Once he's done with her maybe she'll end up his next living (well, formerly living) statue.
Meanwhile, people are getting murdered left and right including the Victor's drunkard of a son. There’s something about some evil spirits somewhere in there, and some weird flashbacks that don’t ever quite make good sense. I never quite figured out what the logic behind all that was supposed to be. I'm sure I could guess, but I didn't find the whole thing engaging enough to think it worth the mental effort.
It's a slow-moving story. It's not completely uninteresting but not far above it. The one thing that saves it from the worst of the worst is that the acting is mostly decent. It's sometimes on the campy side, but still believable.
Though it's in color it feels like a black and white movie which makes sense seeing that it’s from the late 60’s or early 70’s (depending on which source you choose to believe) and so was probably made close on the heels of the black and white era.
Mostly it's just a confusing tale. That's not always a bad thing if it's done well enough to spark some thought and conversation. This one sparks more along the lines of changing the channel. Part of the problem is due to some of the poor technical aspects which I'll detail in the buying guide. That makes the movie that much harder to follow which does a lot to kill any potential interest in figuring out the story.
Morality
There isn’t much to worry about other than some of the concepts. Spirit possession causing people to murder others may not be something you want to watch. The depicted violence is mild as is the strong language.
There are some sexual allusions as the artist tries to seduce women, but it never gets very far on screen. There is some very obscure nudity in some of the artwork, but even when the models are posing for nude portraits they are fully covered on camera (which actually makes no sense in some instances).
Spirituality
As I mentioned there is something about some spirit possession buried somewhere in this mess of a plot, but I'm not digging through the rubble to drag it out.
Final Thoughts
Even if this were a better movie the extremely bad picture quality is likely to cause a lot of viewers to turn it off. I sat through it but was often annoyed and frequently bored. Nothing about the movie itself is enough to overcome the terrible presentation.
Buying Guide
"Unholy Terror" is available from different distributors under at least two titles, the other being "Crucible of Terror."
There are a few different releases under both titles. There are at least 2 stand-alone DVD's and 3 multi-packs: the 4 movie Born in Hell, 6 movie Terror Pack, and 10 movie Night Chills.
The company Geneon offers one of the stand-alone DVD's and the Terror Pack 6 pack both with “Cinema Deluxe” written across the top. 2 different comments mention the video quality of their version being superior to others they've seen. Another comment mentions the inclusion of an additional 10 minutes worth of cut scenes that fill out the story a bit more. The ratio is listed as 1.33 (“full-frame”)
The Severin Films release lists the same run time at 91 minutes (supposedly the longer, superior cut of the film) and is the only one listing a widescreen presentation at 1.77 (not a huge difference from the 1.33 ratio but it should be enough to be noticeable).
None of these list audio specs which means you can probably count on them all being mono. None lists any extras.
Final Recommendation:
If you're wanting this movie the Night Chills pack I have is probably the least desirable version available on DVD. One of the two Cinema Deluxe releases would be a better option.
I got mine in the Night Chills 10 pack.
Video
1.33:
This is the “full-screen” ratio. The picture is extremely smudgy and so dark it’s often difficult to make out what’s happening.
Audio
2.0 mono:
The audio is only slightly better than the terrible picture. It can be a struggle to follow all the dialogue.
Packaging
The set has each disc in a multi-tray plastic case. You can read more details about the whole set in the Night Chills (10 pack) guide.
The runtime on this version is 84 minutes meaning it's shorter than the other versions and therefore likely missing some scenes.
Extras
There are none.