The Vulture.

Review #1236: The Vulture.

Cast: 
Robert Hutton (Dr. Eric Lutens), Akim Tamiroff (Prof. Hans Koniglich/the Vulture), Broderick Crawford (Brian F. Stroud), Diane Clare (Trudy Lutens), Philip Friend (The Vicar), Patrick Holt (Jarvis), Annette Carell (Ellen West), Edward Carrick (Melcher, the Sexton), and Gordon Sterne (Edward Stroud) Directed by Lawrence Huntington.

Review: 
One may wonder what is to be expected a film with a title like this. After all, this is a fairly obscure film that can't be found on DVD (the version I watched occasionally shows a TNT logo on the bottom, back when the network showed MonsterVision, a series dedicated to a marathon of older movies), only on VHS. Actually, this is a film I heard about a few years ago due to a video that I watched from a film reviewer (James Rolfe of Cinemassacre fame) that went into a little detail about the film. One would expect at least some semblance of horror, what with a poster tagline that starts with "Talons of terror!" and tells you about a half-man, half beastbird that swoops on prey, drinks blood, and mutilates flesh. This was the creation of Huntington, who served as both director and writer; he sold the story (first known as Manutara) to executive producer Jack O. Lamont, who garnered some funds on the condition of having American names as the leads. Other contributors of the budget (50,000 pounds) were from small British and Canadian studios. This happened to be the last film he directed, passing away the following year at the age of 68 following a career of 37 years, spent primarily in Britain. Oddly enough, this was a movie shown in black-and-white on original release in theaters, yet it was shown in color for television.

Believe it or not, all of these facts are probably more intriguing than the actual film itself. Would you believe that this is a film that shows its title beast for only 30 seconds throughout a 91 minute movie? Would you believe that this is a movie that has bland characters? Would you believe that this was made on the cheap and represents a mockery of what films can be with limited range of funds but ambition at the wheel? The answer to these questions are all a resounding yes, particularly with the last question. It is actually astounding how one could make a film with such dullness - this barely even qualifies as horror, feeling more akin to a murder mystery than anything dealing with real suspense. If this was done in any other decade, I do wonder how it might have panned out - or at least made with a bigger budget, where one could try to deal with the idea of depicting someone transformed into a vulture/human mix. The only times you see the vulture are very brief shots, showing its talons when it takes someone away, or at the end when the human head on the vulture is seen briefly; I imagine the film made sure to depict the scenes in the dark in order to hide the cheapness of these effects, since I can't imagine the hysterics if one tried to show this thing in a full shot just swooping around with an old man's head. Trying to think the logistics of this film's plot become a chore, as it throws stuff around about some old coins (buried alongside an accused warlock and his dastardly pet vulture because...I shrug to figure out why), a guy believing himself to be a descendant of said dead man and doing an experiment to disintegrate himself into the grave and then reassemble said self back with nuclear energy, and some sort of curse involving the descendants of the guy who buried warlock and vulture alive.

With such a mess of ridiculousness, how does the film deal with delivering some sense of fright? It does so with paleness, as if everyone was affected by a mysterious bug that wouldn't let them give any sort of life of amusement to what is occurring; the exception is a grouchy (but quirky) Crawford, who gets to be the first victim all because he wants open windows just to get sleep and gets snatched from said vulture (the astonishing thing is how strong said vulture must be, even if it has to turn him around first before it lifts him into the air). Hutton isn't really much better, figuring out a bare mystery with no real semblance of interest generated for the audience. Tamiroff is okay, but it is so amusing to see him turn out to be the villain, what with the lack of any real hints to go around - exactly how does he hide those bird feet and feathers in the daylight? Also, the idea of him swooping around eating animal flesh is weird to picture, although maybe that's just the vulture side wanting something to pick at, besides some old folks. I'm still astounded he actually decided to go through with such a bizarre experiment and never thinking to just simply dig up the grave and maybe check the body instead. If you can believe it, the count of victims of this ridiculous bird are a resounding two, and one of the takings isn't even shown to the audience. The bird gets offed by the silliest of climaxes: a character needing to be reminded that they have a gun with them by their spouse, falling off a cliff. To add on to these ridiculous terms, the couple actually buries the thing at sea, as if not showing this ridiculous freak of nature would be better served (or at least just to show to the authorities who think the murders is all about a bunch of coins and not big bird) - on the whole, this is just a mess. You could actually make a comedy out of such offbeat things, and yet this is meant to be taken with such seriousness that it actually just comes off like stale bitter coffee in an age where one would expect something with a bit more of a jolt. Even films that don't show off their title monster have some sort of atmosphere or pace that invite a viewer in to share a level of tension or calm fear. This doesn't even get off the platform, moving an inch at the starting gate and then proceeding to fall asleep for the rest of the race. You always seem to be waiting for something to actually happen, and the fact that you know it will only strike at night and strike certain people (from the oldest to the youngest of the Strouds), so what you are left with is filler. A film of such tediousness isn't quite deserving of the label of one of the worst, but it sure ranks up there in terms of ways to kill time the worst way possible, that is for certain.

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.