An occult investigator buys the 150-year-old skull of the Marquis de Sade, which turns out to be possessed by evil spirits.
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CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
When Christopher Lee tells you to leave well alone, well you should - even if you are Peter Cushing! The latter is "Maitland" who is offered a gruesome artefact by his rather dubious supplier "Marco" (Patrick Wymark) and when he mentions it to his collecting rival "Sir Matthew" (Lee) he is told that this was recently pinched from him and well, he decides to ignore the advice. It doesn't take him very long before he rues that decision. This skull belongs to the Marquis de Sade and his spirit is looking to continue to cause as much mischief as he can! To those ends, it can take over the minds of those close to it and manipulate their behaviour to do his will. Can the sceptical "Maitland" do what generations of his forebears have failed to do and thwart this malevolent force? This is one of my favourite Hammer horrors with plenty of accumulating menace; some clever photography - often from the skull's POV, it's hauntingly scored and the denouement isn't what I ever remember to expect after a fun eighty minutes of pure cinematic evil. It spares us the usual ketchup gimmickry and uses a little more psychology to fo the scaring, and I think it works quite well.
