Too much of everything

Such a frustrating disappointment

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

1966 was a prolific year for Hammer Films, the company would have 6 films released this year, unsurprisingly the quality of such was variable. Rasputin the Mad Monk was filmed back to back with Dracula Prince of Darkness, yet even though the BBFC afforded it the "X" certificate, it's somewhat tame and more a historical drama than horror film.In truth it's Christopher Lee as the title character who keeps this from plunging the depths of stinkerville, and this in spite of sporting a most distracting and ridiculous beard. Plot simply - and fancifully - shows Rasputin as a hard drinking, womanising bully with a penchant for hypnotism, all of which he uses for his nefarious ends.It's all very colourful, with Lee holding court as male saps and beautiful dames (Barbara Shelley oh my eye!) come and go, which all builds to a furious finale in the Hammer Films tradition. Yet the slow pace, weakness of the story and the overt feeling of watching a rush job, stops this from being anything but a Hammer time waster. 6/10

The life story of Grigori Rasputin, told Hammer style. Rasputin was one of the most fascinating historical figures of the early 20th century. Christopher Lee brings the character to life as a wild-eyed filthy miscreant with an insatiable lust and otherworldly powers. Make no mistake, Lee is the whole show here. When he's not around the movie feels like a stuffy British costume drama. But luckily for us, that's not often. Lee hams it up gloriously. It's one of his most memorable roles. It's not a horror movie although there are elements that resemble one. Being that it's from Hammer, there are also pretty women like Barbara Shelley and Suzan Farmer. The sets and costumes are nice. Don't look to this (or any) movie for a history lesson. It's a fun piece of entertainment that just happens to be based on real people and events. Even if you don't normally like Hammer films or historical biopics, you should be able to enjoy this.

(43%) A meatier role for Lee to get his fangs into and he does a fine job playing a real life notorious figure instead of a fictitious one, only this time the makers have actually given him something to say, and the film is all the better for it. More than a few liberties have been taken on the actual story to fit it into a 90 min run time, as well as to make it more entertaining, but it is not factual enough to be taken seriously as historical account and its not really fun enough to be enjoyed as a B movie romp, it is somewhere in-between. Hammer fans will enjoy it, but everyone else may get a little fed up with its lack of thrills and rather abrupt ending.

Shown as part the Hammer double bill that gets shown on the UK Horror Channel the audience might feel rather cheated by the schedulers . Being a Hammer production and starring Christopher Lee you can be forgiven for thinking you're going to be watching a horror film of sorts . Add to that the fact that the station might be called The Horror Channel for a reason and you'll be disappointed that this is in no way a horror movie despite the studio brand name That said it does have a bizarre feel down to director Don Sharp directing everything in a way that he would have directed a horror movie . As you can imagine much of this is achieved by having intrusive scary music blasting all over the soundtrack to tell the audience this scene contains a lot of menace and any second now a monster will be appearing which being a pseudo historical film will not be the case and the only scene approaching horror is a scene where a rubber hand drops past the screen . The emphasis is on "pseudo " which means from a historical point of view there's not a lot to recommend this movie and pales in to insignicence compared to something like DOCTOR ZHIVAGO which was released at the same time and was set in the period and locale . Of some interest is that being a Hammer film the little Englander mentality is present and the characters being foreign all have prominent suntans because all foreigners even ones living in a country like Russia must have suntans . Apart from that there's little other interest to the film unless you enjoy watching the Hammer repertory cast emote and overact in a rather ludicrous manner almost as if they're having a contest to see who can shout the most which has an entertainment value of sorts