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JUNE 17 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : LAND OF THE MINOTAURS (1976)
FROM BADMOVIES.ORG
THE CHARACTERS:* Random Sacrifices - We see them before the credits roll, so we know they're doomed. We also see them again later, but they're naked and dead!
* The Minotaur - He's made of stone, fire pours from his nose, and he's not wearing pants. Sergeant Vendris - He's not made of stone, he works for the police, and thankfully he wears pants. He also serves the minotaur and ultimately dies.
* Father Roche - Donald Pleasance!!! Everybody's favorite priest. He believes everything is the work of the devil, and he doesn't like fast cars or fast women, except when God tells him to. * Tom, the bearded guy - He's got hair out the wazoo (but fortunately he too wears pants). Denyse tells us that he's the most desirable man in the film, but I dunno... ...that Peter Cushing is pretty hot. * Ian and Beth - A couple that travels around with Tom. They know Father Roche, they know archaeology, they know fashion, and they know how to get killed with a butter knife to the chest. * Laurie - Tom's girlfriend. She comes to Greece in response to a letter from Tom, meets up with Father Roche, and spends most of the movie being forgotten about and left behind. * Baron Corofax - Peter Cushing!!! A British-sounding Carpathian exile with the unfortunate habit of sacrificing innocent young nubile archaeologists to the fiendish minotaur statue! In the end, he learns the error of his ways in a most amusing fashion. * Max - Baron Corofax's driver and a general lurking presence. * Creepy Staring Girl - Played by someone known only as Christina (the Cher of Italy, evidently), this lovely young girl stares into the camera a lot and periodically stabs people with a butter knife at the minotaur's command. Her life is spared by God, 'cause she's all innocent and stuff. * Milo - "Just a simple private detective" (in his own words) who follows Father Roche around complaining for the latter half of the film. He's apparently very useful, but it's hard to tell in what way. THE PLOTYoung archaeologists are disappearing in Greece and, for some reason, this really bothers Father Roche (who appears to live in some other country). In any case, after seeing the latest batch of friends fly off to their near-certain doom and being contacted by the girlfriend of one of these poor fools, good ol' Papa Roche decides to do something. So he contacts Milo, a useless private investigator from New York, and off they fly to Greece to save the world (or something).
Upon arriving in Greece, all they find are a strange staring girl, some questionable police forces, and a wacky Carpathian baron portrayed by Peter Cushing. To make a long story short (if such a thing can still be done at this point), there are a lot of chases involving hooded, KKK-style cultists and a fair amount of sacrificing of the innocent. After which, the forces of good triumph and God makes all the bad guys go up like pointy-headed firecrackers.THINGS I LEARNED FROM THIS MOVIE:
* Butter knives are an excellent sacrificial implement.
* Cultists are good about replacing their chandeliers after dropping them on invaders.
* Shorts were really short in the seventies, but I guess we already knew that.
* Satanic cultists and holy water mix like unpunctured hot dogs and a microwave.
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