IT ! aka CURSE OF THE GOLEM - 1967

After a warehouse fire, the museum owners are relieved and a little perplexed that a statue has survived completely unscathed. A further surprise is that the statue can be reanimated, follow orders and is virtually indestructible. Knowledge is power, but the only one who knows about it has small dreams, using the Golem to get his boss's job and the girl of his dreams.

 

This one was a lot of fun. It has the look and the feel of one of those great Hammer Films of the era and reminds me of all the reasons I stayed up late on weekends in the hopes that I would catch such a creature feature on the late night movie. As far as freaky killer monsters go, you can't often do better than the giant Golem - the mythical creature of vengeance from the Jewish ghetto of Prague.

 

Roddy McDowell plays Mr Pimm, a creepy assistant curator and does his usual good work as a museum assistant who discovers a Golem that he can place under his control. Alas, as with all things Golem related, the creature he brings to life eventually takes the life of everyone around - everyone who stand in his way for fortune, love and prestige.

 

Several deaths of colleagues, which could ONLY have been the fault of the weaselly Mr Pimm, are just sorta shuffled aside so the movie could move on to it's inevitable conclusion. You don't watch one of these to watch the police figure out who the killer is. Only at the end does everyone put the whole nasty business together. Plus there are British accents and great London locations.

 

Further adding to Pimm's weirdness is the fact that he lives with the desiccating corpse of his mother. He's creepy enough without tying his personality to the killer Norman Bates from Psycho.

 

 

Power bringeth destruction; beware, lest it be unleashed."

"He who will find the secret of my life at his feet, him will I serve until beyond time.

 

"He who shall evoke me in the 17th century, beware, for I cannot by fire be destroyed.

 

"He who shall evoke me in the 18th century, beware, for I cannot by fire or by water be destroyed.

 

"He who evokes me in the 19th century, beware, for I cannot by fire or by water or by force be destroyed.

 

"He who in the 20th century shall dare evoke me, beware, for neither by fire, nor water, nor force, nor anything by man created can I be destroyed.

 

"He who in the 21st century evokes me must be of God's hand himself because on this earth the person of man existeth no more."