THE CRIMSON CULT (1968)

One of Boris Karloff's last movies, very loosely based on a Lovecraft story, "Dreams in the Witch House." The opening is set at a Satanic ritual, lit with deep reds and greens, with a man being forced to sign his soul over to the devil. The man is an antiques collector who was spending time in the village of Graymarsh. When he doesn't return home, his brother (Mark Eden) goes looking for him, arriving at the village during a festival commemorating the burning of a local witch hundreds of years ago. The atmosphere is decadence-lite; some of the people in this scene reminded me of the "unconventional conventioneers" in ROCKY HORROR. Eden stays at a lodge run by Christopher Lee; he cozies up to Lee's lovely daughter (Virginia Wetherall) and meets a creepy old professor who is confined to a wheelchair (Boris Karloff). Eden has bad dreams involving Satanic rituals before he discovers what happened to his brother. The climax involves more rituals, Barbara Steele in green body paint, a plump-assed half-naked man squeezed into a bad S&M outfit, and some fire. Despite its bad reputation, this is no worse than the typical Hammer film of the period. You could certainly do worse. Karloff is no longer robust, but he turns in a good performance. Steele has few, if any, lines. Michael Gough is a creepy butler who winds up dead for no discernible reason. Aka THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR.