Spectre (1977)

(This is based on the film’s longer UK cut with a bit of nudity and more sleaze that never made it to NBC at the time, for obvious reasons)

Former top criminologist turned occult detective William Sebastian (Robert Culp) calls his estranged former friend and associate, alcoholic sleazebag and medical doctor “Ham” Hamilton (Gig Young) for help in his newest case. He really needs a doctor, too, for somebody is regularly using magic to pierce his heart, leaving him not in ideal fighting shape. Ham doesn’t really believe in anything occult, and the men’s parting of ways some time ago might have had something to do with their difference in opinion. Ham is beginning to change his mind when Sebastian’s witch assistant Lilith (Majel Barrett) gives him a draught that causes an instant aversion to alcohol, and even more so when an oversexed succubus version of Sebastian’s client, one Anitra Cyon (Ann Bell) appears and tries to seduce our hero into what looks a lot like an erection based heart attack to me, or as much as a TV movie from 1977 can suggest that. But don’t worry, hitting her with the right page in an occult tome does get rid of her nicely.

After that business is through, we finally learn what the real Anitry Cyon wants from Sebastian and Ham: find out if she’s assuming right and her decadent brother Geoffrey (James Villiers) has indeed been possessed by EVIL, and when necessary, kill him. So off to Great Britain our heroes jet, piloted by Anitra’s other brother Mitri (John Hurt) who may or may not already be under a malevolent influence himself. There are further attempts on our heroes’ lives and virtue (such as it is), of course, action archaeology happens, and exposition tells of the time when druids and Christian priests teamed up to imprison Asmodeus.

This pretty incredible artefact directed by Clive Donner is another of the many attempts of Gene Roddenberry to make a successful non-Star Trek TV show, this time around with British money. I’m not surprised Spectre never made it to series, because it is absolutely bonkers. What we have here is a mix of a Dennis Wheatley style occult thriller minus Wheatley’s actual ideas about occultism (though fortunately also minus his unpleasant politics) with the toned down “sexy” fantasies of a middle-aged guy with very peculiar interests who never left the swinger party mindset behind, paired with the sort of random crap you put in your movie not because it is a good idea to use it, but because you think it is absolutely awesome.

As a serious horror film the result is of course pretty terrible, but it’s also ridiculously fun to watch, having given up all restraint that could turn it into a proper movie and replaced it with the mandate to just make as much absurd fun, and quite a bit embarrassing stuff, up as possible. So of course Sir Geoffrey proves his decadence by only employing young, female servants who try way too hard to be sexy; of course his sister dresses like the old maid in a 30s comedy; of course one of the main characters turns out to be Asmodeus and looks a lot like a bluish Klingon when uncovered. Of course there’s a particularly awkwardly staged satanic orgy with dancing bad and half-hearted even by the standards of bad movie satanic orgies (one hopes real-life ones are a bit more enthusiastic, because this really doesn’t cut it as a seduction to evil). There’s an evil sort of ape person costume; things feel evil to the touch; Asmodeus lives by rather complicated rules; Gordon Jackson wears demon make-up; more “how we get rid of demons” nonsense that makes not a lick of sense than one could possibly hope for is expounded upon, and so much more.

The film’s tone wavers between embarrassing – just cringe through the unbelievable scene with Ham and the three maids trying to “seduce” him and ask yourself how many people must have thought this was an idea that needed to be put to film – and utterly hysterical, Culp, Young, Hurt and Villiers hamming it up in each and every way possible. I am usually not much of a fan of Culp and find him rather bland and affectless, but clearly, if he wanted, he could take bites out of scenery so large, Vincent Price must have been jealous; it’s the only correct acting decision to take in this particular movie, too, for playing any of this straight would simply ruin the film by dragging it back to Earth from whichever planet Roddenberry was on at the time.