There lived a certain man, in Russia long ago... (Rasputin, The Mad Monk (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Rasputin, The Mad Monk (DVD)
Date:	20.12.07 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One of Christopher Lee's best performances

Disadvantages: Too long and uncertain what it's trying to be

This is a Hammer horror from 1966. Well, kind of. It's actually more like a historical drama with horrific elements that don't quite gel with the main story. As you might imagine, it's the story of Grigori Rasputin, the hirsute peasant monk who came to exert a sinister influence over the Tsarina in Russia immediately before the Revolution.

Rasputin is played by Christopher Lee. This is arguably his best role for Hammer - it's about his only leading role that isn't one of the Dracula films, in which his performances become less and less engaged with each instalment. Here he gets to seduce ladies, drink a great deal and dance (although the more energetic dancing is very obviously not him). He's an imposing physical presence, being about a head taller than anyone else in the film, and his impressive voice is gruffer than usual. Lee is acting properly for a change, as opposed to just standing around looking sinister - it's one of his most enjoyable horror performances, although it occasionally lapses into hammy overacting. And he gets to wear an amazing beard. We never get a sense of mystery or mysticism about the character, but that's the fault of the script rather than the actor.

The other actors are good, too - this is one of Hammer's better casts. Richard Pasco is the weak drunkard Rasputin exploits early on; Francis Matthews is very good as a jealous nobleman; and Barbara Shelley plays the role she often played for Hammer - the posh lady whose pent up carnal side is released by exposure to the villain. You might also recognise Joss Ackland and Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine in small parts, although they're heavily bearded.

Otherwise it's all pretty typical Hammer stuff. The colours are lurid, especially the reds. The sets are decent, generally hiding how low budget they are (money was saved in this case by using the same sets - and much of the same cast - for Dracula, Prince of Darkness). The opening theme, not one of the best, has a more eastern feel than usual, but the incidental music is very much archetypal Hammer, and it becomes absolutely frenzied whenever anything remotely violent happens. The director is Don Sharp, who did a few other decent Hammers and also directed the staggering zombie biker movie Psychomania. The direction is functional but not too special.

The pacing is a bit off (not helped by the rather languorous approach to editing - there are a few occasions where we're just left watching empty sets for several seconds). The film has a very obvious three-act structure: Rasputin goes to St Petersburg; Rasputin's rise to power; people plot against Rasputin. The film's about 90 minutes, and each act lasts almost precisely half an hour. Unfortunately they needn't last that long at all, as there's a lot of filler. The ideal length for this film would have been about 70 minutes; 20 Minutes could easily have been cut.

This is an odd film for Hammer to have made. The aesthetics and music tell us it's meant to be a horror film along the studio's usual lines. But ultimately there isn't a lot of horror in it. Rasputin comes across as a less well-groomed Dracula, hypnotising women left right and centre, but he does have the power to heal people. The film can't decide what it wants its main character to be. He often uses his power for good, as when he heals an innkeeper's wife; at other times he's presented as a kind of mountebank, exploiting gullible society women. He's crude and vulgar and obviously not too bothered about sexual propriety; but that's not such a terrible thing compared to, say, being a vampire or trying to animate cadavers. Rasputin's goal seems to be self-aggrandisement, but the means he uses to get it, while unconventional, aren't all *that* evil. He only ever turns physically violent when attacked, and only does one properly nasty thing.

You're left with the feeling that the people who plot against him are doing it more out of jealousy than a genuine sense of outrage; it's about Russian Imperial office politics. Or at least it should be; it would probably have made for a more intriguing story. Although it's set in Russia, there's nothing different about the location to any other generic European Hammer location. There's no sense of Rasputin's place in history. Nothing suggests that the film takes place during the First World War, nor that there's a revolution imminent; and whatever the title of the film suggests, Rasputin doesn't seem to be mad in the slightest. There are too many horror trappings for it to be a costume drama, but it's not really horrific in any sustained way. It lacks a coherent identity, not something you could say about most of Hammer's horror films.

There's only one effectively suspenseful sequence, when someone goes after Rasputin and gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse in his mansion. The 15 certificate is probably down to one scene involving acid, otherwise the gore is pretty tame and the sex implied rather than shown. Lee's debauchery involves silly dancing and almost constant drinking rather than the prostitutes and dodgy bath houses the real-life Rasputin favoured. I think I was about 12 when I first saw this, and it did me no harm whatsoever.

The DVD can be had for very little money on amazon. It only has one extra, a trailer that helpfully includes pretty much all the exciting bits, including the ending. The picture quality is nice, which is obviously a good thing - Hammer horrors are as much about the colours as the action, and a poor quality print can seriously reduce one's enjoyment.

This isn't a great film. I have a nostalgic fondness for it as it's one of the first Hammer's I saw; the sets, and the look and feel of the thing, bring childhood memories flooding back (Proust had a cake; I have cheap horror films). It's unlikely many people will feel the same way. If you're a Hammer fan you've probably seen this already, if you're not it won't do anything to convert you.

Summary: One of Hammer's more half-hearted efforts, but the DVD is at least cheap