a review of 魔鸟

A star-studded cast, some pretty decent looking sets, decent special effects, what could go wrong? The viewer just has to abandon preconceptions about the mood they're expected to have to take this in, it veers all over the place without establishing whether it should be a farce or a frightfest or whatever. Vincent Price gets the most screen time but his character doesn't really do a whole lot on his own volition. Instead he's mostly there in service to all the others. He's supposed to be so devoted to his dead wife Lenore but doesn't give us a great big emotional blast when he discovers how deceived he had been. There's a long wizard battle at the end that must have required a lot of planning on the part of the producers and such, but for me the pacing wasn't quite there so I didn't really feel like I had a dog in the fight. Also, too much Peter Lorre can be too much, which came as a surprise to me. Anyway, the film's not quite a stinker, more of a disappointment.