Land of the Minotaur (1976)

Frequently to be seen in the late night schedules of streaming services, always in the form of scuzzy versions which look and sound sourced from a fourth generation VHS dupe, Land of the Minotaur (1976) - or The Devil's Men, if you saw it in the UK - looks, on paper, as if it should be a classic slice of Euro horror.  For one thing, it boasts two British genre icons in Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing, Luan Peters as the imperiled heroine, a then-fashionable Satanism theme and exotic Greek locations.  Unfortunately, the film itself is something of a chore to watch: slowly paced, utterly predictable in plot terms and with some atrocious dialogue.  Moreover, apart from Pleasance and Cushing, the cast are uninspired, delivering flat performances.  Indeed, even the two horror stars themselves are far from their best:  Plesance, for his part,  seems to be channeling Barry Fitzgerald in his role of a Catholic priest, (who, for some reason, is tending a parish in Orthodox Greece).  While Pleasance at least looks like he's enjoying himself,  Cushing, while as professional as ever in his performance as the villainous Baron Corofax, seems detached and disinterested, giving the distinct impression that he is simply going through the motions. (At this point, Cushing's career seemed to be rapidly winding down - with the British horror film industry pretty much dead, he increasingly found himself appearing in foreign productions which were clearly interested only in trading on his name rather than providing him with roles worthy of his talent).

When various young Australian and American tourists go missing while visiting some old ruins, Pleasance's priest, (who knows some of them), investigates, suspecting that spiritual evil is involved.  The ruins are on the land of Cushing's Baron, a transplanted Carpathian nobleman, to whom the inhabitants of the local village seem subservient to.  The Baron, of course, is running a cult, worshiping a huge effigy of the legendary Minotaur in a subterranean temple, where he and his cultists (the villagers) make human sacrifices out of passing tourists.  With the disappearances mounting and unable to make headway himself, Pleasance calls in his friend, private eye and sceptic Milo, who drives a clapped out old American car, totes a revolver and looks a bit like Edd China from Wheeler Dealers, (obviously useful for keeping that car on the road).  Investigating the village, they encounter all manner of bizarre stuff, including the villagers all vanishing at night and the power going out - with both events denied by the villagers in the morning, a Black Mass during which Milo runs over the local police chief, who then gets up and walks away and the kidnapping of the last remaining tourist, Luan Peters.  Eventually, the combination of Plesance's faith and Milo's two-fisted detection leas them to overcome the forces of evil in the film's best sequence: having penetrated the temple, Pleasance destroys the cultists by throwing Holy water at them - they explode on contact.

Sadly, novel as the climax might be - blowing up cultists with Holy water is pretty much unique in this sort of film - it really isn't worth sitting through the rest of the film for.  That said, despite the film's many deficiencies, it does have some notable aspects, particularly the production design.  The temple set is especially impressive, with a massive Minotaur statue that pops up through the floor and snorts flames from its nostrils.  The costume design for the cultists, their robes all in rich tones of red, purple, green and so on, is quite striking.  As already mentioned, the climax is surprisingly impressive, with the exploding cultists very well realised.  It's also worth noting the Greek locations, which are all very nicely filmed, usually in bright sunlight, emphasising their appeal to tourists while simultaneously contrasting with their more menacing night-time manifestation.

Land of the Minotaur was one of a number of British and American horror movies shot in Greece during the mid and late seventies, many of them tax write offs which were barely released.  While it is tempting to think that this film also falls into that category, (particularly in view of the lead performances, which give the impression that the actors might have thought that they would never be see), it did, in fact, enjoy a pretty widespread release to cinemas and long afterlife on home video.  Not only that, but the ending, which sees Pleasance, Milo and the rescued Peters and her boyfriend, leading the village children, (who survived the climactic holocaust because their souls were innocent), away from the temple, gives the distinct impression that the makers were hoping to spin off sequels.  Thankfully, however, we were spared any further evil-fighting adventures on the part of Pleasance's priest and private eye Milo.