While the latter half of the '60s was a time of some very good horror movies (The Devil Rides Out, Rosemary's Baby, The Tomb Of Ligeia, Night Of The Living Dead to name a few), it was also a time of some pretty terrible ones too. The Vulture falls into the latter category. This British-American-Canadian co-production starts off well enough - with a suitably eerie graveyard scene - but after that it's ninety further minutes of sheer tedium relieved only by story idiocy and wooden acting. Some decent actors get dragged down with this shipwreck of a movie – prolific stars like Robert Hutton, Akim Tamiroff and Broderick Crawford (a former Oscar-winner) really deserve better material than this.
In Cornwall, a local legend tells of a man buried alive several hundreds years ago whose spirit will one day return in the guise of a half-man- half-vulture monster to seek vengeance on the ancestors of those who buried him. When strong-minded school teacher, Ellen West (Annette Carrell), claims to have been attacked by a beast of this description in the graveyard, most people dismiss her story as scaremongering nonsense. However, American scientist Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton) – visiting his wife (Diane Clare) and family in the region – believes that some sort of nuclear transmutation may have occurred and that the creature may be very real indeed. When he discovers that his wife's family are actually the ancestors of those that buried the unfortunate victim several centuries earlier, he realises that she may be in danger. Her stubborn uncles, Brian (Broderick Crawford) and Edward (Gordon Sterne), are also potential targets of the mysterious monster. Helped by local scientist Prof. Hans Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff), Lutens races to solve the mystery before his wife and her family fall victim to a deadly revenge-seeking monster.
The seasoned cast are thoroughly embarrassed by the particularly moronic gibberish that passes for "scientific dialogue" in the movie. Worse still, the monster is never really seen – just some horribly unconvincing rubber claws which swoop down from somewhere just above the line of the camera to grab at the victims, while a flapping noise is used to suggest that a really big bird is on the rampage. Ooh, scary or perhaps not. There's little atmosphere and little entertainment factor – just a long, slow build-up to a finale that never delivers. It avoids the dreaded one-star rating due to its one OK scene (the cemetery-set opening in which Carrell's character is attacked by the mysterious creature). Apart from that one half-decent moment, the whole film is a boring waste of time and talent.
In Cornwall, a local legend tells of a man buried alive several hundreds years ago whose spirit will one day return in the guise of a half-man- half-vulture monster to seek vengeance on the ancestors of those who buried him. When strong-minded school teacher, Ellen West (Annette Carrell), claims to have been attacked by a beast of this description in the graveyard, most people dismiss her story as scaremongering nonsense. However, American scientist Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton) – visiting his wife (Diane Clare) and family in the region – believes that some sort of nuclear transmutation may have occurred and that the creature may be very real indeed. When he discovers that his wife's family are actually the ancestors of those that buried the unfortunate victim several centuries earlier, he realises that she may be in danger. Her stubborn uncles, Brian (Broderick Crawford) and Edward (Gordon Sterne), are also potential targets of the mysterious monster. Helped by local scientist Prof. Hans Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff), Lutens races to solve the mystery before his wife and her family fall victim to a deadly revenge-seeking monster.
The seasoned cast are thoroughly embarrassed by the particularly moronic gibberish that passes for "scientific dialogue" in the movie. Worse still, the monster is never really seen – just some horribly unconvincing rubber claws which swoop down from somewhere just above the line of the camera to grab at the victims, while a flapping noise is used to suggest that a really big bird is on the rampage. Ooh, scary or perhaps not. There's little atmosphere and little entertainment factor – just a long, slow build-up to a finale that never delivers. It avoids the dreaded one-star rating due to its one OK scene (the cemetery-set opening in which Carrell's character is attacked by the mysterious creature). Apart from that one half-decent moment, the whole film is a boring waste of time and talent.