Director: Stuart Gordon (Dagon, From Beyond, Dolls, Re-Animator)

This camp updating of the Roger Corman classic that starred Vincent Price had fans of Gordon's Re-Animator (1986) shaking their heads. The gore score never really reaches the level of that film, apart from a few isolated incidents that include: fingers pushed into stigmata wounds, a rat sliced in half and squeezed, a heretic strangled, Torquemada being flogged, and an amusing scene where a witch explodes at the stake after eating gunpower.

The trademark gallows humour is still present, for example when the baker is about to be burnt on a metal chair, he taunts, "If you're going to bake my buns, you are going to need a real fire." There is also some female nudity courtesy of Rona de Ricci, but this is all pretty whimsical stuff. Lance Henriksen as Torquemada prevents the film from being a total waste of time.

I am looking forward to seeing Stuart Gordon's long-awaited Lovecraft adaptation Dagon (rated R), despite the Internet criticism.