Stevieboy666 Jack Palance plays an antique dealer who dabbles with murder & black magic in 1970's London. There's many familiar faces in the cast here. The film starts & ends, predictably, well but sadly the middle part goes a bit flat. The picture quality wasn't great on my DVD but I think they did the best they could with what print was available.

Red-Barracuda This British exploitation movie is an occult horror about a man who lives a double life as a respected antique dealer by day and as a homicidal worshipper of a demonic god by night. As such he sacrifices a series of women to an idol of his deity, the African god Chuku, which he keeps in his cellar.First up, the copy that seems to be available via public domain for this suffers from truly atrocious sound quality. It's well-nigh impossible to hear all the lines of dialogue and the sound in general fades in and out at will. This does compromise the enjoyment level of watching this somewhat, although it does have to be admitted that the events that unfold before us on screen are luckily self-explanatory enough to allow the viewer to know what's going on even without acceptable audio. And what's going on is fairly standard stuff on the whole. The film mainly benefits from star actor Jack Palance fairly chewing up the scenery in a commendably committed performance. He gives it his all, despite the overall shortcomings of the film as a whole – good on you Jack. In truth, this one sports a pretty good cast on the whole with several names fans of genre cinema will recognise, including the star of a couple of giallo classics, Suzy Kendall, pitching up late on as one of Palance's victims and Diana Dors appearing earlier as one of his old flames. The director here is genre specialist Freddie Francis, who made several horror flicks throughout the 70's and 80's but who would eventually go on to become probably more famous as an award winning cinematographer on all manner of great films, including some by the likes of Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. Truthfully, Craze is pretty far from being his finest hour. I would probably have a marginally better opinion of it if I had seen it with even half-decent audio but even taking that into account, this is hardly essential stuff.

sol1218 (There are Spoilers) Having been into the Black Arts all his adult life London antiques dealer Neal Mottram, Jack Palance, secretly has monthly, when there's a full moon, jam sessions with his coven of witches. These sessions are held in the basement of his antiques shop to bring him as well as his followers financial rewards in what ever business that their in.Worshiping this African Idol named Chuku Mottram has to provide it with monthly human sacrifices to keep his luck going. That resulted in him getting out of debt and becoming independently wealthy with his shop used as a front for his murderous activities.The local police are a bit suspicious of Mottram since he's suspected of being involved in two different murders of women who were known to him and ended up savagely mutilated, and in one case burned to a crisps, and found floating in the Thames River. With Chuku constantly needing new blood to be spilled to satisfy his gluttonous appetite Mottran comes up with a plan to do in his old and rich Aunt Louise, Edith Evens. Mottron orchestrates a night out and sleep in with an old flame of his the chubby and chunky Dolly Newman, Diana Dors, who runs a Bed & Breakfast in town and whom he hasn't seen in over three years.Getting Dolly good and drunk on her favorite brew, Cherry Brandy,Mottran checks out of her place and travels 70 miles to Aunt Louies home. Hiding in the closet Mottran catches her by surprise wearing a Halloween mask scaring the sick old lady to death. For some strange reason Mottran later drives a wooden stake through the dead lady's heart, like she were a vampire, and then drives back to Dolly's. Mottran jumps into bed with her just as she wakes up, from the effects of all the booze she drank, making Dolly think that he spent the entire evening, and a good part of the morning, with her.The police lead by this tough talking and no BS guy Det. Sgt. Wall,Michael Jayston, feel that it was Mottram who murdered Aunt Louise? How could that be! Didn't the coroner determine that Aunt Louise was already dead before the stake, the so-called murder weapon was used to sacrifice, not kill, her by the insane Mottram? With her death being the result of Mottran scaring her to death a fact that the police were totally unaware off!The weak link in Mottram's chain of murders turned out to be his live-in protégée in his antique shop the naive and alcoholic prone Ronnie, Martin Potter. Ronnie when he finds out about his boss' dirty deeds comes apart and starts to hit the bar scene drinking himself almost to the point of passing out. At the the same time Ronnie gets up enough courage to smash to pieces Mottram's evil idol Chuku.Being tailed by the police Ronnie leads them to Mottram's basement where Chuku is and where Mottram just came back after he offered another blood-sacrifice to Chuku, hooker masseuses and part-time dominatrix Sally,Suzy Kendall.Wild final with Mottram going completely berserk as he tries to defend his Idol Chuku from Ronnie's drunken ax attacks. Beating him up and throwing Ronnie head-first through the store window with the police, headed by the rough and ready Det. Wall,coming on the scene to put the cuffs on the now crazed and hysterical Mottram. Mottram didn't go, or give up, willingly and it had to take a full load of lead from Det. Wall's revolver to finally put the homicidal madman down.

g.young working from memory here so forgive the hazy details..... jack palance chews the scenery as an antique dealer who becomes convinced that by sacrificing women to an african idol in his cellar he will have good fortune bestowed upon him. cue lots of crazy 70's fashions,music,drugs references etc etc. the film follows jacks downward spiral as he tries to keep the idol satisfied. cleverly the film never makes it clear whether jacks good luck is coincidence or whether it really does bring good luck. this film is well worth picking up for entertainment value.