‘So you have chosen Igor for your friend!’
Father Guru’s ministry on a prison island involves dispensing torture and punishment as well as the more usual ecclesiastical services.
Filmed entirely in a New York downtown church, this was shot by low budget auteur Andy Milligan to play with his already completed picture ‘The Body Beneath’ (1969). It’s a typical ‘homemade’ Milligan picture really; a period setting conveyed with tatty costumes, dreadful performances by an amateur cast, crude effects, clumsy editing and ugly photography. Having said all that, Neil Flanagan has some charisma in the title role, although his chats with his ‘evil’ self in the mirror are pretty banal.
It’s livelier than the usual Milligan picture, although various anonymous characters turning up one after another just to be killed off doesn’t really advance the plot too much. Guru has a mistress called Olga who has become a vampire after being bit by something or other. Jacqueline Webb delivers the character’s dialogue as if she’s desperate to get the horrible words out of her mouth as quickly as possible. Her approach to the role is in perfect tune with the pantomime flavour of the whole enterprise. Someone really should have told Jack Spencer to remember that he’s supposed to be a hunchback at all times and to make a decision on whether he’s going to put on a silly voice or speak normally.
What do you mean these scissors look a bit 1970s?
And what exactly is the title supposed to mean? Guru isn’t a monk at all, he’s a priest! Still you can’t escape too much from a writer who is credited with the ‘sreenplay’ at the start of the movie…
Mark David Welsh 