The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a 1971 British comedy horror film directed by Robert Fuest, and written by James Whiton and William Goldstein.

[4][5] It stars Vincent Price in the title role, Dr. Anton Phibes, who blames the medical team that attended to his wife's surgery four years earlier, for her death and sets out to exact vengeance on each one.

The film co-stars Joseph Cotten, Hugh Griffith, Terry-Thomas, Virginia North, with an uncredited Caroline Munro appearing as Phibes's wife.

Dr. Anton Phibes, a famous concert organist with doctorates in both music and theology, is believed to have been killed in a car crash in Switzerland in 1921, while racing home upon hearing of the death of his beloved wife, Victoria, during surgery.

He also opted to add in some deliberate humour, since critics often razed Price for over-the-top performances, and changed the death of Dr Kitaj by rats to take place on a plane instead of on a boat.

The film's incidental score was composed by Basil Kirchin and includes 1920s-era source music, most notably "Charmaine" and "Darktown Strutters' Ball".

One of several music-related errors or anachronisms within the film's storyline is the song overlaid as a recorded performance by one of the ostensibly mechanized musicians of "Dr. Phibes' Clockwork Wizards.

Likewise, the melody of the song "You Stepped Out of a Dream", written by Nacio Herb Brown (music) and Gus Kahn (lyrics) and first published in 1940, accompanies a scene depicting Dr. Phibes and Vulnavia dancing together in the ballroom of his mansion.

A soundtrack LP was released concurrently with the film's appearance, which contained few selections from the score, but rather was composed mostly of character vocalizations by Paul Frees.

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This is Robert Fuest's second AIP feature... and his flat, unimaginative visual style dominates every frame.

It is the same patchwork mixture of clumsy compositions and endless close-ups which jarred in Wuthering Heights, where it made genuine Bronté locations look like a cut-price studio.

This crassness in dialogue and direction is all the more irritating in that aspects of Dr. Phibes suggest that it might have been a reasonably intriguing film: much of the Thirties gadgetry and apparatus is attractively designed, and the pairing of Vincent Price with Joseph Cotten could in the right circumstances have amounted to a stroke of genius.

[21] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three-and-a-half stars, calling it a "stylish, clever, shrieking winner", though he disliked "the lack of zip in the ending".

[22] David Pirie of The Monthly Film Bulletin was negative, faulting director Robert Fuest's "flat, unimaginative visual style" and a script "contriving to be coy and tongue-in-cheek without ever being witty".

[23] In 2002, critic Christopher Null called the film "Vincent Price at his campy best ... A crazy script and an awesome score make this a true classic.

The website's critics consensus reads, "The Abominable Dr. Phibes juggles horror and humor, but under the picture's campy façade, there's genuine pathos brought poignantly to life through Price's performance.