1966

Any time religion and politics mix, you are going to see bloodshed. Any time you combine religion, politics, and Hammer Films, there’s going to be a ridiculous amount of blood that doesn’t look like blood, but instead more like melted red frosting. However, this is the few Hammer movies that only has like a bucket of blood, instead of a metric ton. Didn’t make it any less crazy, though.

Christopher Lee plays the most intense version of Rasputin I’ve even seen. To be fair though, Christopher Lee is one of the most intense humans I’ve ever seen. Besides the crazy eyes, this film is so far from historically accurate, it might as well be called Anastasia. It’s like Hammer told the screenwriter, “Rasputin is an evil mystic who loves drinking and hypnotizing women. Go.”

The film begins when the young monk Rasputin decides to ditch the monastery for a “night on the town.” Except he lives in pastoral Russia in 1898 so the only thing to do is go to a local pub. When he doesn’t get his alcohol fast enough, he yells at the pub owner and is immediately admonished by the patrons. The pub owner’s wife is very ill and on her death bed. The doctors in this time period are about as competent as a goat. In fact, they should have just hired a goat.

Rasputin doesn’t like to be delayed a drink, so he nonchalantly takes the fever out of the wife and washes his hands. The pub owner is so grateful, he offers Rasputin free drinks, and Rasputin thanks him by trying to rape his daughter. This guy is a peach.

Rasputin is thrown out of the monastery for good, because there’s no room in Russia for alternative medicine and alcoholism (yet). Now homeless, he decides to bet a disgraced Doctor Zargo (they should ALL be disgraced) that he can drink more than him. Obviously he can, and the doctor wakes up with a new roommate and the worst sidekick ever.

A woman, Sonia, who witnessed Rasputin’s…”charming” I guess, demeanor and immediately wants him, is soon discovered to be a lady in waiting to the Tsarina. Rasputin sees massive amounts of power in his future and immediately coerces Sonia into hurting (but not killing) the Tsarina’s son. It’s like an early, fucked up version of Jessica Jones. But with more hypnotizing.

Rasputin is successful in healing the boy, and immediately is given a palace and all the furnishings to continue his life work of hypnotizing and raping women. He’s fairly prolific at it, until he ends up pissing off the brother of Sonia (Peter), who for some reason doesn’t like Rasputin manipulating his sister. He enlists to help of another lady in waiting’s brother (Ivan) and they both go in with Dr. Zargo to make sure Rasputin isn’t just regular dead, but Hammer dead.

Their plans backfire horribly. Peter get’s acid thrown in his face. Zargo attempts to poison Rasputin, and somehow ends up with a knife in his back. Ivan is getting all the way beat up. After the poison only seems to work halfway, the brothers decide to finish the job by throwing Rasputin out the window. I appreciate that the method(s) of death was the only thing this movie got historically accurate. Except, the last part where they throw Rasputin’s body into the river to make sure he is really, really dead after they also shoot him. The part just happened in real life.