Christopher Lee: A Legacy of Horror and Terror (2012)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This 135 minute "documentary" is actually a Christopher Lee interview that was recorded at the 1999 Monster Rally appearance. The documentary has Lee on stage answering questions from Hammer experts Tom Johnson and Mark Miller as well as answering questions from fans in the audience.
I must admit that I've never seen Lee so animated and it appears he's having a great time at the event but sadly there's one major issue with this documentary and it's the fact that the audio is so poor that more times than not you can't understand what he's saying. There's an introduction to the movie where we are warned about the poor audio quality and they give a reason for it but it's still rather disappointing that you can't hear what is being said. You also have to question the point of releasing it without attempting to clean up the audio or add subtitles.
So, this is sadly going to be for die-hard fans who won't mind only hearing about 20% of what is actually said. The sound comes across the hand-held mic as if Lee is in a cave. The echo and hiss just is too poor. There are also about forty minutes worth of movie and trailer clips, which just drag this out even more. The documentary isn't awful and the interview itself would have been brilliant had the quality of the sound been better.
Subjects include working with Peter Cushing, Hammer films, playing Dracula, working on Saturday Night Live, working with Spielberg and Wilder and his overall thoughts on Hollywood and just about everything in between.