Japan Mad Science

 

 (the moviedb.org)

CYCLOPS-1987-In Japan there are deformed babies being born which doctors have named Cyclops. Most are left to die but one mad scientist thinks they're the beginning of a new level of human being. This deviant medical horror story features extreme and sometimes disgusting gore scenes. At times the acting seems to be comical. Directed by Joji Iida (TOKYO BABYLON 1999 (1993)).

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Meow

 

 (imdb)

THE CREEPER-1948-A doctor's daughter sleepwalks with her dad's gun. At a medical facility, Dr. Jim Bordon (Onslow Stevens) argues with Dr. Cavigny (Ralph Morgan) about his experiments with cats. Nurse Gwen Runstrom (June Vincent) reports that their special serum has been destroyed. The other nurse Dora (Janis Wilson), Cavigny's gun toting sleepwalker daughter, seems more than a little bothered having had a fever when they were in the West Indies. Bordon has some experimental cats sent to him. Meanwhile Dr. Van (Eduardo Ciannelli) listens secretly to the whole debate. Van works with Dr. John Reade (John Baragrey) across the hall researching allergies. It seems Reade and Gwen are engaged. Dora freaks out when she meets Reed's cat named "Creeper" (is that a cat name?). 

Later Dora relates to Reade how she caught a fever and later had an episode at a Chinese restaurant.(run by Phillip Ahn). She has several dreams she's being menaced by a giant cat paw. When her dad is murdered she's arrested. She's let go for lack of evidence but the cat handler Andre (David Hoffman) is killed by what appears to be a man size cat but only a shadow is seen. A police inspector (Richard Lane) snoops around. 

There's not much except a few more murders and a kind of dumb ending. Director Jean Yarbrough doesn't have much to work with here but keeps this low budget 20^th Century Fox release quick and short.

Karloff

 

THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES-1940-Dr. Mason (Roger Pryor) demonstrates his "frozen therapy" which he says can cure cancer by freezing the patient. All the doctors there agree. Dr. Harvey (Charles Trowbridge), head of the hospital is pissed at the publicity and takes the project away from Mason sending him on vacation. He and his nurse Judith (Jo Ann Sayers) decide to investigate the home of Dr. Kravaal, a scientist who disappeared 10 years before and had also been doing experiments with frozen therapy too.. After being warned to stay away from Kravaal's house, the duo find the doc's secret lab and the doc himself (Boris Karloff) frozen in a chamber. They revive him and in a flashback he relates how some locals wanted him arrested and how he, a coroner (Byron Foulger), DA Hawthorne (John Dilson), a sheriff and the nephew of Kravaal's patient became frozen. Later he revives them but when the nephew destroys his formula Kravaal kills him. He then holds everyone prisoner until he can replicate the lost formula. He wants to experiment on his hostages with most of the story taking place in the underground lab. 

Far fetched but enjoyable little mad scientist tale. One of several Karloff made for Universal in the early '40's. Fast worker Nick Grinde directed Karloff in THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG before this and BEFORE I HANG later the same year.

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Tor Johnson is Lobo In

 

THE UNEARTHLY-1957-Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine) is mad egotistical scientist using his rest home as a front for his diabolical experiments in eternal youth with his unsuspecting patients as guinea pigs. He's assisted by clipped fast talking ice princess Dr. Sharon Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd) and brain dead experiment gone wrong servant Lobo (the one and only Tor Johnson). Another doctor Loren Wright (Roy Gordon) is also in on the loony plan and provides "patients”, the latest being the up tight, depressed Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes). Also staying there are the uber-hyper Danny (Arthur Batanides) who may or may not be a drug addict and the cute blond Natalie Andries (Sally Todd) who's symptoms are never revealed. There's also the comatose Jedrow (Harry Fleer), another failed experiment who's sister is putting pressure on Wright to know her brother's whereabouts. 

Lobo catches escaped murderer Mark Houston (Myron Healey) in the garden and Charles offers him sanctuary. While Charles and Sharon plot their next operation, Mark gets acquainted with everyone, especially Grace. Charles reveals his dark plans to Mark and wants to make him immortal. At night while Charles plays an organ recital for his victims, Natalie is drugged and Lobo takes her to the lab ("Pretty girl. Pretty girl."). Later while sending everyone to their rooms, Tor mutters the memorable "Time for go to bed". The doc performs surgery on Natalie. Later he discovers he's once again failed. Natalie has become some-thing of a prune faced zombie. Doc is quite disappointed. Sharon tries to cheer him up and says he needs rest. "I do not need any-thing that I do not wish to need" he snaps and also decides to have Lobo bury Jedrow alive. Mark spoils his plans. After showing Grace what happened to Natalie, they de-cide along with Danny to blow the joint. Unfortunately they are found out and Charles decides the time is right to operate on Grace. 

Fortunately Mark is actually an under-cover policeman assigned to check out Conway's wacky residence. Jedrow kills Charles and although Danny is killed, Mark saves Grace. But there's a surprise in the basement. 

THE UNEARTHLY was the brainchild of producer/director Brooke L. Peters (aka Russian born Boris Petroff) who later made ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO in 1961. The story seems similar to the synopsis of a lost Lon Chaney silent film THE MONSTER. 

Star Carradine is great as the insane doctor doing it all for science. He was in a segment of the colossal flop THE STORY OF MANKIND the same year and made a lot of TV appearances. Lead actress Hayes was also in THE UNDEAD and ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU the same year. Big Tor began work on PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE around this time. 

Marilyn Buferd, a Miss California winner and former model, earlier had been in Roberto Rossellini's THE MACHINE THAT KILLS BAD PEOPLE. She only made one movie after this, QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE the next year.

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The Last House of Universal

HOUSE OF DRACULA-1945-In his castle laboratory the kindly eminent Dr. Edleman (Onslow Stevens) conducts experiments with the assistance of two nurses Nina (Jane Addams) and Miliza (Martha O'Driscoll) a hunchback. One dark night Count Dracula using the alias "Baron Latos" (John Carradine) visits Edleman. The urbane count says he wants to be cured of his vampirism. He sounds sincere but almost immediately sets his hypnotic eyes on Nina. While doing blood tests on Drac, the doc also receives a visit from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr., now with a mustache looking none the worse for wear especially since he was killed by a silver bullet in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) who wants a cure for his curse of lacanthropy. Edleman thinks he can help Larry but he must first  attend to the count who's getting way too flirty with his nurse. Larry makes a big point about his condition by having the local police chief (Lionel Atwill in his last finished movie) lock him up during a full moon. and he transforms right in front of their eyes.

During a blood transfusion Drac makes Edleman and Miliza go to sleep. He then reverses the transfusion and injects his blood sucking blood into the doc's! He plans to fly away with Nina. Edleman is revived in time to thwart the count's plan but he becomes a paranoid power crazed vampire type creature intent on reviving the Frankenstein monster (he and Talbot found it early with the skeleton of the monster's last would be savior Dr. Niemann; this is the only connection to HOF that makes any sense). The new blood seeking creature has a scary leer, watches his mirror image fade and (thanks to scenes from previous entries in the series) has a weird dream with the monster helping him attack the local town. He occasionally snaps out of his curse and plans on helping Miliza but she insists he operate on Talbot first. He does and the operation is a success! The full moon doesn't affect him! After vampire Edleman kills one of his workers (Ludwig Stossel) he begins tinkering again with the monster (Glen Strange). Miliza discovers this and Edleman promptly strangles her. Talbot enters just as the monster awakens. Meanwhile an angry mob lead by the dead worker's brother (Skelton Knaggs) storms the castle. In a rather sad (in more ways than one) ending the just cured Talbot shoots the crazed Edleman who seems to have a relieved look on his face when he dies. The monster gets mad, flails around a bit and tries to attack Talbot who starts a fire which it would appear kills the mistreated monster for good.

Not counting the next film to feature the three classic Universal monsters (ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN), HOUSE OF DRACULA brings to a close the horror series that really began with the original FRANKENSTEIN in 1931. It's not exactly a fond farewell despite having Earle C. Kenton as director. He'd done ok with the previous entries (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN; FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN) but the story here is rushed and the monster is wasted with just a couple of brief cameos before being destroyed. The acting is good especially from Stevens and O'Driscoll but the story is kind of mean spirited with Miliza after all her dedication to Edleman and his work winds up being strangled and her corpse thrown haphazardly aside. 

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Bela In The Rue Morgue

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE-1932-Universal Pictures first horror film (based on a Edgar Allan Poe story) made after the hits FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA! Set in Paris in 1845, Bela Lugosi portrays Dr. Mirakle, a slightly demented guy with a killer ape named Erik. The doctor can even "speak ape" to him. When not giving lectures on apes and humans being related he prowls the foggy streets looking for female victims to experiment on. He's assisted by Janos, (Noble Johnson). Mirakle takes a liking to Camille (the ill fated Sidney Fox who has top billing) after Erik steals her bonnet. She describes Mirakle as "a funny old man". Her boyfriend is medical student Pierre Dupin (Leon Waycoff, who later changed his surname to Ames) investigates the recent murders of 3 "women of the streets" and discovers they all died because ape blood was injected into them. A scene of Mirakle "experimenting" on a prostitute (future celebrity talk show panelist Arlene Francis) seems pretty shocking for 1932. Unable to convince Camille to come to him, Mirakle dispatches Erik to kidnap her. Fortunately Erik rebels and kills his master before any blood injecting can begin. Unfortunately Erik carries Camille over the rooftops of Paris with an angry mob in hot pursuit. Dupin arrives just in time to save his love.

Some comic interrogations where no one can agree on what language MIrakle and Erik are talking aren't that funny and seem to be thrown in to waste time. And since Erik is actually gorilla suited veteran Charles Gemora the close-ups of a an angry ape edited in are out of place.

Of course director Florey and star Lugosi were the original choices for the Universal production of FRANKENSTEIN but that was eventually changed. MURDERS has a smaller budget but is gruesome and eerie. It goes along well, until the end which seems rushed. The idea of Mirakle talking "ape" to his "pet" was used in a later Bela vehicle THE APE MAN.

Lugosi was in WHITE ZOMBIE and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS the same year. Florey, who co-wrote FRANKENSTEIN but was cheated out of screen credit by James Whale, co-wrote this and it's said John Huston also contributed some dialogue. MURDERS uses Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake over the opening credits (as did DRACULA and THE MUMMY). Herman Bing, Iron Eyes Cody and Charlotte Henry all have small roles.  

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Jekyll & Hyde

THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL-1960-In 1847 London Henry Jekyll (Paul Massie) is a disgraced doctor trying to discover "man as he would be". He's a loner who ignores his wife Kitty (Dawn Addams who was in Lang's THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE' the same year) and experiments on a monkey. Meanwhile Kitty is carrying on an affair with Jekyll's neer do well friend Paul (Christopher Lee). Somehow bearded, long haired, weird looking Jekyll becomes clean shaven, handsome Mr. Hyde who goes dancing and sees Paul and Kitty enjoying themselves. He dances with the unsuspecting  Kitty and nearly kills a dance hall bully(un-billed Oliver Reed). Later after making it with a snake charmer Hyde goes on a wild romp (including opium smoking) with Paul. Then extracting his revenge he sics the snake on Paul. When Kitty sees her illicit lover dead she fails to her own death. Hyde then strangles the snake charmer. Just when it seems like Hyde will literally get away with murder he reverts to Jekyll and dies.

Many times "new" interpretations of classic stories turn out to be boring and uninspired. Not so with Hammer's TWO FACES which thanks to the master of British horror Terence Fisher becomes an interesting and thought provoking take on Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde story line. The acting and direction are excellent. The major flaw is the weird transformation of Hyde from Jekyll. Screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz later wrote the 1967 version of CASINO ROYALE. Director Fisher made BRIDES OF DRACULA and SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST the same year. Lee, who would later star in another Jekyll & Hyde film I, MONSTER  made CITY OF THE DEAD (HORROR HOTEL) the same year.

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Re-Animator Re-Animated

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR-2003-Dr. Herbert West (Jeffery Coombs) is locked up in prison. A new prison doctor Howard Phillips (Jason Barry) who as a kid saw his sister killed by one of West's resurrected corpses enlists West in an effort to revive his experiments in this US-Spain co-production from director Brian Yuzna.

They revive a patient who becomes just as violent as past "victims". The idiot warden (Simon Andreu) makes a female reporter (Barbara Elorrieta) bark like a dog then kills her. A revived rat causes a lot of problems and one inmate releases all the prisoners from their cells and starts a riot. Meanwhile West and Phillips experiment on the warden to save the life of the reporter. It also features Elsa Pataky as a nurse who has a brief topless scene and Santiago Segura (also in Franco's KILLER BARBYS).

Coombs is still great as the insane but always analytical West but this tries too hard to be like the original and fails by becoming too comical and over top. Yuzna should have quit at 2 instead of making this ridiculous mess.

Well Shivers My Timbers!

SHIVERS (THE CAME FROM WITHIN)-1975-David Cronenberg's first feature is about medical transplants using a parasite as a substitute. It's very talking, badly acted, ineptly directed and unintentionally funny. All the characters seem creepy and/or deranged.

After a scientist kills a woman and burns her with acid, Dr. Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton, a TV actor and musician) investigates the murder and discovers the scientist's weird experiments. His nurse is played by Lynn Lowry (from THE CRAZIES, which this seems influenced by) who has a nude scene. Most of it takes place in a trendy high rise apartment building. The parasite infects its victims and sends them into bizarre sexual frenzies. ("I'm hungry for love" proclaims an infected fat woman)

Barbara Steele (she was in CAGED HEAT the same year) gets infected while taking a bath and seduces a female neighbor. Another TV actor Joe Silver (also in Cronenberg's RABID) has the bloodiest death.

Well Cronenberg certainly got better!

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