John Carradine is one of those actors from a bygone era that seemed to look at acting as an actual job rather than something to do every now and then while living in multiple homes and living life of luxury. No, he seemed to go from one movie to another taking parts in really good films and really, really bad films. That being said, he has been in more than a couple of films that were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and this was one of them. Not an entirely bad film, Red Zone Cuba was a much worse film that was featured on the show, this film is a bit slow paced even for a film that has a run time of just over an hour. Basically, just your typical mad scientist film that features a mad scientist, strange monsters and Tor Johnson as a sidekick named Lobo! Yes, Tor appeared as a sidekick named Lobo in like two other films other than this one, but while those two Lobo's were the same character, this one is a totally different Lobo...the distinction is apparently this one speaks. So, it has its moments and the film is upgraded a bit by John Carridine's performance, but overall, just seems like it needed a bit more going on.
The story has a mansion that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but near the end of the film seems to be right in the middle of the city housing special patients who seem to think they are there for some sort of mental health treatment. Unfortunately for them, the good doctor who resides in the house plans on using them for his experiments to prolong man's life to an eternity using a special gland that he apparently created or something. A man caught outside the mansion and who the doctor believes is an murder on the run ends up being recruited to be a part of the experiments, but this man seems to know something is not right and tries to uncover the truth.
This made for a pretty good episode of MST3K as most films featuring Tor Johnson do. This film had not one, but two shorts which is a bit puzzling seeing as how the film ran 72 minutes which might merit the inclusion of one short, but not really two. Makes me wonder what they edited out of this one. A lot of the riffs in this one were geared to Tor Johnson's Lobo character and John Carridine's mansion that is just about the only place you see during the duration of this film.
So, not a horrible film, but just kind of slow. I would not really want to see the film in its entirety as I cannot imagine it really adding anything to this film. What I did see seemed pretty cut and dry as it was a mad scientist using people as guinea pigs for his crazy experiments. You get to see people misshaped by his experiments and I like how they treat the one girl as if she is dead. It's like, "Oh my, she is now unattractive, let's just leave her here to rot because her life is now over." So if you want to see a film featuring strange experiments, a mad doctor and Tor as Lobo this film fits the bill! Along with like at least two other films...
The story has a mansion that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but near the end of the film seems to be right in the middle of the city housing special patients who seem to think they are there for some sort of mental health treatment. Unfortunately for them, the good doctor who resides in the house plans on using them for his experiments to prolong man's life to an eternity using a special gland that he apparently created or something. A man caught outside the mansion and who the doctor believes is an murder on the run ends up being recruited to be a part of the experiments, but this man seems to know something is not right and tries to uncover the truth.
This made for a pretty good episode of MST3K as most films featuring Tor Johnson do. This film had not one, but two shorts which is a bit puzzling seeing as how the film ran 72 minutes which might merit the inclusion of one short, but not really two. Makes me wonder what they edited out of this one. A lot of the riffs in this one were geared to Tor Johnson's Lobo character and John Carridine's mansion that is just about the only place you see during the duration of this film.
So, not a horrible film, but just kind of slow. I would not really want to see the film in its entirety as I cannot imagine it really adding anything to this film. What I did see seemed pretty cut and dry as it was a mad scientist using people as guinea pigs for his crazy experiments. You get to see people misshaped by his experiments and I like how they treat the one girl as if she is dead. It's like, "Oh my, she is now unattractive, let's just leave her here to rot because her life is now over." So if you want to see a film featuring strange experiments, a mad doctor and Tor as Lobo this film fits the bill! Along with like at least two other films...