Monstrosity

An elderly woman wants to be young again. She has lots of money and enlists a mad scientist who works all day in the basement with his nuclear device to transplant brains atomically. Brought into the picture are three young women who will provide the body, once the process is perfected. One woman gets a cat brain transplant and runs around scratching people and screeching. Another is a victim of cat-woman and loses her eyesight. The third becomes the target for the transplant. Unfortunately, there are failed experiments running around the house, particularly a young woman who has no brain at all. She is just there to provide amusement. The old lady continues to bully the young women who ask to leave, but stay just because she tells them to (apparently, they need her to let them out of their contract and she will call immigration and get them sent back). When they finally act, it is too late. There is also an old lech who can't wait for the old lady to get a new body, but comes to realize that he is going to be left in the dust. He then becomes a possible roadblock, although the old lady is so mean spirited she doesn't seem to care. Nevertheless, the transplant does finally take place but with different consequences than the old lady had anticipated.

The biggest problem has to do with trust. The scientist works at the behest of the old woman, but seems to have his own agenda. He is annoyed by her constant meddling in what he is doing. He betrays here of course. So much of the movie is in anticipation of finally doing the transplant. We just can't get there and the ride is long and tedious.

I'm kind of surprised by the nature of many of the comments here. OF COURSE the movie is terrible, people! But I don't think you or anyone needs the MST3K commentators to know that this is a mega-turkey on a grand scale and add your own commentary! I'm also really surprised how many people find the sexism of the film "offensive." Wow, I never would have expected a 60's drive-in exploitation film to be sexist! I can't believe that!

I found this movie totally enjoyable, and at 66 minutes it's just the right length. The story about switching bodies with a younger person and willing all your posessessions to them (that is, to YOU, after the switch) is from a relatively well-known 18th-century ghost story... I actually wish I could find it again. There were so many enjoyable aspects... the ridiculous narration that tries to cover for the fact that they can't form a coherent story with the footage at hand... the idea that you can fit a human brain into a cat's skull... the animal noises coming out of the people (which is actually fairly effective)... the hideous accents ("Me no speak good English")... it's just a hoot from start to finish.

Some notable moments: >>When the mad scientist explains that if anyone discovers the lab he'll just trip off a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION that'll take care of them! ...and of course the few miles around the house as well. And really, how many of us have space for a nuclear reactor in our basements? >>I love how the two remaining women are getting freaked out and decide that they have to leave, NOW. So they go downstairs to the first floor (where presumably the front door is), but they just keep on going, down to the basement, where they witness the old lady (previously wheelchair bound) up and walking around near her nuclear reactor. So they go back up, pass the front door again, and go back to their room where they proceed to read a magazine! >>The acting in this film is just so on the surface. Like the scene in which the blinded woman reaches around above her until she hits the lamp and sends it swinging, THEN removes her bandage... because if not, what excuse would we have to see the gouged-out eye socket in the chilling swinging light?

Excellent cheese! Ridiculous, glorious, and yeah, a bit on the disturbing side.

--- Check out my website devoted to bad and cheesy movies at: www.cinemademerde.com

The Atomic Brain (or "Monstrosity", if you will) can be described best as Universal's Frankenstein for dummies with no money! The basic story is clearly imitating the classic Mary Shelley story, but so many hectic sub plots and extremely poor visual effects are added that the wholesome becomes incredibly bad. The Drive-In-Cinema type of bad…The MST3K type of bad! Or, in other words, so bad it becomes hugely entertaining again! "The Atomic Brain" is a totally WHACK movie that indeed features all kinds of monstrosities but absolutely no suspense, logic or continuity. It looks like the writers tried to camouflage their lack of inspiration and talent by constantly adding more genetically mutated monsters! Three young girls from different corners of the world are lured to the Californian mansion of the wealthy Mrs. March. Supposedly to work as servants, but the malicious wheel-chaired woman plots to steal their youth and virility! She has the bizarre Dr. Frank (got it?) experimenting with brain-transplants in her cellar and she pays him to surgically put her old brain into the body of one of the young beauties. As some kind of practice, Dr. Frank already created a half-man/half-ape monster, a zombie-girl that he keeps around for amusement (!) and a woman with the brain of a cat! This is pretty stupid 60's B-cinema with pitiful effects and an overload of obvious errors. For example, how the hell can you measure an adult's brain into the skull of a cat? Or vice versa? Oh heck, it doesn't really matter since it provides a few good laughs and at least the movie is never boring, unlike so many other poverty row Sci-Fi movies from that era. The finale is sensationally over-the-top and if they EVER plan to make a sequel, I suggest an appropriate title already: "Revenge of the Brainiac Cat". By the way, keep an eye open for the Oscar-worthy performance of Xerxes; the cat!

Monstrosity (1963)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

An elderly woman (Marjorie Eaton) funds the scientific projects of Dr. Frank (Frank Gerstle) but it's not out of the kindness of her heart. No, she funds his atomic experiments in hopes that the doctor will be willing to put her brain into the body of a young hot model. You see, she's never known love from a man so she wants to be young again and good looking.

MONSTROSITY, also known under the title of THE ATOMIC BRAIN, is considered by many to be one of the worst films ever made. If you discuss bad movies with people then someone will usually bring this one up but I must admit that I've never really hated this movie because it's really so bad that you can find yourself being entertained by it.

There's really not anything good you can say about this thing. It's cheaply made, which is to be expected but it's clear that the director didn't know how to make, frame or shoot a movie. He certainly wasn't able to tell a story because this thing rarely makes too much sense and takes way too long for its main story to get going. The performances are downright awful and especially those playing the models because their various accents come and go throughout the picture and often times throughout a sentence.

There are some really campy moments including the "cat woman" and there's a hilarious scene where she's trying to catch a mouse. There's also a rather strange factor of having the elderly woman constantly drooling over the young women. Other silly things include every second of the ending, which I certainly won't spoil here but it's quite funny. Obviously, MONSTROSITY isn't meant to be taken serious and it's a poorly made but campy movie.

Not likely to attain cult classic status, "The Atomic Brain" concerns a rich old woman, Mrs. March (Marjorie Eaton), who is funding researcher Dr. Otto Frank (Frank Fowler) to discover a way to transplant her brain into a younger woman's body. Otto has a small nuclear reactor in the basement of Mrs. March's house. The laboratory set looks even cheaper than similar stuff on the original "Outer Limits" television show.

The scientific basis behind Otto's experiments and the need to radiate his subjects is never adequately explained, obviously they needed the reactor to justify the original "Atomic Brain" title, the word fission is unconvincingly thrown around several times. I can only assume that the alternate title, "Monstrosity", is someone's comment on the quality of the film. At the start of the movie Otto's success has been limited to the transplant of a dog's brain into a man (who has large teeth and looks a bit like the goon in one of shorts featuring "The Three Stooges").

Mrs. March is encouraged when the doctor steals a woman's corpse from the graveyard and reanimates it to zombie status. Needing fresh living bodies for her transplant she hires three attractive young girls from Europe serve as housekeepers. Mrs. March has no other staff at her mansion, only a wimpy "companion and gigolo" guy who is turned on by the young girls. His name is Victor and the narrator sums up his motivation with the movie's best lines: "Three new bodies. Fresh, live, young bodies. No families or friends within thousands of miles, no one to ask embarrassing questions when they disappear. Victor wondered which one Mrs. March would pick. The little Mexican, the girl from Vienna, or the buxom blond? Victor knew his pick, but he still felt uneasy, making love to an 80 year old woman in the body of a 20 year old girl; it's insanity!"

Despite the low budget and feeble scripting, the movie is not entirely awful. Eaton (who played the fortune teller in cult classic "Night Tide") is wonderfully evil and nasty. Fowler (a veteran of countless golden age television classics) is amusing as your basic mad scientist, and the house itself is appropriately sinister. In fact, when the girls first arrive I thought that it might actually turn into a decent film as things get very spooky and suspenseful. One of the girls is played by Erika Peters, who was quite underrated as an actress - her talent dismissed because she was so beautiful. Unfortunately the other two actresses (neither did any subsequent film work) are not up to even modest acting challenges and things pretty much fall apart until a nice twist at the end (which would have worked much better if they had not spoiled it with a second twist). Despite the frequent use of a narrator to explain much of the story, so much happens off camera that is never explained that it is likely there was a much longer original version that was extensively trimmed to get to the present 72 minute running length. This much slash and burn editing does have the benefit of requiring viewers to exercise their own atomic brains whenever a narrative gap occurs. But the story follows the genre's formula so closely that it is not too difficult to fill in the blanks each time this occurs.

Only fans of bad 50's-60's science fiction are likely to ever actually watch "The Atomic Brain" and they should find it fairly representative of this genre. At least the premise is decent, with a significantly bigger budget for sets and competent supporting cast members it could have been an entertaining movie.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.