Director: Stuart Heisler
Year: 1941
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: The Avenging Brain
Genre: Mad Doctor
Plot:
After being wrongly accused of murder, a condemned man takes up a scientist's plea to be used in his experiment to swap his brain into an ape, and with his new body sets out on a course of vengeance to get the criminal gang who initially set him up while saving the girl he loves.
Review:
There wasn't a whole lot to really like with this one. Among its main positives here are its rather fun stalking scenes showing the actual effects of his successful experiment and going out seeking revenge. These here are actual horror scenes that feature something creepy happening as the exploits of the ape-monster going around actually attacking and ambushing his accusers give this one some solid stalking out in the courtyard around the house where it picks off the gangster by dropping down from the trees onto them, a rather fun stalking scene outside of a hotel lobby where it strikes a couple of henchmen hanging around and really only gets close to the fun of this in the finale where it scales their hotel through the fire ladders outside and then breaches into the room to attack her captors that finally settles the score on his vengeance in fine fashion while delivering a nice enough action scene as well. Given that these are all that's worthwhile here which all involve the killer ape, there's not a whole lot to really like here which is what's the case here.
The film's main problem is the fact that there's very little of interest here in the first half as this one plays more on the courtroom drama than any kind of true horror effort here. There's very little interest in these scenes as there are just endless repetitions of people sitting in a courtroom recounting what happened before it goes into a lengthier, more detailed flashback of events that shows in detail what they just talked about, as not only does this one feature the scene they just got done explaining but also going into the setup for the scene to make sense and the result is just really overlong and bland for an introduction to be about. These are completely uninteresting and the fact that it holds up the entire first half of the film is what does hold this one back as much as the film's rather low-budget tone and feel. The process of the body swap shows this off rather nicely here with the whole surgery glossed over and shown as frantic close-ups without any kind of on-screen help as to what's happening which makes it look so cheap and low-budget that it really stands out compared to other such scenes, and along with the ratty ape-suit used for the creature it really adds to the overall weak look of this one. Overall these are what really hold this one back.
Overview: **/5
An exceptionally bland and somewhat mediocre effort if still with some decent positives, this one manages to get likable enough for what it is but is just let down by too many factors to be of much interest elsewhere. Those that enjoy this period of the genre or are curious about it are the only ones that should have much interest in this one as most others should heed caution.
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