Director: Terence Fisher
Year: 1958
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Having survived the original execution, the Baron retreats to a small village to hide out, only for more probing questions lead him to experiment again and raise another creature to continue answering his questions about life and death, forcing the villagers to stop his creation.
Review:
This one was quite an improved sequel over the original. One of the strong points of this one is the film's rather strong sense of Gothic action here, as this did have some good moments to it. The opening bits, which detail the escape at the execution, including the bit before where a fellow inmate is executed and turned to face him, are quite nice and a really inspired turn of events. That they segue into the outstanding scene where his surprise non-appearance inside a casket is a shock to grave-robbers is full of the usual Gothic flair from these scenes, and really gets a lot out of it. There's also some good scenes to come from the laboratory, where the early demonstration of the brain control functions between the disembodied eyes and hand is a wonder, making it quite more evocative and realistic than it should've had any chance of being.
They are really well-handled with the later scenes of them in the lab preparing all the equipment, which does draw some unease and makes for some tense moments. The surgery scenes are fine for the time, content to simply show them working around the covered head while the rest is draped in a white sheet with a ton of blood-smears around their hands and arms, all the rest handled with sound effects instead. The aftermath, where the body is shown hooked up to the monitoring equipment, is a lot of fun and manages to get some more out of the premise. Once the creature's out and about, there is some fun to be had, including a tender moment in a horse-filled stable and another, rather creepy murder scene out in a graveyard, which is a little atmospheric. These here comprise all of the films' good parts, as there wasn't a whole lot really wrong with this one.
One of the main flaws is that the film never really engages in a lot of explanations for most of its big stories. The escape from the guillotine is one that is sketched over and thus confusing since it's a throwaway line that really could've set up something more interesting along the way that helps the film. The different reactions to the transplant would've been fine as well had there been something mentioned about it, as there had been previous experiments and side-effects, which should've been more out-in-the-open. The physical changes that are undergone are quite hard to fathom, since it was deemed to be a physical ailment rather than anything else, and so the reason for the change doesn't really serve any purpose. The last flaw in this one is the fact that there are hardly any moments with the monster, despite there being two in the film. The first one turns into a cripple, which doesn't really serve much use, and the second one is shown in the tank and hardly gets any time at all, a very poor showing here for the creatures. These issues here are what hold the film down.
Overview: ****/5
An impressive, fun monster entry with just a few flaws, there's a lot to like with this one, which makes for a far more lively and fun sequel over the slightly problematic original. Those with an interest in this era of the genre, who aren't bothered by the issues here, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed slight caution.
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