Director: Gordon Hessler
Year: 1970
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Mad Doctor
Plot:
After a series of graphic murders, a London police sergeant investigating the crimes finds them to be committed by assembled beings created by a mad doctor, forging them for a Communist country's eventual takeover, and tries to stop them from continuing.
Review:
Aside from being a collection of horror legends in one movie, this is actually one of their lesser roles. One of the main points here is that the film is mostly known for having three great horror stars of the time in its cast, featuring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price. It's the latter that holds the most screen time, and his role as a doctor that actually wants to do good with his creations instead of evil was creative and put a new spin on an idea that most were expecting, where Price is the villainous creator of what goes around killing people. It's still a nominal bad-guy role, but it's a bit closer to the side of good than evil.
It does have some other fun scenes here setting up the mod-flavored London scene of the late 60s, which sets up the fine, brutal attacks here in that time frame quite well, as those are quite brutal and somewhat nicely rely on that era's account of brutality. The movie doesn't have much else going for it until the middle third where it contains a nice car chase that is full of some new ideas of the cars zooming through traffic on the road that make it a far more remarkable than most car chases of the time and is all the more fun with the follow-up series of encounters along the buildings nearby that show his exceptional skills and provide the first clues to his true nature. Its only other important point here comes from the investigation into their abilities, and some results have been found that set up a rather nice mystery which does hold up quite nicely and stays intriguing enough throughout here.
These are the film's positives, which are mostly undone by several flaws. The biggest issue with this is that the film is very confusing, and it hardly gets any clearer until late, with a large portion of the film spent with the only thing we know being a series of gruesome killings, and the police don't know anything about how to stop the killer or the motives behind them. It's very aggravating when something happens, and nothing is answered. Even still, nothing is more confusing than the subplots that really go nowhere. There was a strange organization with a swastika-ish logo featured in the beginning, the random scenes with Lee just randomly thrown into the beginning, and the utter confusion over what the society actually is, which really makes no sense and is never explained what their target is supposed to be, which makes these so confusing overall.
Likewise, with all the scenes set in the swinging-mod London, there's not a whole lot here that actually becomes a horror film until the midway point, which leaves this one somewhat boring in the first half with the lame pacing and confusion over everything. As well, just because Price is the first name listed in the credits doesn't mean he has a lot of screen time. In fact, all three are in there for about a combined ten minutes, with Cushing for the least amount of time, so seeing it for them might be problematic. Otherwise, there's not much else to this one.
Overview: ***/5
A missed opportunity that becomes just decent, this is a more frustrating watch than anything, with the majority of the positives here being overwhelmed by the negative factors on display. Those with an appreciation for the style or approach, who enjoy this era of genre fare, or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others should heed extreme caution.
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