Suggested to me by Simon Bacon, this 1963 film was directed by Joseph V. Mascelli and Jack Pollexfen and it matches its title as it is a bit of a monstrosity. Simon saw within it a potential of it being a vampire film firstly due to its opening lines from the narrator (Bradford Dillman) that says “For in the ancient folk legends, tales are told of blood-sucking vampires, crawling out of graves to live on the bodies of helpless victims. Is man now doomed to produce a race of ever-living monstrosities, worse than the vampires of legend?” Through that he likened the film to the story Good Lady Duncayne and, to be fair, this does have an elderly rich lady, Mrs March (Marjorie Eaton), employing a Doctor, in this case mad scientist Dr Frank (Frank Gerstle), to restore her youth. Blood is not the order of the day, however.
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| In the reactor chamber |
It starts with Dr Frank transplanting an animal brain into the newly deceased female body he has stolen – in a procedure that involves an atomic reactor chamber. We then see him stealing a newly interned corpse, aided by the monstrous looking reanimated male corpse in which he put the brain of a dog. This reanimated corpse has fangs in the lower jaw, giving a bestial look that brings the Island of Dr Moreau to mind.
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| Marjorie Eaton as Mrs March |
He has discovered that the transplant works better the fresher the corpse and the aim is to be really fresh and transplant Mrs March’s brain into a living woman’s body. To this end she has lured three young woman, Anita (Lisa Lang), Bea (Judy Bamber) and Nina (Erika Peters), to her home, which she shares with “toy boy” Victor (Frank Fowler). She will select one of the girls to be her host, as it were, and through the course of the film one will end up with a cat’s brain.
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| Two of the candidates |
So, the use of science to gain eternal life but this is by brain transplant and so calls to mind the superb Get Out (2017) – though this does not have the haunting vestiges of the original owner mentioned. The use of atomic power does bring Atom Age Vampire to mind but the vampiric surgery in that had to be repeated. This would be initially a one-shot transplant, killing the person though not the body (with the assumption that the new owner would swap bodies at some point as the new one ages). I am veering towards Not Vamp, it just didn’t feel like it was to me – despite invoking the vampire at the head of the film, but I can see why Simon suggested it might be and I am interested to hear what you think in the comments.
The imdb page is here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
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