Monstrosity 1963 Four people worked on the script, Vy Russell, Sue Dwiggins, Dean Dillman Jr and an uncredited Jack Pollexfen, the director was Joseph V Mascelli and and uncredited Jack Pollexfen. It's too bad they didn't work a bit harder. The film is also known as The Atomic Brain. That's the title I saw it under when it ran as the film in an episode of MST3K. It's also in one of those 50 movie packs from Mill Creek. Here's a handy checklist of the many multi movie packs from Mill Creek.
A wicked old woman has devoted her fortune to keeping herself alive. She's got a mad scientist in the basement of her big old mansion. That's him in the baggy clothes. He's played by Frank Gerstle and he had a long career in films and TV. He's got over 200 credits on the IMDb. The other man is the old lady's dogsbody, he's played by Frank Fowler and he only has 5 credits on the IMDb. The scientist calls him a gigolo and he does figure to come out quite well when the old lady gets her young new body. The wicked rich bitch sets him straight, what young woman wants an old man for a lover, he's none to happy. The old lady is played by Marjorie Eaton, she appeared in over 50 TV shows and films in a career that started in 1946 and ended in 1984, she died the following year at 85 years old. In one of her last roles she played an Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back. Her film listing on the IMDb is quite interesting.
The poor undressed lady is a corpse the mad scientist had robbed from a grave, he's put the brain of an animal into her head and reanimated her. He's using atomic power, enough to blow the whole mansion to bits. In fact, he's rigged the machine to blow if they get caught. That will cover up the evidence.
That's another of his experiments in brain transfers. He's got a slave that kills there. The grave robbing is attracting the attention of the local news and the bodies aren't holding up too well after the transfers. The mad scientist wants to use live women as hosts for the old woman's brain. The old lady orders three foreign servants and takes her pick from the women that arrive. It soon becomes apparent that they are in danger so the women try escaping.
One woman is caught and has the brain of a cat put into her head. The scientist is happy with the transfer and plans to do the old lady next. Before that happens one bad thing after another happens and nearly everyone dies.
It's got an interesting plot at the core of the movie but the movie is strictly low budget and amateurish. It plods along at the best of times, the dialog is poor on top of that. People vote harshly on the IMDb, 30.4% of the votes are a 1 and 39.8% of the votes are a 2 or 3. It's a good reminder to keep an eye on the rich, they are some fuckin' ugly and untrustworthy people. You can see if you like it in the link in the title above.
Convict 762 1997 Screenplay by J Reifel, directed by Luca Bercovici. I had a disc with four movies on it and thought I only had watched two of them. I put this on and it seemed familiar. My Watched Movie List says I had seen it, back in 2003, and my comment was one word, Crap. I skimmed through it to see what it was about. A spaceship gets in trouble and has to land as a space prison to refuel. A short time before they arrive the prisoners had all killed themselves. Only Billy Drago and Frank Zagarino are alive. The captain and the crew, all women, make one mistake after another and they don't survive to well. It's not very good but I knew that going in. I went through it pretty quickly, speeding it up after watching the first third. I hope I don't forget and watch it again someday.
Cypher 2002 Written by Brian King and directed by Vincenzo Natali. Vincenzo is the director of Cube. Lot's of people liked it but I wasn't that keen on it. This was a good bit better. It's an odd story, sort of future is now with giant corps spying on one another. Jeremy Northam gets hired to be a spy at one corp, he's sent to infiltrate another corp and gets on there. Lucy Liu turns up as another spy of sorts, she helps him and leads him down one rabbit hole after another. It gets pretty complicated but you can mostly follow along. There's one double cross after another and plenty of danger. The corps kill agents when they don't have a use for them anymore. Or do they, who knows, not much is really explained. There's a fairly decent ending and some of the baddies get blown up, so that was OK. It's slightly above average for me. I'll keep the disc and might watch it again someday.
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