La cara del terror

Dr. Taylor (Rey) develops a revolutionary new process of restoring badly damaged human skin. His synthetic skin can quickly and painlessly eliminate scarring. Unfortunately, the Madrid Institute of Mental Health denies his request to start human testing of his procedure.

Soon after being rejected, he is approached by a desperate woman (Gaye) with appalling burn scars on the left half of her face from an accident involving an oil lamp. What Dr. Taylor doesn't know is that she is an escaped mental patient from the very institution that had just rejected his work. He agrees to attempt the procedure on her free of charge since she is to be the first human test subject. It turns out to be a resounding success.

Unfortunately, the patient flees the doctor when he discovers her true identity and wants to turn her in. During her escape, she incapacitates him with a blow to the head. Now on the run, she struggles to remain at large and even escape the Madrid area. The film follows her desperate plight to both remain free and prevent her new skin tissue from deteriorating.

"Face of Terror" (U.S. title) is rather well done in many respects. The cast is decent and the production values are fine. There are some genuinely chilling moments as our fleeing mental patient plots murder in order to get her way. Pacing is slow at times and the entire film is rather predictable, but it is still worth seeing if one is a dedicated fan of the genre.

I thought this would be another "Facial Transplant" horror film, but not really. Our mad scientist (Aldo Rey), uses a new serum he's developed, to repair an escaped mental patient's face, (but he does not try removing others faces for the process.) Atmospheric, and often effective, the film is weakened by the director's insistence on filming it in English, despite much of the cast not actually being conversant in the language. Some performances are rather stilted by this convention, but it works, on the whole. Rey is near perfect as the lead, alternately masterful, then helpless, as the situation spirals out of his control. I believe this was removed from the usual PD sources, by the NAFTA/GATT stuff, but you know it's still lurking about. Rey was only a few years away from more "respectable", mainstream fare like "The French Connection". Well worth the effort for fans of gory 60's horror, and it's grisly highlights are often quite memorable.

Judexdot1

Except that it's not justified why she was hospitalized in a mental institution and that in the second half of the film the heroine has the left half of the face destroyed instead of the right, it's a very good film. Lisa Gaye is impeccable in a difficult role for any other actress. Veteran Fernando Rey, Luis Bunuel's favorite from movies like: "Viridiana", "Tristana", "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", "That Obscure Object of Desire", is very good too. Me, I didn't like the end. Norma doesn't deserve that stupid death, falling on the shard of glass. She doesn't deserve to die at all. I would have preferred to be helped by the doctor once again, this time with the right serum and then to help her leave the country.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Isidoro Ferry and William Hole Jr.; Executive Producer: Jack Miles; Released by Futuramic Films in America. Screenplay by Monroe Manning; Photography by Jose Aguayo; Edited by Antonio Ramirez; Music by Jose Buenagu. Starring: Lisa Gaye, Fernando Rey, Virgilio Teixeira, Gerard Tichy, Emilio Rodriguez and Conchita Cuetos.

Owing to Georges Franju's earlier classic "Eyes Without a Face", this oddly localed horror film (made in Spain) dealing with plastic surgery and revenge is very amateurish, partly due to hack auteur William Hole. The professional leading players help save the day, but it's really a waste of a good title.

While "Face of Terror" ("La Cara del Terror") looks like a crappy Spanish horror movie on the surface, it's really very well made and the dubbing is pretty amazing. And, it's well worth seeing.

When the story begins, Dr. Taylor (Fernando Rey) approaches the board of directors at the hospital, asking permission to try out a radical new type of plastic surgery...using actual plastic and using it to rebuild the faces of badly disfigured people. Oddly, the board rejects his proposal so he decides to continue his work on his own. Soon, a badly disfigured woman arrives....telling Taylor she knew about his work and begging him to help her. Naturally, he's filled with compassion and performs surgery on her and incorporates his new secret formula.

What the nice doctor doesn't realize, however, is that Norma (Lisa Gaye) is actually an escaped and dangerous mental patient from the hospital. And, after completing the surgery and having outstanding results (she's now very beautiful), he learns the truth and insists she return to the hospital. However, she's afraid and conks him on the head....making her escape. Soon Norma has found a job and appears to be trying to create a normal life for herself. But being beautiful offers its own obstacles and soon she's being sexually harassed and ends up killing the pig. But this isn't her last killing.

I really liked this film for quite a few reasons. First, although it was originally a Spanish language movie, it was very seamlessly converted to English. Most Spanish horror films of the era were horribly dubbed. But in this one, scenes with Taylor and Norma were re-shot with the actors speaking English and doing their own dubbing. As for the other characters, they also were dubbed very well and it wasn't the usual clumsy and distracting dubbing. Second, although Norma has some mental health issues, you CAN understand and even justify a couple of her killings...it's NOT a case of a maniac just killing folks. I also liked the ending. All in all, a surprisingly good and enjoyable film that defies so many of the expected stereotypes and cliches.