Monstrosity

Not likely to attain cult classic status, "The Atomic Brain" concerns a rich old woman, Mrs. March (Marjorie Eaton), who is funding researcher Dr. Otto Frank (Frank Fowler) to discover a way to transplant her brain into a younger woman's body. Otto has a small nuclear reactor in the basement of Mrs. March's house. The laboratory set looks even cheaper than similar stuff on the original "Outer Limits" television show.

The scientific basis behind Otto's experiments and the need to radiate his subjects is never adequately explained, obviously they needed the reactor to justify the original "Atomic Brain" title, the word fission is unconvincingly thrown around several times. I can only assume that the alternate title, "Monstrosity", is someone's comment on the quality of the film. At the start of the movie Otto's success has been limited to the transplant of a dog's brain into a man (who has large teeth and looks a bit like the goon in one of shorts featuring "The Three Stooges").

Mrs. March is encouraged when the doctor steals a woman's corpse from the graveyard and reanimates it to zombie status. Needing fresh living bodies for her transplant she hires three attractive young girls from Europe serve as housekeepers. Mrs. March has no other staff at her mansion, only a wimpy "companion and gigolo" guy who is turned on by the young girls. His name is Victor and the narrator sums up his motivation with the movie's best lines: "Three new bodies. Fresh, live, young bodies. No families or friends within thousands of miles, no one to ask embarrassing questions when they disappear. Victor wondered which one Mrs. March would pick. The little Mexican, the girl from Vienna, or the buxom blond? Victor knew his pick, but he still felt uneasy, making love to an 80 year old woman in the body of a 20 year old girl; it's insanity!"

Despite the low budget and feeble scripting, the movie is not entirely awful. Eaton (who played the fortune teller in cult classic "Night Tide") is wonderfully evil and nasty. Fowler (a veteran of countless golden age television classics) is amusing as your basic mad scientist, and the house itself is appropriately sinister. In fact, when the girls first arrive I thought that it might actually turn into a decent film as things get very spooky and suspenseful. One of the girls is played by Erika Peters, who was quite underrated as an actress - her talent dismissed because she was so beautiful. Unfortunately the other two actresses (neither did any subsequent film work) are not up to even modest acting challenges and things pretty much fall apart until a nice twist at the end (which would have worked much better if they had not spoiled it with a second twist). Despite the frequent use of a narrator to explain much of the story, so much happens off camera that is never explained that it is likely there was a much longer original version that was extensively trimmed to get to the present 72 minute running length. This much slash and burn editing does have the benefit of requiring viewers to exercise their own atomic brains whenever a narrative gap occurs. But the story follows the genre's formula so closely that it is not too difficult to fill in the blanks each time this occurs.

Only fans of bad 50's-60's science fiction are likely to ever actually watch "The Atomic Brain" and they should find it fairly representative of this genre. At least the premise is decent, with a significantly bigger budget for sets and competent supporting cast members it could have been an entertaining movie.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

"An elderly woman has invested a fortune on a scientist's research which, if successful, will allow him to transfer her brain into the body of a young woman. Needing a host body for her brain and subjects to experiment upon, the elderly woman advertises for a housekeeper in hopes of securing what the scientist needs, human guinea pigs. Three unlucky women are selected by the elderly woman as the choices and are unaware of the true motives behind their employment…" according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Re-titled "The Atomic Brain", the toothy "Monstrosity" referred to in the title is the fusion of a "live dog to a dead human body." He is the one of the mistakes mad doctor Frank Gerstle (as Otto Frank) has made. The body-snatching doctor is funded by haggish, but wealthy Marjorie Eaton (as Hetty March). The elderly Ms. Eaton wants her brain transplanted into a younger woman's body.

Fortunately, Eaton has good taste in the female form - she and gigolo Frank Fowler (as Victor) help arrange for the arrival of three fresh young female bodies: enticing Erika Peters (as Nina Rhodes), shapely Judy Bamber (as Beatrice Mullins), and lovely Lisa Lang (as Anita Gonzalez). Described as "firm and nicely-rounded," Otto's Angels think they've been hired as servants…

If you like good bad movies, by all means, check out this "Monstrosity"; it sinks quickly into awful, but slowly rises up the "so-bad-it's-good" meter. In his only directorial credit, James Mascelli gets in some nice shots, for the budget. The young women are fun to watch - all, coincidently, have "Monstrosity" as their last acting credit. There is a strong erotic undercurrent - think of petting pretty, brain-dead women in captivity...

**** Monstrosity (1964) James Mascelli ~ Marjorie Eaton, Frank Gerstle, Erika Peters

I enjoy bad movies. There is such a wicked delight in watching something that fails on many levels. Because of this enjoyment, I had originally intended to regularly review a movie from the Treeline 50 Sci-fi movie collection. But that was until I watched "The Atomic Brain" (aka Monstrosity).

It all came to fruition in a particular scene which made me uncomfortable with my whole bad movie fascination; like finding out that your first girlfriend has since turned into a lesbian.

But first, a quick précis of the film.

Given that its a black and white film called the Atomic Brain (aka Monstrosity), you should be guessing that you are about to watch a movie with obvious D-grade plot, photography, acting and script. And you would have made an excellent guess.

But what differentiates this film from other D-grade fodder are two unique aspects.

The first is the voice over. This film must have the longest voice over introduction in history. The only voice you hear for the first 15 minutes of the film is the voice-over guy. Normally, the voice-over guy is a device to setup a film, then he vanishes, to maybe reappear at the end, if everyone has died, with an "I told you so".

But this voice-over is unique. Firstly, the delivery is akin to the "You will follow the great leader" type you might associate with mass hypnosis cults. Except, instead of delivering the facts, the voice-over not only paraphrases the feeling of the main characters, but in places provides disparaging editorial comment on the actions taken by the main characters. Its all quite strange.

The second aspect relates to the uncomfortable scene mentioned earlier. Essentially, voice-over guy in his first 15 minutes establishes that the old lady wants to transplant her brain into a new young body. So, later in the movie, we have this scene where the old lady is asking the young women to model some underwear (so she can also check out her shape), and our friend the voice over guy reappears, and you sense lewdly enjoys telling us what she thinks, with comments such as "she is so nicely rounded in places men like".

Basically, listening to a disturbed voice-over guy explaining the desires an 80 year old women has for the body of a 19yr old girl is not something I would like to experience alone again. Especially when the old lady has the same name as your first girlfriend.

Worth only watching so that when you view the Mystery Science Theatre version, you actually begin to see how clever those MST guys must be to make it enjoyable.

Really strange and very bad movie. The tip off is that any horror movie than needs a narrator throughout is always bad - no exception here. Another early tip off on this movie is when "Dr Frank" (can't they be more original?) is grave robbing, his assistant kills a watchman. Rather than using the fresh corpse, Dr Franks goes after the entombed body of the young woman. The only good performance was by the black cat. The only reason I gave this flick a 2 rating rather than a 1 is because of its surreal quality at times.

In The Atomic Brain, Marjorie Eaton does a wonderful job of creating a thoroughly unlikeable rich old woman (Hetty March) with a scheme to have her brain transplanted into an attractive, healthy, younger body. To accomplish this, she supports the research of the brilliant sociopath Dr. Frank (Frank Gerstle), who has successfully transplanted various animal brains into humans - creating a dog-man and, later, a cat-woman. Once it becomes clear that cadavers are not going to suffice, Mrs March hires three young women from Europe to serve as maids (and, unbeknownst to them, possible body donors). Erika Peters does well with the Austrian Nina. Judy Bamber - the English Bea - is lovely but overacts and sounds about as English as Tom Cruise. Finally, Anita from Spain (nicely played by Lisa Lang) isn't fully human long enough for us to get a good sense of her personality. Overall, the acting is OK.

The pace is decent throughout most of the film, and the plot, though ridiculous, remains the central focus. Unfortunately the cinematography is, to say the least, uneven - there are a number of unnecessary shots of people moving about. This is sort of surprising since the director was later hired as a cinematographer for some higher profile films. And the voice-over narrative - which is also unnecessary - really seals the deal.

In a sort of in-your-face way, Atomic Brain portrays stereotypes of the rich, the elderly and the feminine gender, and really makes a horror of them. It also adds the cliché of the mad, self-righteous and egotistical scientist, and the somewhat lurid exploitation of youth and beauty. It is not an entirely thoughtless film, but it is not a good film either. Recommended for late night viewing after or during intoxication events.