The Invisible Dead

Orloff and the Invisible Man (1970)

** (out of 4)

Answering the call of a medical emergency, a young doctor avoids all warnings and goes to the home of Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) where he is told about a medical breakthrough where Orloff has created an invisible man. Vernon would play the Dr. Orloff character several times in his career so it's obvious a role he has no trouble in doing. ORLOFF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN (one of its many titles) is a decent time killer if you don't expect anything too good or too serious. The entire film suffers from a very low-budget and it appears that director Pierre Chevalier doesn't have much faith in anything that he's doing. Most of the scenes seem extremely rushed or at least made quickly without too much effort put into them. There really isn't any story of vision on display here as it almost seems as if Chevalier was just a director-for-hire who got the film in the can as quickly as he could. It's certainly not on the same page as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF or DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER but there are a few interesting ideas here. It's funny how the entire doctor coming to the castle is handled because it's clearly ripping off the start of Dracula. The entire relationship between this young doctor and Orloff is a tad bit weird to say the least and the story never really bothered to explain why we need this younger doctor around. At just 75-minutes the film certainly goes by pretty quickly, although, to be honest, not much really happens in regards to the invisible man. The strangest sequence comes towards the end when a woman is stripped totally naked and sexually assaulted by the invisible man. Obviously the special effects aren't that good and the actresses acting isn't all that good either so we're left with an extremely weird sequence that belongs in the Euro Horror Hall of Fame. Vernon is good in his role and the supporting players aren't too bad either. There's plenty of nudity to keep fans of that entertained and there's some mild humor as well.

I always assumed that it was Jess Franco who had a monopoly on this type of cinema, namely: the routine euro-exploitation flicks with an always-returning villain (Dr. Orloff), absurd story lines (invisible ape-creatures??), truckloads of sleaze and absolutely no logic at all. Every small detail in "Orloff Against the Invisible Man" has got Franco's name written all over it, so it was quite a surprise to find out that he actually hasn't got anything to do with it. But still Franco admirers don't have to fear that this will be a 'soft' film, because director Pierre Chevalier proves himself to be "Godfather of Sleaze" as well and his movie is delightfully trashy and nonsensical. Howard Vernon (normally a Franco-regular as well) stars as a totally insane man of science who created an invisible monster, supposedly for his daughter that got traumatized after being buried alive when she was 16. How exactly this creation helps the poor girl's situation is entirely beside the point, as are many other sudden twist in the script. Everything eventually revolves on the sexual aspect when the invisible ape-man goes completely berserk after graphically raping the housemaid (sickly illustrated by an overlong scene showing the poor woman struggling naked on a pile of hay). Every normal film-loving person will most likely detest this film, but for exploitation-fans, there is always the weird atmosphere and morbid set pieces to admire. Orloff's castle is genuinely ominous, with lots of dark cellars and secret tombs and Howard Vernon looks uniquely sinister again. Great entertainment for the slightly more demanding cult-freaks among us.

Anyone encountering this film on VHS in the UK as the Invisible Dead, tag line; " god help us if they rise again" will find themselves utterly baffled or just ripped off by the content of the actual film. Not only have they been lead to believe that it's a zombie flick by the sleeve art but the film itself has been sliced and diced, presumably by the distributors following the 1982 video act,so that sleazy content of any kind is absent, and what we are left with is essentially 80 odd minutes of people wandering through corridors very....slowly.....indeed. As others have doubtless pointed out, none of the dialogue bears much relation to the action on screen, some of the soundtrack has been left blatantly undubbed, and that goddamn music clangs away throughout for all the world like a troop of drunken boy scouts assaulting each other with biscuit tins. Listing the inconsistencies and "what the heck?.." moments would take too damn long, but suffice to say that it's one of those eurosleaze offerings that manage to conjure up a surreal, dream-like atmosphere chiefly through being incoherent and flat out badly made.And judging by the speed of the opening doors and "magically" appearing footprints, the invisible ape-man doesn't really pose much of a threat to anyone who can move faster than a relaxed stroll.It's crap. I quite enjoyed it

Everyone else's reviews on here pretty much say what I would say, however, I wanted to add that that music score is quite impressive. I usually don't listen to the music in a film unless it strikes me and this one stuck me as being more than just boring background music. Also, the lighting they used really gave the movie a unique feel. It seemed like everyone was lit up brightly with a light right in their face. It added much needed color to the film. Without the color and music, this movie would have been very drab. Also, the "horror" nature of this film focuses on rape more than anything gory or gross. The rape scene with the maid was too much for me to watch, I had to close my eyes. It seemed to go on forever. Quite unsettling and distasteful. And the ape suit guy was hilarious. Very far from the "superior race" of people the doctor thought he was creating. It seemed like just a dumb ape to me.

3/10 because of the music, lighting and unintentional humor.

The newcomer Dr. Garondet (Francis Valladares) is summoned by professor Orloff (Howard Vernon) but people in his village is afraid to go to his castle. The insistent Dr. Garondet reaches the castle and the servants send him to talk to Cécile Orloff (Brigitte Carva), who is the daughter of the professor and is worried about the mental health of her father. Dr. Garondet meets professor Orloff and he tells what happened to Cécile sometime ago and his experiment with an invisible man, and he explains that his daughter is deranged due to the reported incident. Dr. Garondet has to spend the night in the castle and soon he learns who is the insane in the castle.

"La vie amoureuse de l'homme invisible" is a lame and funny euro trash sexploitation by Pierre Chevalier, a wannabee of Jess Franco and Ed Wood. The silly story has poor acting, awful scenarios and gratuitous nudity. The rape of the servant by the invisible man and the bush of Brigitte Carva are scenes of so bad taste that become hilarious. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Monstro do Dr. Orloff" ("The Monster of the Dr. Orloff")