| While rooting through a DVD bargain bin yesterday, I found something that made me hyperventilate. It was a triple-feature disc, one of those cheap little jobbies from Vintage Home Entertainment – the ones that promise "3 Classic Movies!" and feature cover art that looks like a colouring book. These discs are everywhere, and most of them offer public domain films I either already have or don’t care about, but this one had me forking over my $6.39 faster than a greased marble down an iceberg. "Weird Science Theater" the cover said, followed by three titles dear to any self-respecting Video Vulture’s heart: The Brain that Wouldn’t Die (1959), The Manster (1959), and The Head (1959). Jackpot!
The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, is an old favourite of mine from way back. Who could forget the sight of a living severed head marinating in a cake pan, whispering threats to a lab assistant, and telepathically ordering the giant pinhead monster in the closet to run amok? Everybody should see this priceless oddity – it’s one of the films that inspired me to start writing this column in the first place.
Incidentally, The Brain that Wouldn’t Die was filmed in 1959, but for various legal and censorship reasons, it wasn’t released until 1962. That might seem like a pointless bit of trivia, but pay attention anyway. You’ll see why in a minute.
The Head (a.k.a. Die Nackte und der Satan) also features a talking severed head on a table, making it essential viewing for all fans of talking-severed-head-on-a-table movies, like myself. The mad scientist in this one also removes the head of a hunchbacked nurse, and transplants it onto the body of a stripper. This German movie was made in 1959, but it wasn’t released in North America until the English dubbed version came out in 1962. (Aha! A pattern emerges!)
The first five minutes of The Manster (a.k.a. The Split) is guaranteed to startle. We begin with a lovely establishing shot of three young women lounging in a picturesque hot spring at a Japanese bathhouse. This calm tone is shattered by the sudden intrusion of a hairy ape, seen only in silhouette through the paper walls of the resort. The beast attacks, sending a splash of blood across the paper wall. Across this wall, the title and opening credits are projected. It’s every bit as jarring as the shower scene from Psycho (1960), and similarly shows us much less than we think we see (in both films, the blood seems all the more shocking for being shown in black-and-white). After the title sequence, we catch up with the killer ape as he returns to the laboratory from which he sprung. Here, the mad scientist Dr. Robert Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura) – who is actually the killer ape’s brother — waits with a pistol and a heavy conscience. The doctor tries to reason with the killer ape (whom he calls Kenji), before gassing him, shooting him and throwing his hairy lifeless body into a volcanic inferno behind one of the lab’s reinforced doors.
Believe it or not, the film actually gets crazier from there. Dr. Suzuki tests his experimental monster formula on an unsuspecting American reporter (Peter Dyneley), probably because he’s sick of trying the stuff on loved ones. The reporter goes through a complete personality change, and starts drinking heavily and cheating on his wife. His right hand becomes a hairy, misshapen claw, and he commits murders. Then, in one of the film’s most famous scenes, he rips open his shirt and sees an eyeball growing out of his shoulder! By this time he’s lost control completely, and the shoulder eye grows into a second head, leaving Tokyo under attack by a slavering two-headed beast.
This is one of the first examples of a Japanese/American co-production I can think of. The locations are Japanese, the language is English, and the cast features actors from both nations. It’s also much more ethically complex than people give it credit for, since all of the villains see the error of their ways, and willingly suffer horrible personal sacrifices in order to make things right in the end.
There seems to be some confusion over when The Manster was originally made, since no date appears in the credits. Still, many of my more reliable sources point to 1959, which puts it in good company. Of course, it wasn’t released until (wait for it) 1962.
All in all, a really cool triple bill, especially for the price. Incidentally, when The Manster was first released in North America, it was on a double bill with The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus, which is actually a re-titling of the French horror masterpiece Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage). This lyrical and unsettling film is unquestionably one of the greatest horror movies ever made. The tale of a surgeon trying repeatedly to perform a skin graft on his disfigured daughter’s face is as disturbing as it is heartbreaking. Maddeningly hard to find on video until The Criterion Collection put it out on DVD last year, Eyes Without a Face ranks as a definite must-buy for horror fans or movie lovers of any stripe.
So, when was Eyes Without a Face made? Why, 1959, of course, but it wasn’t released in North America until the above-mentioned double feature release in (sing it with me, folks) 1962. |
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