Rating: 15/20
Plot: The titular awful doctor and his deformed henchman Morpho abduct women in order to use their skin to repair his daughter's scarred face.
This was the first of a trio of films I decided to watch after the passing of the normally-pervy Jesus Franco. Here, he's Jess Frank and in this, one of his first movies, there are only signs of the future perversity. That would come later when he uses any of these pseudonyms:
Joan Almirall, Rosa M. Almirall, Clifford Brawn, Clifford Brown, Clifford Brown Jr., Juan G. Cabral, Betty Carter, Candy Coster, Terry De Corsia, Rick Deconinck, Raymond Dubois, Chuck Evans, Toni Falt, Dennis Farnon, Jess Franck, Adolf M. Frank, Anton Martin Frank, Jeff Frank, Wolfgang Frank, Manfred Gregor, Jack Griffin, Lennie Hayden, Frank Hollman(n), Frarik Hollmann, B.F. Johnson, J.P. Johnson, James Lee Johnson, David Khune, David Khune II, Lulu Laverne, A.L. Malraux, Jesus Franco Manera, J.F. Manner, Roland, Marceignac, A.L. Mariaux, Preston Quaid, P. Querut, Lowel Richmond, Dan L. Simon, Dave Tough, Pablo Villa, Joan Vincent, Robert Zinnerman, C. Plaut, and James Gardner.
This is fairly straight-forward 60's horror with some weird editing, askew camera angles, and cool cheapo black 'n' white photography. It's got plenty of atmosphere, and it's got Morpho who would have ended up an iconic horror film character if this was the only horror movie ever to have been made. And it's got Howard Vernon as the awful doctor, and the more Howard Vernon you've got in a movie, the better your movie probably is. There's also a great soundtrack with some psychedelic percussion music and other bits of creepiness that add to the atmosphere. The storytelling isn't great, the main plot borrowing heavily from Franju's Eyes without a Face or Teshigahara's The Face of Another. There's awkward backstory, and there's some of the worst dubbing I've ever seen. The awesome falling dummy near the end makes up for that though. This isn't typical Franco or a terrific horror movie, one that is about as scary as the Universal monster movies that came around 30 years earlier. But it does have a nice feel and is interesting viewing just to see how much potential this director had.
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