Leofwine_draca
THE REVENGE OF DR. X is a very obscure and low grade US/Japanese exploitation horror flick about a mad scientist who creates in his laboratory a man-size flesh-devouring plant very much like a Venus Flytrap. The main character is American but he heads off to Japan early on and gets a Japanese assistant and supporting cast. This is a Z-grade trash classic with poor picture quality that's only suitable to be laughed at. The killer plant is an obvious man in a suit and looks ansolutely hilrious - a masterpiece of design. The script was written by an uncredited Ed Wood by all accounts, but the whole thing is confused by credits stolen from THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND. There's a random scene of gratuitous nudity and lots of cheese. The British B-flick THE MUTATIONS is a much more fun version of this story.
ebiros2
How this movie ever came to be is a mystery. Unlike the days of "Manster", nobody by 1970 would have thought low budget American/Japanese movie would make any money. It would have been a novelty at best. How the producer ever got to convince people at Toei to cooperate is another mystery, but Toei must have gotten enough money from the producer, since the movie was made.Anyways, you can see the similarity between the monster in this movie to the monsters seen in the original Kamen Rider series (1971) since both were made by Toei movie studio. Something that was just passable for kid's TV program doesn't work in a movie made for adults.It's a weird movie, and who came up with the idea is another mystery.
lemon_magic
The version of this movie which I saw (from the "Nightmare Worlds" 50 pack) was a terrible print - watching it was like watching the movie underwater and also through several layers of gauze. That may not have been the movie makers' fault, so I added an extra star out of sheer pity. This one really takes the cake. A Rent-A-Center version of Clark Gable stars as a mad scientist who relaxes from his regular job as an astrophysicist/mathematician by going on vacation in Japan and trying to build a new form of humanoid life out of a Venus Flytrap and thereby proving that "man descended from the sea". I think. Along the way he picks up an (uncredited) Japanese woman assistant and a hunch backed assistant whom he alternately patronizes and berates and makes a whole bunch of speeches that were obviously written by someone (Ed Wood, Jr?) who may have had the worst tin ear for dialog in the history of screen-plays. The monster he creates gets loose (of course) and a mob of torch wielding Japanese villagers seem to spontaneously generate out of thin air within 30 seconds after he goes for his little walk.Events happen, people say "things" to each other, and the doctor and his plant man perish together for no apparent reason other than the screen play is trying to mimic the Frankenstein monster story. The end.I can't imagine what the director and the editor thought they were doing when they finally pieced this thing together and released it. They were lucky that they didn't get their own torch wielding mob of movie goers demanding payback and destruction of every copy of the film ever made.
enw
One of Universal's less known horror films (it's not even mentioned in AURUM) DOCTOR X possessed that unabashed perversity, which the studio's efforts in this direction inherited from the German expressionist cinema of the silent era, and which is sadly missing from the modern cinema. THE RETURN (in 1939) was less impressive, with Bogart out of his depth as the vampire doctor.The title of REVENGE would lead you to suspect a further sequel. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.In fact, no doctor by that name even appears in the picture, nor is anyone avenged. Perhaps it's an alternative title for MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND as its credits suggest.Nope – isn't this exciting, children? Sure it is! Well, it gets better. Now, the original title (are you with me here?) seems to have been the more descriptive THE VENUS FLYTRAP, whereas it was released as THE DOUBLE GARDEN, which makes little sense, but is probably a misprint for THE DEVIL'S GARDEN.This makes it possible to identify the scriptwriter as none other than ED WOOD (got your attention there)! From this fact alone one would naturally expect idiocy of an almost hallucinatory nature, and for once, we are not disappointed.As far as relentless stupidity and aggressive amateurism is concerned, this movie has few competitors (and I bet you haven't even seen it!) As you may have gathered, Ed did not direct this inverse masterpiece himself.Kenneth Crane did, who gave us the decent MANSTER – fortunately even his directorial skills cannot save this disaster! No inventive camera-work or adequate performances here – in fact, the Thespian playing the protagonist makes Conrad Brooks look like Olivier.Alternatively flying off the handle and fainting, the star desperately tries to disguise his non-existing acting abilities (and I haven't even mentioned his spastic attempts at being charming). Anyway, he plays a rocket scientist crossing two species of carnivorous plants – with needle and thread – in order to prove his theory that man evolved from marine life (and that's the most sensible proposition of the entire movie!) All this takes place in Japan, where he is vacationing after a nervous breakdown (he has one approximately every five minutes) providing a not especially exotic female assistant. Of course, she's a virtual beauty queen compared to the hunchback playing Bach's Toccata in d minor on an organ (I kid you not).On their way to the laboratory, they are delayed by a landslide and a volcanic eruption, causing her to muse: "An active volcano – another reason for the decline of my father's property!" This is of course an astute observation – active volcanoes do tend to have an adverse effect on real estate prices.The mad doctor now begins his experiments in grafting, logically including lots of electrical equipment, thunderstorms and an operating table that can be hoisted up under the ceiling (with the plant) – this of course is where the dwarf comes in. Soon, his creation is ready to terrorize the countryside and be chased by villagers with torches – it is of course green and looks a bit like MISTER POTATOHEAD with a jester's headdress and boxing-gloves, and whenever it attacks, the screen goes RED, being a lot cheaper than gory makeup effects.This sorry creature with its potted feet and its decidedly Japanese body language, we are told, will DEVOUR EVERYTHING. In short, mankind would have been doomed to extinction, if it hadn't been for that volcano stock footage! During one of the longer stretches we are treated to topless female divers (I guess it falls under the category of travelogue, so it's okay). Also, for once the score really deserves its own CD, being one of the most outrageous assortments of absurdly inappropriate background music ever assembled.Do I have to say it? It's a wonderful, wonderful movie!
