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The old house in the swamp, cf. Vidor's Wild Oranges, memory of the bomb and "monument to death." The émigré doctor (Bela Lugosi) has links to the Loch Ness Monster, his current creature is a ravening cephalopod alternately seen as aquarium specimen and deflated simulacrum. "A race of atomic supermen" is the dream, unlucky visitors strap in for the experiment, "you will be soon as big as a giant. Strength of 20 men. Or... dead!" The string of disappearances flummoxes the police lieutenant (Tony McCoy), his journalistic squeeze (Loretta King) takes the investigation into her own hands. "Everything points to an inhuman violence." The nuclear allegory doubles as an astringent distillate of Universal horror, thus Edward D. Wood Jr.'s recreation of a mad-scientist opus in heartfelt ode to the Lugosi essence. The questionable scholar with a wavering accent (George Becwar) stands in for the malevolent Old World, receiving him is the captain with tiny parakeet on shoulder (Harvey B. Dunn) plus a pratfalling flatfoot (Paul Marco). A fireplace secret entrance figures in the marshland abode's Caligari décor, the laboratory is a dentist's office adorned with cardboard paraphernalia and a mountainous servant "discovered in the wilderness of Tibet" (Tor Johnson). (Enduring whippings and fondling Angora hats, the mute assistant has his big moment turning the tables on his tormentor only to bellow disconsolately immediately after.) "The jungle is my home," proclaims the villain as Lugosi floods a harsh long take with dilapidated gravitas, "but I will show the world that I can be its master." The climactic montage Scotch-tapes Styrofoam boulders and rubber tentacles, and steals a mushroom cloud on Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly. With Don Nagel, Bud Osborne, John Warren, Ann Wilner, and Dolores Fuller. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |