The Unearthly (1957)

Please don't spend money on this.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

John Carradine was known for making schlock movies in the 1970s and 1980s, but this movie proves that he was acting in pretty bad films all the way back in 1957. The film opens with a shot of an old, dark house, with ominous music and very stormy weather. Dr. Charles Conway (Carradine), his assistants Lobo (the incomparable Tor Johnson) and Sharon (beauty queen Marilyn Buferd), and his co-conspirator Dr. Loren Wright (a dignified Roy Gordon) are running a very shady business that experiments on unsuspecting medical patients. The experiments don't work very well, and Carradine has wound up with a group of deformed monsters in a cell in his basement. Another innocent victim, Grace Thomas (the lovely Allison Hayes) and escaped convict Frank Scott (Myron Healy) join the group. Scott is of course an undercover police officer who saves Thomas, calls the cops, and saves the day. Naturally Scott and Thomas fall in love, since you can't have a 1950s film without a romantic subplot.Some of these little 1950s horror/sci-fi epics (such as "I Bury the Living" and "The Man Who Turned to Stone") were actually not too bad. However, "The Unearthly" is just horrible. The movie is very slow-moving , dark, and is too boring to be very funny. The script, direction, cinematography, and lighting are very poor. Healy makes a substandard hero (since he was almost always a villain) but Carradine, Gordon, and Hayes are pretty good under the circumstances. Tor Johnson demonstrates once again that he's probably the most unforgettable dumb and mute assistant in any movie. Unless you're really desperate for an old horror film, you should skip this one. It's just awful.

Oily, smarmy Charles Conway (John Carradine) is a mad scientist obsessedwith discovering the secret to immortality. In his isolated mansion deep in the heart of nowhere, he conducts sinister experiments on society's forgotten victims - lovely girls with no families for the most part, but also uncontrollable mental cases and escaped criminals. Assisted by icy Dr. Sharon and old puddin' head Lobo (the unforgettable Tor Johnson), Conway develops a super gland which,when surgically implanted into a beautiful young girl, will supposedly render her immortal, but which instead turns her into human beef jerky. The next victim in line is lovely Allison Hayes, who takes a break from playing bitchy vixens and 50 foot tall women to play the role of innocent and depressed Grace. Cansuper-manly handsome police stud Mark Houston save her in time?This is a very silly film with some pretty good acting. Arthur Batanides goes over the top in his role of hyper freak Danny, and Lobo lumbers around the set like a giant toddler, spouting such memorable lines as: "Time for go to bed!" JohnCarradine looks a little embarrassed by the whole thing, but they try to make the best of a bad, cheap situation. Allison Hayes is sweet and ultra-feminine as Grace, running around in see-through nighties, looking adoringly up at Markand sobbing a lot. Myron Healey seems to be wishing that he'd been DanaAndrews in "Laura," and does a halfway decent imitation as the street-smartdetective who gets the girl. The tension builders consist of a twitchy guy in a basement and John Carradine plays Bach on the organ over and over andOVER again to set the proper mood. If the mood was supposed to be restlessirritation, then I guess he succeeded. But really, this isn't a bad little film all in all. Fans of Ed Wood's brand of schlock may very well enjoy it, if only to see Tor Johnson playing - what else? - a big bald weirdo. On a scale of 10. I'd give it an even 5.

Although made in 1957, THE UNEARTHLY is one of those throwbacks to the kinds of cheap horror pictures cranked out by minor studios in the 1940's that often starred Bela Lugosi, or George Zucco, or as in this film, John Carradine as a mad scientist. This film, with John Carradine as a mad scientist trying to create immortal beings must of seemed old and shopworn to 1957 audiences. The film is talky and plodding. Scenes are dull. The last ten minutes the film picks up speed and we get a chance to see the botched results of Carradines experiments and some fine make up work by Harry Thomas. Its the only thing from preventing me from calling this a total disaster. Oh! I almost forgot, Allison Hayes is sexy.

Before I begin my review, I would like to say a few words about Tor Johnson. Tor Johnson... ah, yes, Tor Johnson, the immovable slab of granite. His illustrious movie covering John Carradine, Ed Wood, and even Coleman Francis. Oh, his roles often resembled each other, all right, and he never really said much, but when he spoke, the audience listened. "Time for go to bed," he would say, and darn it if the characters in the movie didn't listen to him. And his speaking role-heavy movies such as the masterful "Plan 9 from Outer Space" proved him the versatile actor he really was. If he were to say "I'm a big boy now, Johnny," as he so spiritedly did in that movie, you believed him. However, though many would disagree, it could be said that Tor reached his performing peak in the movie "The Unearthly" as the unyielding lab assistant Lobo. His major lines, such as "I found him in he garden" and "time for go to bed" have retained permanently a place in the annals of great movie lines along with "Flag on the moon... how'd it get there?" from "Night Train to Mundo Fine." However, it is "time for go to bed" that especially stands out. Never has a single phrase conveyed so much emotion, so much feeling, so much hidden meaning. In all seriousness, the movie "The Unearthly" places itself firmly alongside such classics as "Manos: Hands of Fate" and "Hobgoblins" as being one of the worst movies ever, although it remains somewhat more bearable than most. The plot, revolving around the demented experiments of John Carradine's mad scientist character, is ludicrous, while much of the filming focuses on disfigured faces and the movie's leading ladies. Above all, this is an unpleasent movie, and wanting to turn it off is about as unavoidable as a gag reflex (watching it is about as fun, too). Have fun.