The Revenge of Dr. X (1967)

Simply A Masterpiece

Don't Believe the Hype

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Poor James Craig, I hope that his salary check cleared and he thought that the trip to Japan was worth appearing in this god awful science fiction clunker. After nearly having a nervous breakdown NASA scientist James Craig is recommended a leave of absence and a nice trip to Japan. Craig thinks that he'd like to do some experiments in botany which was his first love as a scientist.After this he goes to Japan where the daughter of one of his colleagues sets him up in a nice abandoned resort near an active volcano, the better to do his experiments. So what does Craig do, something useful like developing kernels of corn the size of basketballs to feed people? Nah, what he does is develop a giant size Venus Fly Trap that eventually has the mobility of a Triffid and the appetite of one. Poor Craig, for a guy who needs peace and quiet the better to cope with a nervous breakdown he spends a lot of time shouting at Atsuko Rome the girl who is assisting him. Possibly because of her bad acting or dubbing, you can't really tell.Venus Fly Trap has a Frankenstein quality to it down to the deformed Igor-San like hunchback who helps out. Would it were as good as those Universal Frankenstein films.

This obscure little sci-fi horror is in all honestly atrocious. Good old Ed Wood wrote the screenplay for it and it's certainly down to his usual standards. Although I think if Wood had directed the film then it would have been a lot more fun, as his films generally have a delirious energy that makes them for the most part entertaining and memorable. The Revenge of Dr. X sadly is neither entertaining nor especially memorable. It's pacing is way off, as the film drags on uneventfully. And, even though the central plant monster is severely stupid in an agreeable way, whenever it attacks anyone in the film the screen just goes red in an effort to avoid any further special effects (i.e. blood and gore). Clearly this is a mistake as this dreary little movie could have done with something to enliven the proceedings. Instead, for the most part, we have a plot that basically consists of a scientist who looks like Russ Meyer developing a Venus flytrap monster. Sexploitation king Meyer himself would have approved of the scene where our scientist hero meets some topless Japanese girls on the beach; but wacky scenes like this just don't make up for the endless tedium that constitutes the majority of this movie's running time. Maybe the only truly memorable aspect of this film is the fact that the title is misleading and meaningless beyond comprehension.

Now here is a wonderful premise for a film. A scientist from NASA goes on holiday to Japan and while there takes up his old interest in botany. Going on the theory that because life started in the sea thus all humanity is descended from plant life (come again?) the scientist cross breeds a venus fly trap with a Japanese equivalent and creates an artificial man-plant thing.To make it like a Frankenstein film the thing is hauled up to the roof while lightning is conducted down.("The earth is its mother, the sky will be its father!" says the scientist) Then of course the monster gets loose and encounters a child which it murders and aggrieved villagers go around with torches, just like those great Universal films of yore. This almost makes it sound exciting but it isn't. To accompany all this nonsense is a very jolly music score that is totally inappropriate. The version I saw was called "The Revenge of Doctor X" which is about as misleading to the story as you could get. Again it sounds just like an old horror title Universal would use in the 1930s. The monster itself looks hilarious.

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!