The Invisible Man's Love Life (1970)

Too much of everything

Please don't spend money on this.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Orloff and the Invisible Man (1970) ** (out of 4) Answering the call of a medical emergency, a young doctor avoids all warnings and goes to the home of Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) where he is told about a medical breakthrough where Orloff has created an invisible man. Vernon would play the Dr. Orloff character several times in his career so it's obvious a role he has no trouble in doing. ORLOFF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN (one of its many titles) is a decent time killer if you don't expect anything too good or too serious. The entire film suffers from a very low-budget and it appears that director Pierre Chevalier doesn't have much faith in anything that he's doing. Most of the scenes seem extremely rushed or at least made quickly without too much effort put into them. There really isn't any story of vision on display here as it almost seems as if Chevalier was just a director-for-hire who got the film in the can as quickly as he could. It's certainly not on the same page as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF or DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER but there are a few interesting ideas here. It's funny how the entire doctor coming to the castle is handled because it's clearly ripping off the start of Dracula. The entire relationship between this young doctor and Orloff is a tad bit weird to say the least and the story never really bothered to explain why we need this younger doctor around. At just 75-minutes the film certainly goes by pretty quickly, although, to be honest, not much really happens in regards to the invisible man. The strangest sequence comes towards the end when a woman is stripped totally naked and sexually assaulted by the invisible man. Obviously the special effects aren't that good and the actresses acting isn't all that good either so we're left with an extremely weird sequence that belongs in the Euro Horror Hall of Fame. Vernon is good in his role and the supporting players aren't too bad either. There's plenty of nudity to keep fans of that entertained and there's some mild humor as well.

Perhaps because I've seen this before it played slightly better this time. A doctor is summoned to a castle where no one will go. Once there no one will admit that they summoned him. It transpires that the daughter of Dr Orloff had summoned him because she was having odd experiences. It transpires that her father has made an invisible man (gorilla) and after a long rambling story in flashback about his the daughters near death, the doctor is locked up, escapes and the castle is blown up. Its at best 40 minutes of material stretched to almost twice that thanks to lots of sequences of people walking the country side, walking down corridors, just walking. It wouldn't be bad if you stripped all of the extra stuff away. Thankfully I was engaged in something else at the same time I was watching it so the tedium was relieved. Worth a look if you're a Eurohorror fan or like the idea of invisible gorillas.

La Vie Amoureuse de L'Homme Invisible, or titles like Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster, Orloff Against the Invisible Man as it's known amongst English speaking audiences & even The Invisible Dead as it's known over here in the UK, starts late one night in a small European village where Dr. Garondet (Paco Valladares) receives a message to go to Dr. Orloff's (Howard Vernon) castle. Being the local doctor he feels obliged, after getting there he meets Dr. Orloff's daughter Cecile (Brigitte Carva) who says something strange is going on in the castle & she is scared, Garondet agrees to look into it & speaks with her father Dr. Orloff who admits he has created a invisible super human creature who he intends to create an entire race of to take over the world! But will Orloff's diabolical plans succeed?This French Spanish co-production was co-written & directed by Pierre Chevalier & is quite simply one of the most boring Euro horror flicks I've ever seen, in fact it's so boring it could have been a Jesus 'I have no talent' Franco film! The script by Chevalier & Juan Fortuny is as slow as they come, I'm sorry but I don't sit down to watch a film & expect or want to be bored out of my skull. The script is also full of plot holes & makes no sense, for instance Dr. Orloff says he has operated & created an invisible man. Well alright but lets think about that statement for a moment, I mean how can Dr. Orloff operate on an invisible man? How can Dr. Orloff see what he's operating on? Then there's the puzzling flashback padding sequence, despite serving no real purpose for the main story other than to pad it out Dr. Orloff says his daughter Cecile dies & they put her in a coffin & stick her in a tomb. Is it ever explained why she suddenly comes back to life because if it is I missed it, wouldn't Dr. Gardonet have at least questioned Cecile's miraculous resurrection from the dead? Also, why does Dr. Orloff make such a point of claiming his daughter Cecile is insane? It has no relevance to the plot as Dr. Gardonet at this point knows about his experiments & at no time in the film does Cecile act like she's insane so that makes it even more of an odd plot point to emphasise so much. So in short there's far too many silly plot holes, things that make no sense, a dull very slow pace & there's barely any exploitation either besides a few naked women. So is there anything good about this film? No, not really I'm afraid or at least I couldn't see anything good while watching it.Director Chevalier does alright actually, despite looking cheap the castle locations, sets & period clothing are quite impressive & atmospheric. In terms of gore there isn't any, seriously some fat guy has a small cut on his forehead otherwise there isn't a single drop of blood in the entire thing. There's a few scenes of full frontal nudity if that's your sort of thing & a woman is raped by an invisible man is a scene of pure comedy as she tries to simulate being raped by herself! Speaking of the so-called invisible man when he's finally revealed at the end he looks like some ape creature rather than a normal guy so why does Dr. Orloff keep referring to it as a 'man' when clearly it isn't? Special effects wise it's a man in a bad ape suit. The climax also features one of the most pathetic burning castles ever, all the filmmakers do is pump smoke out of the castle on locations window!Technically the film is OK, the photography is alright & the production values are pretty decent. The sound on my copy was awful, the soundtrack is full of hisses, pops & crackles especially noticeable when there's no music. The film is obviously dubbed, it's not as bad as some Euro horror films but the dialogue is just strange & doesn't make much sense.La Vie Amoureuse de L'Homme Invisible is a really dull & boring Euro horror flick & I usually love these things. I was disappointed, no blood, no gore, virtually no sleaze & a stupid storyline that makes zero sense, I wasn't impressed. For die hard Euro horror flick junkies only, as far as everyone else is concerned there are much, much better films out there.

I always assumed that it was Jess Franco who had a monopoly on this type of cinema, namely: the routine euro-exploitation flicks with an always-returning villain (Dr. Orloff), absurd story lines (invisible ape-creatures??), truckloads of sleaze and absolutely no logic at all. Every small detail in "Orloff Against the Invisible Man" has got Franco's name written all over it, so it was quite a surprise to find out that he actually hasn't got anything to do with it. But still Franco admirers don't have to fear that this will be a 'soft' film, because director Pierre Chevalier proves himself to be "Godfather of Sleaze" as well and his movie is delightfully trashy and nonsensical. Howard Vernon (normally a Franco-regular as well) stars as a totally insane man of science who created an invisible monster, supposedly for his daughter that got traumatized after being buried alive when she was 16. How exactly this creation helps the poor girl's situation is entirely beside the point, as are many other sudden twist in the script. Everything eventually revolves on the sexual aspect when the invisible ape-man goes completely berserk after graphically raping the housemaid (sickly illustrated by an overlong scene showing the poor woman struggling naked on a pile of hay). Every normal film-loving person will most likely detest this film, but for exploitation-fans, there is always the weird atmosphere and morbid set pieces to admire. Orloff's castle is genuinely ominous, with lots of dark cellars and secret tombs and Howard Vernon looks uniquely sinister again. Great entertainment for the slightly more demanding cult-freaks among us.