Bela Lugosi made nine films for Monogram of which this is not one - however it is often regarded as such because it was made for the similarly impoverished outfit PRC. The budget is limited an it has plenty of flaws but it does put Lugosi - so often wasted in red herring support roles - front and center.
He's a mad scientist on a rampage but a well motivated one - he works for a cosmetics company and wants revenge against the executives who made a fortune from his formula (he sold it outright instead of holding out for a percentage); so he trains a bat to attack a particular type of cream. Now that's a solid idea for a horror movie, a lot better than you often found at PRC and Monogram.
And the film delivers on deaths - unlike The Ape where Karloff only knocked off one or two Lugosi chalks up a decent death toll here, not that anyone seems to notice. The bat attacks are occasionally laughable but they are deadly.
I actually liked the reporter character more on second viewing - it was his sidekick who annoyed me. Some decent acting from the older actors and Lugosi delivers a solid, hammy star performance utterly perfect for the part.
No comments:
Post a Comment