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Waste of time

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Monstrosity (1963) * 1/2 (out of 4)An elderly woman (Marjorie Eaton) funds the scientific projects of Dr. Frank (Frank Gerstle) but it's not out of the kindness of her heart. No, she funds his atomic experiments in hopes that the doctor will be willing to put her brain into the body of a young hot model. You see, she's never known love from a man so she wants to be young again and good looking.MONSTROSITY, also known under the title of THE ATOMIC BRAIN, is considered by many to be one of the worst films ever made. If you discuss bad movies with people then someone will usually bring this one up but I must admit that I've never really hated this movie because it's really so bad that you can find yourself being entertained by it.There's really not anything good you can say about this thing. It's cheaply made, which is to be expected but it's clear that the director didn't know how to make, frame or shoot a movie. He certainly wasn't able to tell a story because this thing rarely makes too much sense and takes way too long for its main story to get going. The performances are downright awful and especially those playing the models because their various accents come and go throughout the picture and often times throughout a sentence. There are some really campy moments including the "cat woman" and there's a hilarious scene where she's trying to catch a mouse. There's also a rather strange factor of having the elderly woman constantly drooling over the young women. Other silly things include every second of the ending, which I certainly won't spoil here but it's quite funny. Obviously, MONSTROSITY isn't meant to be taken serious and it's a poorly made but campy movie.

Marjorie Eaton is Hetty March, an embittered old lady who longs to be youthful again. This granny look-alike ain't carrying around no birdcage with a tweety bird in it and a black and white "putty tat" following her with a knife and fork. She is pure evil, living in an evil looking mansion with an evil looking gate, and is surrounded by an evil looking aging gigolo, an even more evil looking mad doctor, and a very evil looking black cat. Like the legendary Elizabeth Bathory who allegedly drank the blood of young virgins after torturing them in order to keep herself young looking and beautiful, Hetty is determined to find the perfect body to have her brain transfered into so she can live another 70 years and continue to live an evil life until once again she has to find another young body to transfer that old, demented brain of hers into.To say that this is a wonderful piece of camp celluloid is an understatement. It is obvious that Eaton is having a wonderful time being so dastardly, yelling constantly for each of the three foreigners she has hired as "maids" to do her bidding, humiliating the kept man she really has no future use for (after her plans are finalized) and finally barking last minute orders at the doctor as he prepares to strap her into a gurney. The old hag isn't even above murder to make sure her evil plans are accomplished. I thought the choice of the name "Otto Frank" for the doctor, however, to be disrespectful to the memory of his daughter Anne and the famous diary. It would have been simpler and with better taste to simply have chosen another name for this character. At only just over an hour, this seemed more like one of those old fashioned stage melodramas which traveled around community theater barns in the 1930's and 40's, and in the wake of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and subsequent "frightening old lady" horror epics might have worked in a higher budgeted version with someone like Tallulah Bankhead or Judith Anderson as the evil millionairess. The narration of the piece gives us the insinuation that she is just one of many wealthy old people looking for younger bodies to transfer their brains into. That part of it is extremely hokey and dominates much of the narrative, but a twist at the very end is outrageous and left me shaking with laughter. My wish for the ending, however, would be for the old hag in a new body to be accused of murdering herself and the last shot of her (in the new body with the old brain) being strapped into an electric chair with a genuine look of horror (but no atonement) on her face as she realizes her next stop will be the firey pits of Hades.

"Hetty March" (Marjorie Eaton) is a wealthy—but extremely old and greedy—woman who uses her money only for her own selfish ways. Realizing that she have only a few years left in life she finances a brilliant—but equally self-absorbed—scientist by the name of "Dr. Otto Frank" (Frank Gerstle) to conduct experiments concerned with the transplanting of a brain from one body to another with the intent of having Miss March's brain transferred to the body of a beautiful, young woman. To that end she hires three young ladies by the names of "Beatrice Mullins" (Judy Bamber), "Nina Rhodes" (Erika Peters) and "Anita Gonzalez" (Lisa Lang) from foreign countries to work as housekeepers at her mansion. At least that is what she tells them. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a low-budget project which fails to rise above its limitations. Thankfully, it doesn't last that long (only 64 minutes) otherwise it would have been an even bigger waste of time. As a matter of fact, other than the presence of Judy Bamber and Erika Peters there was really nothing worth much interest at all. Accordingly, I rate this movie as below average.

When a film like Monstrosity is held up for six years before being inflicted on the movie going public you can smell the gravy and cranberry sauce from your movie seats. In that sense Monstrosity does not disappoint.Where it does disappoint is in the fact this thing had the elements of being an incredibly funny satire on Frankenstein like films. Someone like Mel Brooks would have had a field day with the plot premise. A rich old cosmetics queen, someone like Helena Rubinstein, is financing experiments in brain transplantation and electronic conversion of brains to various other organs. The experiments by Frank Gerstle are inter special. You got to love him transplanting the brain of a cat into one of Marjorie Eaton's servant girls.Of course the object is for Eaton's brain to be transplanted into the body of a 20 something beauty queen so she can leave her money to herself. If she can't take it with her, she ain't leaving.In the hands of someone like Peter Lorre as the mad scientist and Phyllis Diller as the aging beauty queen, this could have been monstrously hilarious instead of in itself being one dull monstrosity.