Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
poe-48833
THE UNEARTHLY may be regarded "second rate" by some, but it's actually First Rate Entertainment. Allison Hayes, whose job is to just look beautiful, holds up her end of things very well, thank you, and John Carradine adds his VERY distinctive voice to the unearthly goings-on (a voice that ITSELF lent an air of Unearthliness to many a Monster Movie, a voice right up there with that of Horror Great Peter Cushing); even Tor Johnson as Lobo does a commendable job here. THE UNEARTHLY is very well directed and boasts perhaps one of the Greatest endings you're ever likely to see in a Fright Film (it rates a 9.5 on the Richter Scale). The "glands" that Carradine would beneficently bestow upon Mankind remind one of the parasites in David Cronenberg's classic, THEY CAME FROM WITHIN/SHIVERS.
MARIO GAUCI
I decided to acquire this (albeit from other sources rather than the legitimate Image DVD) following Michael Elliott's solid *** review of some time ago. Surprisingly enough, I found this modest genre outing to be quite engaging and enjoyable most of the way and certainly undeserving of the dubious honor of being currently positioned at #95 on the IMDb's "Bottom 100" list! John Carradine gives his usual commitment to the standard 'mad doctor' role; the hero Myron Healey is quite sympathetic and the film's three female leads (Allison Hayes, Marilyn Buferd and Sally Todd) very attractive. On the debit side are Tor Johnson's amusing blazer-tie-sandals attire and moronic speech ("Time for go to bed" he blurts out to the guests at one point) as Lobo, Carradine's all-purpose assistant (valet-cook-bodyguard- guinea pig) and the incessant histrionics of the other male inmate (Arthur Batanides) – although the insults the latter hurls at the former during breakfast are fairly hilarious! Despite the misleadingly other-worldly title, the villains and crimes perpetrated here are decidedly mundane (especially given the clumsy and panic-stricken antics of Carradine's elderly partner Roy Gordon). It is all well and good that the would-be escaped convict hero is revealed to have been an undercover cop all along but it seems improbable that he would discover Carradine's underground lair of Dr. Moreau-esquire failures (including a creepy pre-CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962) wraith-like creature) so easily and it would have been much more convincing if, say, Gordon had inadvertently mentioned it to Hayes or, better still, left them unlocked for some reason. Equally silly is the fact that Carradine reveals the full extent of his experiments to Healey from the get-go and then allows him to roam freely among the potential (and, as I said, good-looking) victims themselves!! Besides, how anyone can mistake a Southern mansion in the middle of a swamp for a health spa is beyond me. In any case, despite the above-mentioned absurdities, the film contrives to end with a bang as we get a good look at the results of Carradine's previous guinea pigs.
Aaron1375
John Carradine is one of those actors from a bygone era that seemed to look at acting as an actual job rather than something to do every now and then while living in multiple homes and living life of luxury. No, he seemed to go from one movie to another taking parts in really good films and really, really bad films. That being said, he has been in more than a couple of films that were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and this was one of them. Not an entirely bad film, Red Zone Cuba was a much worse film that was featured on the show, this film is a bit slow paced even for a film that has a run time of just over an hour. Basically, just your typical mad scientist film that features a mad scientist, strange monsters and Tor Johnson as a sidekick named Lobo! Yes, Tor appeared as a sidekick named Lobo in like two other films other than this one, but while those two Lobo's were the same character, this one is a totally different Lobo...the distinction is apparently this one speaks. So, it has its moments and the film is upgraded a bit by John Carridine's performance, but overall, just seems like it needed a bit more going on.The story has a mansion that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but near the end of the film seems to be right in the middle of the city housing special patients who seem to think they are there for some sort of mental health treatment. Unfortunately for them, the good doctor who resides in the house plans on using them for his experiments to prolong man's life to an eternity using a special gland that he apparently created or something. A man caught outside the mansion and who the doctor believes is an murder on the run ends up being recruited to be a part of the experiments, but this man seems to know something is not right and tries to uncover the truth.This made for a pretty good episode of MST3K as most films featuring Tor Johnson do. This film had not one, but two shorts which is a bit puzzling seeing as how the film ran 72 minutes which might merit the inclusion of one short, but not really two. Makes me wonder what they edited out of this one. A lot of the riffs in this one were geared to Tor Johnson's Lobo character and John Carridine's mansion that is just about the only place you see during the duration of this film.So, not a horrible film, but just kind of slow. I would not really want to see the film in its entirety as I cannot imagine it really adding anything to this film. What I did see seemed pretty cut and dry as it was a mad scientist using people as guinea pigs for his crazy experiments. You get to see people misshaped by his experiments and I like how they treat the one girl as if she is dead. It's like, "Oh my, she is now unattractive, let's just leave her here to rot because her life is now over." So if you want to see a film featuring strange experiments, a mad doctor and Tor as Lobo this film fits the bill! Along with like at least two other films...
rec26
Surprisingly ok for a Mystery Science Theatre Movie. I have seen much worse. And the MST version was not really all that funny either although the shorts at the beginning make it worth seeing. ("Posture Pals" and "Appreciating Our Parents")
