The Unearthly!

I'll admit I picked this movie up for two reasons -- John Carradine and Tor Johnson. In fact it's the fact that Tor plays "Lobo", the same character he presumably played in the Ed Wood movies that first made me notice this movie at all. I just for my own amusement presume that this is the first Lobo movie and after this he hooks up with Bela as his lab assistant and whipping boy in those Wood epics.

So how does this rank in the "Lobo Trilogy"? It's pretty tepid. John Carradine is in fine form in this one, and the other actors are fine. The ladies are pretty and heroes are intrepid enough. The pieces are all here, but this thing rarely gets up and runs, preferring to amble or simply sit and chat at the clock ticks by.

Too little actually happens in this movie. A beautiful young woman played by Alison Hayes needs psychological help but her doctor betrays her and turns her unknowing over to a mad scientist played by Carradine who with his assistant Lobo and some love-struck nurse are kidnapping and murdering people to get glands that will presumably give people eternal life. In this cause the scientist has a lab full of his creations, mistakes during his research. The pitiful part is that we don't get to see this gang of freaks until the very very end of the movie. Most of the time on screen is taken up by an undercover cop played by Myron Healey running around gathering evidence I presume though he seems to know pretty much the whole scam from the get-go. There are zombie wannabes in this one, and some ersatz gravedigging, but by and large this is a rather dull little flick.

It's not a hopeless cause, but it's not got the idiotic charm of a Wood movie nor the sleek polish of a classic horror film. It's a bland in-betweener.

Rip Off