In horror circles,freaks are good copy.Tod Browning exploited them to glory back in '32,weaving a cautionary "What goes around,comes around" tale with pinheads,midgets,and bearded ladies as window dressing.This particular film doesn't quite take the dignified road where the different people are concerned,but it's still worth a view or two.Cardiff instead goes for the "mad scientist makes plant monsters with freaks as a backdrop" kind of story,and apart from the obligatory hokey laboratory and some cheezy foam rubber plant moster effects,he manages to succeed to a degree.I mean,with Tom "Doctor Who" Baker in elephantiasis makeup,how could you lose?For good measure he throws in Donald Pleasance,and a bevy of bakenaked British birds,and the aforementioned real-life freaks as insurance.
He doesn't represent the Lollipop Kids.
Students from the local college are disappearing as Dr. Nolter's(Pleasance) experiments push the boundaries of scientific research,developing animal/plant hybrids by mixing their respective dNa.Helping the good doctor secure "specimens" for his research are a slew of sideshow freaks,led by Lynch(Tom Baker),a man brutally deformed by elephantiasis of the face.In his lab which looks like a throwback to the 1940's on a Universal Studios set someplace,Nolter has bypassed natural selection,speeding up the evolutionary process and creating man-sized meat eating plants, among other oddities.Apparently when you play god it causes time lapse photography to occur,and plants grow to full size in mere seconds.Apart from the herbal hijinks abound,the freakshow has the townsfolk "ooh"ing and "aah"ing to Popeye Pete's protruding peepers,the alligator skin girl,human torsos,midgets,human pincushions,all the while young girls are being snatched up right from under their noses.Lynch and his merry band of midgets kidnap the birds,on the promise that Nolter has made to fix his fucked up grill-piece.Something tells me the good doctor's got no intention of squaring up with his misshapen buddy in the future...
Nope you're still hideous.Unhook the webcam and try a MySpace angle.
In the meantime, three students ( Jill Haworth, Scott Antony,Julie Ege) befriend a visiting scholar (Italian 60's sword and sandal regular,Brad Harris) from across the pond, who is here in dear old blighty to look in on Professor Nolter’s...cough,cough... research, and all four become entwined in his web of unnatural bio-treachery.See,at least one of the doc's failed experiments is lumbering around London,half man/half man-eating plant,and that's never sexy,is it?When all the smoke has finally cleared,Lynch battles the yank to the death,only to be vanquished by the freaks he despises,the good doctor is paid a visit by the man-plant,and reduced to a beef jerky covered skeleton as his lab goes to blazes,the naked heroine is rescued,and the good guys win out in the end.Scientists return to cloning harmless things like sheep,freaks all move to a trailer park in Bradenton,Fla,and the only plants getting the full lab treatment these days cost about eighty bucks for an eighth of an ounce(if you're not buying the commercial shwaggity-shwag,that is!)and can't kill you,but if you partake in enough of their content,you might be faced with a killer case of the munchies afterwards.
Like I was gonna pass up the opportunity to put up a pic of Popeye Pete.You've gotta be joking...
An odd movie to watch,no doubt.A 70's update of Browning's classic(and David Friedman's 60's homage, "She Freak" if we're splitting hairs here) with a memorable cast(some made up,some real freaks),some decent soundtrack music from Basil "Dr. Phibes" Kirchin,and gratuitous nudity as was the norm in Britain by this time,all adding up to an enjoyable viddy for any horror-starved droogs out there.Cardiff never directed again after this one,instead opting for cinematographer credits til very recently(if I'm not mistaken),and got some slack for this finished product by his peers,undeservedly.On the exploit-o-tron,this one scores :
This latex fly trap eats ham(my actors) exclusively.
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