The Mutations (1973)

English terror and horror stories going back in literature and also in movie making for decades now have a real history. They are skeptical of science and intellect, trusting of the average man, telling the stories about scientists, sorcerers, and average humans reaching out far beyond their limits as what fantasy and terror stories have always been about, going back to “Frankenstein”.

Donald Pleasance was a great presence in European B movies and Hollywood entertainments after hitting his stride in “Halloween” as the one and only pursuer of evil, Dr. Sam Loomis. Pleasance had an intelligence that could either be eerie or seeking you out and he filled it up very well.

This eerie and not totally great movie was a hit in its time in England and had a cult name in the US market. A basically 1950’s era, ‘evil scientist over reaches himself story’ crossed with a 1930’s era Gothic ‘terror in the mansion’ movie. Two young students stumble upon their college professor having a mad secret plot to perfect humanity through medical experimentation and scientific work. None of this can work out of course, and it's not humanly possible. So, the final mutations in his failed work are creatures he hides and keeps away from view from the police and the local town. Some of them have even become part of the local circus fair in the town.

Real actors with conditions and medical issues were employed in this pre-politically correct film. The late Michael Dunne, a face of veteran horror and action films, plays their leader. You would know his face and name from many older movies and TV shows. It’s done in a kind of big, vulgar 1970’s era color and visual style. It was a movie competition against the Hammer costume movies and the Amicus ‘horror in the modern world’ movies that were made at the same time.

There is something to watch in Pleasance - an intensity and eeriness he would bring later to Dr. Loomis, playing this educated fool, messing around with things that are not his to know. There is a plant-like monster, half vegetable, half human, that is one of the most creative things in the movie. Tom Baker, one of the original TV “Dr. Who’s”, plays a servant of his - a sort of Igor role of the old “Frankenstein” movies. He does fairly well in this production, an under appreciated actor in both England and here. The two lead roles are not very well done, but Pleasance delivers quite a bit. So does the late Mr. Dunne as the head experiment.

This is quite really a science overreaches itself type of cautionary tale crossed with a suspense tale where the heroine must be saved at the scientist’s mad laboratory at the end before she is experimented on. This is not one of the best terror action English imports but there is something for its ludicrousness and its overblown romantic quality and the sense that not everything is right in the ‘Good Doctor’s’ lab. This is a very watchable, late night TV movie that I do recommend.

the circus freak

the green plant creature