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When in Africa, Edward's (Alister Williamson) face was horribly
disfigured in some native revenge-ritual, but before the natives could do
even worse to him, he was saved by his brother Julian (Vincent Price)
& brought back to England. However, the experience has turned him into
a raging madman, so julien has to lock him away in a room ...
But even in his demented state, Edward is apparently not without
friends, & he persuades 2 of them, Trench (Peter Arne) & Norton
(Carl Rigg), to get him out ... & soon enough they find a witchdoctor
(Harry Baird) who can put him into a state of suspended animation, so as
to leave the house as a corpse & later be revived by his friends. Good
idea, it seems, however Julian immediately nails the ugly corpse of his
brother shut in a coffin, & orders Trench & Norton to get him
another body, to present to the public as his dead brother. So the 2 of
them, with their witchdoctor (for some reason), do a litle killing to get
their hands on a fresh cadaver, & then rather inexplicably forget all
about Edward - more correctly, they suddenly don't care anymore ("it
can't be helped, oh well").
However, the local physician Neuhart (Christopher Lee) is always in
need of fresh corpses, & soon has Edward dug up by his regular
graverobbers. Only when he looks onto his new corpse, he finds out the
corpse is not dead at all, & terribly ugly, too. But the corpse,
Edward, immediately hides his face behind a red mask, &, as he knows
about the doctor's graverobbing practices, he blackmails him into giving
him food & lodging, while he wants to set out on his revenge spree.
Soon enough he has killed Norton too, then though he falls in love with
Neuhart's maid Sally (Sally Geeson) & forgets all about his revenge.
When neuhart though learns about their relationship, he fires Sally (but
it eludes me why). who in a totally unnecessary plottwist soon finds
employment with Julien & his newly married wife Elizabeth (Hilary
Dwyer).
Heartbroken, Edward seeks solace with a prostitute (Uta Levka), but
when she & her pimp want to trick him out of all his money, he murders
her ... then he murders Trench, after he has given him the adress of the
witchdoctor ... but the witchdoctor fails to cure him, however he tells
him that the natives were not actually meaning to have their revenge on
him but his brother Julian, who has killed a child while in Africa - it's
just the same last names that had Edward suffer in his brother's stead.
Then of course Edward murders doctor Neuhart, before going after his
brother ... but ultimately Julian can shoot Edward, but when he leans over
his brother's dieing body, Edward bites him ...
& soon enough, Julian's face turns as disfigured as Edward's was
...
There are actually very few films that are as lost for a proper
diretion as this one is: It starts out as a
jungle-horror-voodoo-adventure, then turns into some kind of monster
movie, then a bit of graverobbing is thrown into the mix, including the
usual ruthless doctor (Christopher Lee here) who doesn't care too much
about where his bodies come from, then it turns into a revenge plot,
suddenly though it's a sympathetic look about a disfigured man who tries
to come to terms with reality, before suddenly it's about a mad serial
killer. Now don't get me wrong, I was always one for mixing the genres,
& i have seen even wilder mixes that do work, this one however
doesn't. Amidst all his tasty ingredients, someone seems to have forgotten
to add a coherent plot, & without that, the movie simply falls apart
& becomes, especially considering the competent cast, a major
disappointment.
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