The Unearthly

Starring:John Carradine, Myron Healey, Allison Hayes, Marilyn Buferd, Arthur Batanides, Sally Todd, Tor Johnson, Roy Gordon, Guy Prescott, Raymond Guta, Harry Fleer, Gloria Petroff, Paul McWilliams, Karl Johnson
Director: Boris Petroff
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Description

The spooky laboratory of Dr. Charles Conway (horror legend John Carradine) holds monstrous secrets in this delirious drive-in favorite from the golden age of creature features! Experiments with human glands have produced a number of hideous mutants in his foreboding house on a hill, but that doesn't stop the good doctor from going back to the table with the aid of passing visitors eager for his medical services. Along with hulking henchman Lobo ("Plan 9 from Outer Space's" Tor Johnson), Dr. Conway sets his sights on an undercover cop determined to end this parade of monsters and madness. Featuring the delectable Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman), this mad mix of gothic thrills and sci-fi chills now looks better than ever in this dazzling new transfer from the original negative, presented here for your ghoulish enjoyment!

Customer Reviews:

Lost movie?.......2007-05-10

I still have not receieved this movie. Is there a problem?
Out of all the movies(41)I have ordered this and Knockoutmovies (Lisa) are the only two that I have had a problem with.

Needs more Tor.......2006-08-31

John Carradine plays Dr. Conway, a vague sort of psychologist who also happens to be a mad scientist in his spare time. He gets patients referred to him who have no relatives so they won't be missed when he experiments on them. He is attempting to find the secret to eternal youth. He has constructed a new gland, which he surgically inserts into his patients. Naturally the results are horrific, but in his mind, that's the price you pay for advancing science. The police plant a man undercover in the doctor's house and everything comes unravelled.

The Unearthly isn't a good movie, but it's better than some of its 50s counterparts. The acting isn't that bad comparatively speaking and while the plot is stupid and derivative, at least it had a plot. Tor Johnson reprises his Lobo character from Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster and has a few classic scenes. There's nothing like a 6 foot 6, 400 pound Swedish wrestler to liven things up. If you like bad 50s scifi/horror movies, The Unearthly is worth a look.

Not So Much Badly Made As It Is Utterly Uninteresting.......2006-08-06

Dr. Conway (John Carradine) runs a strange medical home in a decayed and isolated mansion. How strange is it? Well, it's so strange that Lobo (Tor Johnson) works there.

Ed Wood occasionally receives a writing credit for this bit of 1957 drive-in dreck; in truth his only contribution to the film is the character Lobo, which is lifted directly from Wood's 1955 BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Even so THE UNEARTHLY, scripted by John Black and Jane Mann, is certainly bad enough to be an Ed Wood movie. Unfortunately it isn't nearly as funny.

Dr. Conway's newest patient is Grace (Allison Hayes), who is unaware that the place is a front for unnatural experiments involving artificial glands. Fortunately for Grace, murder-on-the-run Mark (Myron Healey) stumbles onto the grounds and proves more than a match for the good doctor and his evil associates. Throw in Marilyn Buferd, Arthur Batanides, Sally Todd and an idea or two yanked from H.G. Wells' ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and there you go.

By this point John Carradine had been typed in mad doctor roles and he delivers a typical John Carradine mad doctor performance. Allison Hayes, a beautiful and interesting actress who never got the breaks she deserved, is an always welcome sight--and yes, it is fun to see Tor Johnson doing his slack-jawed routine again. But in a general sense THE UNEARTLY isn't so much a badly made film as it is an utterly uninteresting one. If you're among the hardcore fans of 1950s drive in fare you might enjoy it, but I'm not holding my breath on it.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Slim but stunning DVD of entertaining Mad Doctor opus.......2002-08-26

No, The Unearthly is not a Great Movie by any stretch, but it's always been one of my favorite 1950s horror cheapies for a number of reasons. Chief among them, of course, is drop-dead-gorgeous Allison Hayes as heroine Grace Thomas, here playing in sweet, vulnerable mode, in contrast to her archetypal `bad girl' performances as The 50-Foot Woman, Tonda Metz in The Disembodied, and Livia the sorceress in Roger Corman's The Undead. Also on hand are Tor Johnson in his second appearance as pinheaded brute "Lobo" (he even gets a few choice lines), and the always-enjoyable John Carradine, hamming it up as ever playing the deranged Dr. Conway ("I am a scientist. Thinking is my business."). Carradine had played so many mad doctors by this point that he could probably do it in his sleep. The opening shot sets the tone as a screaming woman claws gashes into Tor's face, immediately followed by the cartoonish credit sequence. The plot is pretty generic: Dr. Loren Wright (Roy Gordon) finds potential subjects with no family ties and refers them to Conway ("trust me implicitly"), whose glandular/electrical experiments (to conquer aging and death, naturally) turn them into twitching, catatonic, mutant freaks. Myron Healey (veteran of zillions of B-movies and TV westerns) is the escaped killer/holdup man who literally stumbles into Conway's "house of monsters"; pretty Sally Todd (Frankenstein's Daughter) plays experimental victim Natalie; and icy blonde Marilyn Buferd (who had been directed by Roberto Rossellini and Rene Clair) appears as Dr. Gilchrist, Conway's assistant (she also has a thang for the bad doctor). Instantly recognizable "tough-guy" character actor Arthur Batanides (Maltese Bippy, Leech Woman, plus dozens of TV guest shots including The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mission: Impossible), plays aggressive neurotic Danny, another "patient" of Conway's. Highlights include Hayes and Playboy model Todd sunbathing, Dr. Conway performing Bach's "scary" Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the organ, and the glandular transplant operation, a rather amusing affair involving crackling bolts of electricity, lotsa big knobs and dials, and some deadpan `scientific' gibberish between Drs. Conway and Gilchrist (the artificial "17th gland" looks like a used condom or a wet dog dropping, you choose). Incredibly enough, this was co-written by John D. F. Black (as "Geoffrey Dennis"), associate producer and writer on the original Star Trek series! Exploitation cheapie producer/director Boris L. Petroff/Brooke L. Peters (Untamed Women, Anatomy of a Psycho) proves that having a European surname doesn't equate with being a talented director: bad-movie fans will have fun counting continuity errors, perhaps the most conspicuous of which is an entire dialogue scene between Carradine and Healey about 20 minutes in that violates the most basic rules of visual syntax. With every cut the two actors jump to opposite sides of the frame! Be sure to stick around to see the basement full of zero-budget makeup artist Harry Thomas's freaky `manimal' mutants (one of which is Tor's son Karl) in the finale. Lucky guy Healy gets to smooch it up with Hayes at the fade. Not quite the dizzying hodgepodge of an Ed Wood flick, but definitely in the neighborhood. Highly recommended for members of the Hayes, Tor, and Carradine cults, and fans of 1950s monster dreck in general.
For this DVD transfer, Image apparently got ahold of the original 35mm negative and it shows. Aside from some sporadic very light speckling, the print is virtually pristine. Black level, brightness, contrast, sharpness, and shadow/highlight detail are uniformly excellent throughout. You'll never need an upgrade from this one! The image is framed at 1.66:1 and anamorphically enhanced, and the Dolby Digital mono sound is clear and full. Unfortunately, extras are skimpy (especially for the price), consisting of 16 chapter stops, a very minimal photo gallery of only 3 B&W stills and one lobby card, and brief liner notes by David Del Valle. Not even a trailer! Another (minor) nitpick of mine is that the reproduction of the original one-sheet on the DVD cover is surprisingly poor (I just happen to own this particular poster). But considering the fantastic print quality of the feature, fans of the movie will want this disc anyway (it blows both Rhino's out-of-print VHS pre-record and my taped-off-AMC copy clear off the map). Just a few more extras would've made this a five-star DVD.

A blast from the past..........2002-08-24

I saw this as a kid and never forgot it. So when I found it available on DVD I fell all over myself getting it. And I wasn't disappointed at all. I love it and I recommend it to lovers of low-budget b&w 50's horror. Mad doctor John Carradine runs a secluded "private sanitarium" where patients check in but they don't check out. He's conducting glandular experiments with his patients turning into deformed mutants that end up in the basement. Voluptuous Allison Hayes is his newest patient and potential victim. Tor Johnson is around as Lobo the hulking assistant with an eye for "purty gurls". What a cast! And a beautiful print from Image as well. Great for rainy day or late night viewing. I'm a sucker for the good stuff and this movie is a good example of what I wish was available on DVD. Sure, it's poverty row cheesy but endearingly so. Grab a friend or two, pop some popcorn and just enjoy this movie for what it is...a delirious guilty pleasure.

Average customer rating:

the first of DW is NOT availible???

Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

Sci-Fi & Fantasy | Cult Movies | Genres | DVD | Video

Customer Reviews:

the first of DW is NOT availible???.......2007-06-03

why is it "currently" NOT availible, this is the show that started it all! I think a vote is in order, is that what Amazon meant? Well you got my vote!

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Bright Young Things

Best of Classic Westerns, Vol. 1 and 2

The Osterman Weekend [1983]

DVD: Port of New York

Naked Gun