The Manster / The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus

Manster is a favorite among campy horror aficionados and for good reason as it is both unintentionally funny and genuinely creepy. A "Manster" is half-man, half-monster. To accommodate this set-up, the title character has two heads. Back in his single-domed days, the Manster was an American reporter (Peter Dyneley) assigned to interview a Tokyo-based scientist (Satoshi Nakamura). Alas, the scientist was off his rocker, and while experimenting with mutations, he turned the reporter into a double-header. Wait till you see the climax, with the hero battling himself on the edge of a live volcano. Though filmed in Japan, The Manster was based on a script by British producer George Breakston, and acted (if that is the word) entirely in English

Georges Franju brings a haunting poetry to this lyrical and horrifying 1959 French classic. Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a famed plastic surgeon, lures a young woman to his secluded mansion with the help of his mistress Louise (Alida Valli), where he proceeds to remove their faces in an attempt to restore his daughter's scarred visage. Christiane (Edith Scob), disfigured in car accident caused by her guilt-ridden father, hides behind a spooky blank mask that exposes only her sad, lonely eyes, which seem to lose a little more life after each failed graft. Franju's cool presentation gives an unsettling edge to the picture, from the uncomfortably quiet family dinners to Christiane's hesitant explorations of her father's laboratory to the unflinching views of Genessier's bloody operations. Reminiscent of Cocteau's fantasy imagery in Beauty and the Beast, Franju creates an eerie poetry of the doctor's sadistic experiments, culminating in an astonishingly brutal and beautiful finale. The screenplay was cowritten by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, authors of the novels which became Les Diaboliques and Vertigo. Originally titled Les Yeux Sans Visage upon its original French release, the film was cut, dubbed, and renamed The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus for American distribution in 1962, but was restored years later for American re-release. --Sean Axmaker

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• horror
• grotesque
• assassinato
• bizarro
• criatura mutante
• mutação

[rickw1100]

A guilty pleasure to be sure. I rented it recently on NETFLiX, hadn't seen it since I was a kid. Still holds up!! Loved it! Thanks 4 posting!!

[luckfinger]

@rickw1100 tank you my dear

[ursulie]

@DubMcVain hi i would like to get the movie but with subtitles in spanish, your dvd have subtitles? let me know pls where i can buy it, thanks.

[DubMcVain]

I actually bought The Manster after seeing this trailer on the 'Eyes Without A Face' DVD. Definitely one of my favorite campy horror flicks. For anyone interested... It's now available on Instant Netflix.