I
saw The Freakmaker on television as a kid (under its original title, The
Mutations) and it freaked me out. Usually when I do The 31 Days of Horror-Ween,
I’m looking for weird or obscure movies I’ve never seen before. However, when it was suggested to me under
the “Customers Also Watched” recommendation heading, it brought back a flood of
memories. I’m glad I watched it again
because it makes for a solid slice of rainy-day fun.
The
opening is just a work of mad genius.
The time-lapse photography of plants growing, giving way to
shots of carnivorous plants eating insects, accompanied by creepy narration by
Donald Pleasence makes it feel like a mash-up of Hammer’s House of Horrors and
Nova. The film fitfully flirts with
fulfilling the promise of this sequence throughout its running time and when it
does, it’s enough to put a smile on any horror lover’s face.
It
was directed by legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff, so you know it
looks like a million bucks. Yes, the man
who gave The Red Shoes that otherworldly aura lends that same look and feel to
the scene where Donald Pleasence feeds a bunny rabbit to a Venus Fly Trap. I’m here to tell you, it’s a thing of
beauty. (Oh, and did you know Cardiff was
also the cinematographer for Rambo:
First Blood: Part 2? This guy can do it all!)
Anyway,
Pleasence stars as a college professor who spends most of his time in his
botanical lab trying to create half-man half-plant mutants. Whenever he fails, he just sends the botched
experiments to the local freakshow. Dr.
Who’s Tom Baker is his deformed assistant who abducts comely college coeds for
Donald’s experiments. When he turns one
of his students into a freak, it prompts her friends to coming looking for her.
So,
what we have here is a mix of Freaks, Frankenstein, and Little Shop of Horrors.
In fact, the movie blatantly rips off
whole scenes from Freaks (even the “One of Us” scene). It’s enough to make you wonder how no one got
sued. (Even though the movie rips off
Freaks, I think there’s a moment at the end that David Cronenberg ripped off
when he made The Fly.)
Admittedly,
it all fits together incongruously as The Freakmaker often feels like two
movies spliced together. Then again, it
kind of fits the theme of the movie. For
me, the mad scientist plot worked slightly better than the freakshow scenes,
but your mileage may vary. I mean the
big reveal of Pleasence’s creation (as well as his subsequent comeuppance) is
just all kinds of lurid fun. I
especially liked the scene where Baker (whose character is stricken with
acromegaly) goes to a prostitute just to have her tell him she loves him. Little touches like these give added
dimension to the movie and makes it feel like something more than your average
horror show.
AKA: The Mutations. AKA:
Dr. of Evil.
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