Dr.
Reynolds (Robert Lansing) is a brilliant but psychopathic plastic surgeon who
is furious when a big family inheritance goes to his daughter Heather (Judith
Chapman). Problem is, she ran off a year
ago when she saw her daddy murder her boyfriend and hasn’t come back since. When Reynolds discovers a stripper with a
mutilated face lying helpless in the road, he hatches a diabolical scheme. Using his medical know-how, he makes her over
to resemble his daughter just long enough to get his hands on the money.
To tell any more would spoil the fun. All I’ll say is that there’s a twist halfway through that complicates their situation dramatically. Needless to say, it throws a monkey wrench into his plan. There are other twists and turns too. Some are expected. Some not.
Scalpel
offers up nothing overly explicit, but it’s definitely disturbing and sometimes
shocking the lengths to which Lansing will go through to get his hands of the
family fortune. It helps immensely that Lansing
plays a twisted character with such nonchalance, which gives him real menace. Chapman
is also quite good. You have to believe
she’d go along with such an outrageous plot partly out of fear, and partly out of
greed. Or maybe because she’s just as
warped as he is.
A
few surgical scenes aside, the horror elements are really quite minimal. Instead, director John Grissmer (who went on
to helm the classic Thanksgiving slasher, Blood Rage), goes for more of a Hitchcockian
style thriller. I think even old Hitch would’ve
enjoyed the section of the film in which Lansing makes over Chapman, as it resembles
Vertigo in some respects. I also liked
the flashback scenes that contradict what Lansing has said on screen, exposing
the doctor’s misdeeds to the audience, but not the characters around him.
All
of this is absorbing for an hour or so.
However, the movie kind of plays its cards a bit too soon, and the last
half-hour sort of dawdles when it should really be ramping up the suspense. The climax, though appropriate, is just
allowed to go on far too long to be fully effective. Maybe Grissner should’ve used the titular tool
in the editing room to trim things up a bit more.
AKA: False Face.
AKA: Woman of the Shadows.
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