Fred (Barry Coe) is a grieving husband incapable of getting over the death of his wife. Despondent, he turns to psychics and devil worshippers seeking to contact his beloved from beyond the grave. Naturally, they all turn out to be charlatans and phonies. He finally decides to give “Doctor Death” (John Considine) a try, and after witnessing the Doctor’s demented stage show, in which he transfers the soul of a deformed woman into the body of a hot babe, he knows he’s found his man. However, Fred’s wife’s soul turns out to be too powerful for the good (bad) Doctor to control, so he sets out on a bloody rampage to find a soul capable of making the transference a success.
Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls is an offbeat, fun little flick. Just when you think you know where it’s going, it zigs when you expect it to zag. The Doctor’s magic show scenes are a lot of fun (this would make a great double feature with The Wizard of Gore) and the opening scenes of our hero obsessing over his wife’s corpse is reminiscent of Love Me Deadly. The mid-movie flashback showing all the Doctor’s previous incarnations is also quite entertaining.
The cast is great too. Considine is a hoot as the smarmy Doctor Death, and he really chews the scenery during his stage shows. The Queen of Blood herself, Florence Marly is also quite memorable as the doctor’s assistant/jealous lover. The best performance though comes from the Three Stooges’ Moe Howard (!!!) as an audience member at the Doctor’s magic show who is brought on stage to verify the corpse is actually dead. It’s definitely one of the strangest guest appearances in a movie, and it helps cement Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls as a minor classic of WTF cinema.
It's a shame this was director Eddie Saeta’s only film. He shows a lot of flair, delivers a couple clever suspense scenes, and gives us at least one effective jump scare. Add all that to the very snazzy ‘70s Made for TV sounding score and the crisp cinematography, and you have yourself ninety minutes of pure fun.
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