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Monday, February 06, 2012



We ran a movie I have wanted to inflict on myself for ages. The title sez all: THE MANSTER (双頭の殺人鬼, Sôtô no Satsujinki), which is a 1959 US/Japan co-production. It could be called "Jeff Tracy, the Incredible Two-headed Mutant", because it stars Peter Dyneley, who voiced the pater familias of "Thunderbirds" Hear what IMDB saith:

    

    An American reporter in Japan is sent to interview an eccentric Japanese scientist working on bizarre experiments in his mountain laboratory. When the doctor realizes that the hapless correspondent is the perfect subject for his next experiment, he drugs the unfortunate man and injects him with a serum that gradually transforms him into a hideous, two-headed monster. Written by Jeremy Lunt





This turns Our Hero:



Into THIS:





















And ultimately into THIS:




















 Here is whodunnit, Dr. Suzuki:




















His wife:


















Our Hero's wife, upon reading the script.:



















Here is the good Doctor's assistant. She's very clean:






















 Our Hero falls for her, which means he's really a heel...or is it The Enzyme Injection?






















This is really one of the Not Baddest popcorn movies I have seen in a long time. (Nottest Bad?)

It is in the Public Domain, and is in MANY cheap SF collections.  YouTube even has it up, and of course Pub-D-Hub. Here is a collection, now!

It is 100 movies for $24.99.


















It was neat seeing Dyneley. His real-life wife, Jane Hylton, portrayed his betrayed-yet-understanding movie wife.

The Japanese-ness of the flick is fun, and will help you forgive yourself for not watching the 24th season of "Inuyasha" instead.




















Then again, I am used to seeing Dyneley in heavy makeup


The Japanese cops are a good touch, and Our Hero's boss Ian helps move the story along, as well as providing a vehicle for the heavy-handed denouement of the movie.

If you are going to waste your time watching tripe, it may as well be tasty tripe.

3 comments:

Michael W said...

I first heard of The Manster in an all-Japanese SF movie edition of Famous Monsters Of Filmland. The Japanese sort of developed an interesting subgenre of movies combining police action with monsters (e.g. The Human Vapor, Dagora: The Space Monster, etc.).

("Inspector Kozasa San" "Hai!" "We've located the stolen morphine shipment." "Hai, but what do you make of this eighty-foot wide reptilian footprint?")

I haven't seen The Manster yet but, knowing now that it's on YouTube, I plan to check it out. YouTube's been catching up with TCM as my favorite film channel (recently watched Fiend Without A Face, War Of The Colossal Beast, Bomber B-52 and The Sound Barrier).

The Aardvark said...

Because I wuv oo...

http://www.archive.org/details/manster

Scruple-free download. Just add popcorn. Or beer. Or a cheap Zinfandel.

Jay Agan said...

Saw "The Manster" myself. It can be found in those Treeline/Millcreek 50/100 packs of public domain movies.