The Revenge of Dr. X (1970)

So there is this really important NASA scientist who likes to yell a lot at his vast staff of three guys.  After getting a space ship launched he decides to take a couple of months off to do his mad scientist thing.  See he is also a botanist (plant scientist for those of us who went to public school) and after picking up a Venus flytrap heads off to Japan to do mad scientist stuff and make a monster.  Why Japan you might ask?  Well I suppose it was either there or Transylvania.  So after arriving he sets up at an isolated abandoned resort hotel complete with an active volcano (important plot point), a green house (for all your mad scientist botanist needs), and I kid you not a hunchbacked groundskeeper who likes to play the pipe organ.  The doctor meets up with some topless Japanese female divers (best part of the movie) who get him an underwater Venus flytrap.  This allows him to make a Venus flytrap monster that walks around eating children and puppies.  Again I do not kid about these things.  Eventually the good doctor and his monster end up in the volcano (saw that coming). 

I think that I finally watched a movie that broke my brain.  This is seriously one of the dumbest movies that I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen movies that were so poorly made that they didn’t make any sense.  In fact I’ve seen quite a few of them.  But the Revenge of Dr. X actually goes out of it’s way to be stupid on purpose.  It has the feel of a movie that was written by a mental patient with no grip on reality or logic.  So it doesn’t surprise me that good old Ed Wood is responsible for this script.  Put that script in the hands of the director of the classic Monster from Green Hell, Kenneth G. Crane, and this is what you get.  May two minds such as these never cross paths again.  The cast is bad.  The Japanese cast can barely speak English, which makes for some unintentionally funny lines.  The “star” of the movie, James Craig, is one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen.  Basically he yells a lot at everyone around him and looks busy all the time.

The one redeeming value to the movie (and it isn’t really all that redeeming) is the monster that eventually shows up on screen.  It is freaking hilarious looking and is worth a few laughs.  I love rubber suited monsters in all of there goofy looking glory, and this one is right up there.  Too bad it is buried under such an awful script and stupid story.  There is nothing else about this movie that proves to me the filmmakers had any idea what they were doing. 

Okay I’m giving this movie a bit better rating than it should get because I love the look of the monster.  But please don’t take my rating as any endorsement or recommendation that anyone should watch The Revenge of Dr. X, ever!  If you really feel the need to watch this one then the good news for you is that it is available on a couple of the budget DVD sets from the fine folks at Mill Creek Entertainment.  Check them out at www.millcreekent.com/ for more information. 

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2008 John Shatzer