The Mutations (A.K.A. "The Freakmaker") (1974).......at long last, the kind of movie we live to unearth since we started this blog.....
By that we mean a movie that's so fallen between the cracks, we practically need construction equipment to dig it out of obscurity........a movie, so weird, so off-the-wall in its conception, casting and execution that we can only stare at it open-mouthed and every so often mutter, "What the actual ****??"
BQ visitors, we proudly present a film that more than fulfills all those criteria.......and incredibly, among the last of the small handful of films directed by one of world cinema's most brilliant gifted cinematographers, Jack Cardiff.
That's right, this screwball descent into hell was directed by the man who so deftly painted the screen with light and color......such as the brilliantly realized images of classics like "The Red Shoes", "Black Narcissus", "The African Queen", "The Prince And The Showgirl", "The Vikings" and so many others.
"The Mutations" first stands apart as one the few independently produced British horror films of its time period. Almost all Brit horror of that era came out of either the world renowned Hammer company(already starting to fray at this point) and its scrappy rival Amicus Productions, headed by Max Rosenberg and Milton Subostky.
Seemingly inspired by Tod Browning's notorious 1932 classic "Freaks", the film throws literally everything into its bubbling stew of craziness........a mad scientist (Donald Pleasance) a hulking, monstrously deformed black cloaked creepizoid (Tom Baker, on the eve of his stardom as "Dr. Who"), a collection of real life performers afflicted with various deformities (headed by the talented dwarf actor Michael Dunn, who passed away shortly after the film wrapped),.....and naturally, a group of young actors playing the hapless college student victims.......some of whom get unwillingly transformed into horrifying carnivorous plant creatures by the loony Pleasance, who hopes to create a human-plant hybrid.
The film's off and running with an eye-popping opening credits montage featuring time-lapse footage of sprouting plants, accompanied by other-worldly music....(it almost look like some extra stuff that Stanley Kubrick might have edited out of '2001's Dawn Of Time sequence).
Pleasance, our bonkers biology prof, then promises his university class a host of coming wonders from his experiments, even hinting at cloned Hitlers (a la "The Boys From Brazil") and lab engineered dinosaurs (a la "Jurassic You Know What")......wow, talk about a movie being ahead of the curve.......
Being several cans short of a sixpack, Pleasance makes use of self-loathing carnival freakshow producer Baker, promising Baker he'll fix the sorry shmuck's Elephant Man complexion if he supplies Pleasance with fresh young bods for experimentation........bad news for a couple of Pleasance's students, abducted by Baker ,then horribly freak-isized in the loony tune lab and tossed back to Baker for display in his carnival tent.
As you'd more than expect and demand in a film like this, things go awry for pretty much everybody, especially Baker, Pleasance and some poor homeless bum who ends up as plant food for one of the students turned into an ambulatory, people-eating Triffid. And for anyone who's ever encountered the legendary Tod Browning film, yes indeed, the carnival crew does quote from that immortal mantra..."one of us.....one of us...."
We'd love to report that Jack Cardiff brings some of his visual genius into play here, but the film's routinely shot and despite all the sensational goings-on, the pace stays plodding. throughout. But fans of cult movies will dig the oddball casting choices, including Hammer bombshell Julie Ege (of "Creatures The World Forgot" and a Blofeld babe in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"....and.the familiar Eurotrash side-of-beef Brad Harris, star of sword 'n sandal muscleman epics, spaghetti westerns and spaghetti Bond knock-offs.
The two people you won't want to take your eyes off of here......that imposing hambone Tom Baker (the Ron Perlman of his day), managing to overact even through the pounds of extra bulbous flesh added to his face......and the amazing Willie "Popeye" Ingram, playing one of the carnival folk and capable of bulging his eyeballs almost entirely out his face......on second thought, you feel the need to take your eyes off him.....
For those who live and dream of taking in a film like this, "The Mutations" is a true 4 star (****) discovery.......for everyone else........well, we'd recommend the time-lapse credits at least.....but soon as the movie proper starts, flee for you lives....far, far away.
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