ferbs54
Perhaps no other actor of the late '40s throughout the 1950s squared off against as many sci-fi monstrosities on screen as Poughkeepsie, NY-born Richard Denning. In 1948's "Unknown Island," Denning battled a T. rex and other prehistoric nightmares; in "Creature From the Black Lagoon" (1954), he grappled with the most famous amphibian in cinema history; in "Target Earth" (also from '54), his problem was invading aliens and a humongous, lumbering robot; in "The Day the World Ended" (1955), it was a marauding mutant; and in 1957's "The Black Scorpion," it was giant arachnids in a Mexican volcano. But 1954's "Gillman" was not the only title "creature" that Denning had to face, of course. In 1955's "Creature With the Atom Brain" (released in July of that year as part of a truly awesome double feature, paired with "It Came From Beneath the Sea"), the handsome, blonde, sci-fi stalwart was faced with one of his most bizarre menaces yet: remote-controlled cadavers, animated by atomic energies, that are being used by an ex-crime boss to eliminate his old enemies; a menace that almost makes dinosaurs and giant bugs seem pedestrian!In the film, Denning plays Dr. Chet Walker, the head of the police lab in a large metropolitan city. Chet's latest case is a baffling one: a string of murders perpetrated by a killer who leaves luminous fingerprints, whose blood traces show no hemoglobin content, who is seemingly impervious to bullets and who deposits a radioactive residue wherever he walks. His investigation turns even more baffling when a fingerprint analysis reveals the killers (yes, there are apparently more than one!) to be dead men; corpses that had disappeared from the local morgue! Meanwhile, in a lead-shielded house on the outskirts of the city, the viewer is allowed to see just what is going on: Deported criminal Frank Buchanan (nicely portrayed by Michael Granger) has snuck back into the country, bringing with him a new accomplice, German scientist Dr. Willhelm Steigg (Gregory Gaye). Using Steigg's remote-controlled, atomic-activated corpses ("You may be a crackpot but you're also a genius," the mobster tells him), Buchanan is systematically eliminating all his old enemies...and some new ones, as well. And Chet, it would seem, has just risen to the top of that list....An "entertainingly preposterous concoction," says Glenn Kay, writing about the film in his wonderful reference guide "Zombie Movies," and that certainly is the case here. But the film is also surprisingly intelligent and well acted, at times coming off like a film noirish policier crossed with a way-out, Saturday matinée sci-fi thriller. In truth, the film reminds this viewer of one of those old Emma Peel/"Avengers" episodes--such as "The Cybernauts," "From Venus With Love," "The Winged Avenger" and "The Positive Negative Man"--in which a madman concocts some diabolical means of offing his foes, and we see a series of attacks that take up the bulk of the hour (in the film's case, 69 minutes). "Creature" tries hard to make its outrageous premise more plausible via the use of scientific chatter; hence, we get a statement such as "a dilated solution of hematin; two absorption bands between the Fraunhofer lines," and references to "somatomotor and visceromotor effects," "selen cells" and "amygdala stimuli." The film is taut and compact, often suspenseful, and builds to a memorable conclusion, as Walker and the police do battle with a horde of the reanimated dead. The zombies here are not of the flesh-eating George A. Romero/Lucio Fulci variety, of course; they are more like remote-controlled robots than gut munchers. Still, they do look pretty impressive, with their suture-stitched foreheads (did I fail to mention the receiving gizmos that Steigg has implanted in their noggins?) and automaton gait. The film also features any number of standout sequences. I love the initial attack, in which we see one of the creatures kill somebody by breaking his back; a scene shown only in shadowed silhouette. Also memorable is the section where Chet's friend and fellow policeman Capt. Dave Harris (S. John Launer), having been turned into one of the atomic creatures by Buchanan and Steigg, arrives at Chet's house and talks with his unsuspecting wife (yummy Angela Stevens) and young daughter. And speaking of Chet's wife, nice to see the two of them enjoying a refreshingly randy and frankly sexual relationship...especially for a '50s couple! Other things to admire in the film: some crackerjack direction by Edward L. Cahn (who, over the next four years, would go on to helm such sci-fi and horror favorites as "The She-Creature," "Zombies of Mora Tau," "Voodoo Woman," "Invasion of the Saucer Men," "It! The Terror From Beyond Space," "Curse of the Faceless Man" AND "Invisible Invaders," that last boasting a plot similar to "Creature"'s, with aliens taking over the bodies of the dead), a no-nonsense script from Curt Siodmak, and noirish cinematography by DOP Fred Jackman, Jr. Sadly, the film falters a bit in its final minutes, and for the life of me, after two recent viewings, I cannot figure out how the zombified Harris turns on Buchanan at the end, or what happens to Buchanan during the final melee. And that's a shame, because for the first 65 minutes or so, the film had been quite lucid and fairly gripping. Still, these two quibbles are hardly reason to dismiss such a fun picture. For the most part, the film is aces, and should prove as stimulating to your cerebellum as a nice jolt of atomic energy....
Scott LeBrun
"Creature with the Atom Brain" is fun for what it is, a quick and amusing B picture with a cool premise courtesy of Curt Siodmak. It's agreeably performed, has a good mixture of talk and action, features some decent makeup effects, and it builds to an interesting climax. It hits the ground running and runs just over 69 minutes.The story has a vengeance crazed mobster named Frank Buchanan (Michael Granger) hooking up with a mad German scientist, Wilhelm Steigg (Gregory Gaye) who is able to reanimate dead bodies using atomic energy. Granger sends these zombies after his enemies while police lab doctor Chet Walker (Richard Denning) and the cops try to solve the gruesome crimes.Zombies and gangsters prove to be a diverting mix, and director Edward L. Cahn, a prolific director of movies such as this, guides it all with efficiency. The handsome Denning is an engaging hero, while fine supporting performances are supplied by Granger, Gaye, S. John Launer as Chets' colleague "Uncle" Dave Harris, and Angela Stevens and Linda Bennett as his family. It's enjoyable trivia that this was one of the first movies to use squibs to indicate gunshot wounds, and the aforementioned finale with the cops taking on the zombies is a hoot. In fact, the movie does have a not-entirely-serious tone to it that makes it quite irresistible, especially the part where pipe smoker Chet is encouraged to try the "special blend" that another character offers!All in all, this is a charming diversion from the golden age of science fiction and it's over before you know it.Seven out of 10.
santuccivito
With the advent of CGI, movies have become merely formulaic exercises in headache inducing and needlessly complicated special effects. This is especially true as regards the horror genre. Nowadays, directors operate under the erroneous assumption that STARTLING an audience is the equivalent of inducing tension and dread in an audience. "The Creature With The Atomic Brain" was the second part of a horror double-header with "It Came From Beneath The Sea" as the main attraction. As kids, we came to the theater to see the giant octopus. It was touted in numerous television ads,as was the custom with horror movies in the 50s. Part of the success of "The Creature With The Atomic Brain" was that we had no expectation of what was going to transpire and the plot developments presented had not as yet, in the mid-50s, become trite. This double feature was intended to get preteen kids to drag their parents to the movie theater. This we did. By 1955-1956, when this movie had its run, we had seen "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", "Creature From The Black Lagoon", "House Of Wax", "Them". The only film that induced the same level of fear & dread in kids was "Them" because ants are everywhere and the god-awful noise the giant ants made in the the movie is replicated by engine noises emanating from ill-maintained auto engines. If you were an eight year old kid walking alone at night and you heard that peculiar warbling noise in the distance, you soiled your pants,ran home and locked the door. The atomic brain creatures were similarly fearsome because they could be anyone, anywhere. The only way to avoid them was to discern the incision scar around their foreheads and, if you saw such a scar, to haul ass out of there. This was a very minor unpretentious horror movie that succeeded in providing its juvenile audiences (and the parents they dragged along) with the delight of experiencing capably induced tension & fear.
Bob-45
Richard Deming has always been one of my favorite, if underrated actors. He lends credibility to one of Sam Katzman's most ludicrous projects, "Creature With the Atom Brain". What can you say about a movie where the Police Medical Specialist (Deming) immediately identifies the blood from one of the creatures as being "blood from some type of atomic creature" and reports this to the press (sure to cause a panic). How about a movie where the first two victims do not even have first names (so they are identified by a radio broadcast by their last names only). How about an Italian gangster with the name "Buchanan" or a scientist "dropping" potentially lethal doses of radioactive particles wherever he goes? How about Deming warning the Army not to use explosives or fire because fire "might burn up the lead shielding"(!), followed almost immediately by soldiers using hand grenades; or zombies walking into machine gun fire but not being pushed back by the force of multiple rounds? Shotguns would have taken these creatures apart, but no shotguns are used. Finally, the LEAST qualified man to take on the zombies and the gangster (Deming) manages to make it into the house for a showdown with the gangster. There is one other howler regarding Deming's actions with the radium, but that would be a spoiler.Production values are pretty good for a movie of this era. My only quibble was the closeups of Deming and the Helicopter pilot. For one, I believe Deming is sitting in the RIGHT seat, which is the pilot's seat on a chopper. The other is the rotor drive is rotating at a much lower speed than the blades.Deming and director Fred Sears ("Earth vs. the Flying Saucers") do pretty well with what they have. Unfortunately, what they have is not much.I give "Creature With the Atom Brain" a "4".
