House of the Living Dead (1976)

Curse of the Dead
Doctor Maniac
Kill, Baby Kill

Cast:

Mark "I'll Charge of the Light Brigade on you..." Burns is Sir Michael Brattling / Dr. Breckinridge Brattling
Shirley Anne Field is Mary Anne Carew
David Oxley is Dr. Collinson
Margaret Inglis is Lady Brattling
Dia Sydow is Lina

What the box says:

An insane scientist has been experimenting with the transfer of souls between human beings. The crazed doctor has conducted his nefarious deeds upon even his own family memebers, including the exchange of his own soul into his brother's body. With his soul now inhabiting a new body, the madman believes he can continue his experiments uninterrupted.

Plot:

In the typical mad scientist lab, full of test tubes and vials of colored liquids, Dr Breckinridge Brattling is operating on a monkey.

That night at a party, one of the hired hands looks for his girlfriend but finds somethign that gets him...Elsewhere, some witch lady gives a talisman to Sir Michael (brother of Dr. Breckinridge) for protection.

The next day, the hired hand is found dead. Sir Michael wants to marry Mary Anne. His mother doesn't want the family line to continue.

Mary Anne arrives at the train station. One of the other arrivers, Dr. Collinson tells her of Dr Breckinridge accident and how he stays away from everyone and his strange medical experiments. of trying to transplant the soul into another body.

Sir Michael takes Mary Anne to the estate. That night, she explores the mansion and is warned to leave by Michael's mother. The plantation workers are scared and want to leave and are positive Dr. Breckinridge is responsible for everything.

Everything inspires Mary Anne to have Lina, her maid, to send a message to Dr. Collinson at a nearby plantation. However, Lina is chased by some cloaked man which causes her to lose the message. She tells Collinson what happened but, they couldn't find the message. He sends Lina back to be with Mary Anne.

Sir Michael tells the police that his brother Dr. Breckinridge died. Collinson meets Michael's mother and then with Mary Anne. The good doctor learns that Breckinridge had a deformed foot. The head of the police tells Collinson about Michael reveals Breckinridge's death.

Later, Mary Anne is looking around and warned again to leave and how the Brattlings have died of madness. She checks on the organ and finds it on auto-play and discovers a Breckinridge's corpse. That thoroughly creeps her out and while running through the mansion Michael's mother tries to warn her again. She realizes that Michael is walking with a limp. He grabs his mother and tosses her off the staircase. Michael is actually Breckinridge.

In the lab, he explains his soul transfer process to Mary Anne. He readies to trnsfer Mary Anne's soul to the real Michael when Dr. Collinson arrives. Collinson versus Breckinridge who goes insane and falls off the staircase.

Collinson and Mary Anne leave the estate.

What I say:

Well, this isn't connected to any of George Romero's "Living Dead" movies, the Return of the Living Dead, or the video-game inspired Uwe Boll's House of the Dead. A zombieless movie with "Living Dead" as part of the title does seem a bit of false advertising.

Most movies in any of the 50, 100 movie DVD sets aren't going to be the high quality movies. The big questions about this movie is it actually editted down or a TV-Movie? Well, with its so many various titles that make it sound more like some of the 1970s double feature movies from the drive-in. This has to be one of the slowest movies I've watched for sideorderofninjas.com. Dragged almost as slow as Dreamaniac or Massacre.

House of the Living Dead kept dragging on and on with all its Victorian feel even with its various Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the 7 Gables references or the little Edgar A. Poe references or even the blatant Phantom of the Opera reveal at the organ. We've all been spoiled with the Jane Austin mashup novels like Pride and Predjuice and Zombies. A demented Richard Harris with or without singing "MacCarthur Park" would have been a major improvement as the main character. Mad scientific and breaking into 1970s disco. That has to be something of a lesser drag.

The movie would have been more interesting if we didn't have Mary Anne wandering around the hallways with every other scene having her potential mother-in-law warning her to not marry the son. It seemed like they wanted to have more plucky Mary Anne than doing more with the crazed doctor. After all, mad scientists are expected to be a bit of Dr. Frankenstein experimenting in realms of science best left untampered by humanity. This guy is trying to transfer souls to other bodies. Set the movie 100 years later, it would have been astral projection on the realm of something like Eternal Evil. What was he doing with horse transfers? Some questions are best left unasked.

Quotable Dialogue
"You're all so scared about that loon in the attic."
"He's gotta looney for a brother..."
"Evil got to fought with evil..."
"Put it on! Put it on!"
Morals of the Story
Cloaked people steal monkeys.
Horses and snakes are natural enemies.
Horseshoe tossing can be an upper class English sport.