"The Corpse Vanishes" may not be for everyone. It's basically Bela Lugosi as his typical mad scientist, this time killing off brides to inject their glands into his aging wife or something. The plot isn't anything new. Then a female reporter gets involved, and it turns into Torchy Blaine vs. Dracula. But we watch "The Corpse Vanishes" for pure Lugosi, doing his stuff: yelling at his old servant woman, mercy killing her freakish giant son, yelling at his dwarf servant, calmly and unctuously lying to the reporter and her doctor love interest, and then losing out in the climactic finale.
It's your beautiful B&W horror thriller with secret passages beneath the mad doctor's house, with flaming hearses off on the side of the road acting as distractions for motorcades. Sure, Lugosi doesn't evoke much pity in this one- not the beleaguered vampire, the dying old man, or the tragic monster- but the same madman who dedicated himself to creating a "new breed of atomic supermen." His eyes glimmering with insanity, murder, and misguided love for his shrewish wife, he vows to lay a trap for our heroine. (And what do we care for our heroine anyway? We can see her kind in any movie. But Lugosi...) You won't appreciate "The Corpse Vanishes" if you're one of those Wes Craven-obsessed latter-day horror fans who need real-looking blood to quench their cinematic thirst. Or if you're the type who'll bypass it for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" or "Saw III." But do those have murdered freak servants lying on basement floors? Or mean-eyed dwarfs who get left behind for dead? No. No, they don't. And no toxic hybrid orchids, either.
It's your beautiful B&W horror thriller with secret passages beneath the mad doctor's house, with flaming hearses off on the side of the road acting as distractions for motorcades. Sure, Lugosi doesn't evoke much pity in this one- not the beleaguered vampire, the dying old man, or the tragic monster- but the same madman who dedicated himself to creating a "new breed of atomic supermen." His eyes glimmering with insanity, murder, and misguided love for his shrewish wife, he vows to lay a trap for our heroine. (And what do we care for our heroine anyway? We can see her kind in any movie. But Lugosi...) You won't appreciate "The Corpse Vanishes" if you're one of those Wes Craven-obsessed latter-day horror fans who need real-looking blood to quench their cinematic thirst. Or if you're the type who'll bypass it for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" or "Saw III." But do those have murdered freak servants lying on basement floors? Or mean-eyed dwarfs who get left behind for dead? No. No, they don't. And no toxic hybrid orchids, either.