The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962)

I love this movie so much

A different way of telling a story

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Blistering performances.

The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Jess Franco reworks EYES WITHOUT A FACE with Howard Vernon stepping in as Dr. Orloff, a doctor using a deformed man (Richard Valle) to kidnap women so that the doctor can use them to rebuild his daughter's face, which was scarred in a fire. I will say right off the bat that I find it rather impossible that Franco wasn't aware of EYES WITHOUT A FACE when he made this but I guess there's always that slight shot that two people pretty much came up with the same story idea is a short period of time. With that said, there's no doubt that the "other" film is the true classic but this one here manages to be worth watching even through its sometimes silly moments. I think Franco is at his best here whenever there's a murder/kidnapping sequence going on. One could argue that the opening sequence is among the best work Franco has done as we see the deformed Morpho break into an apartment to kidnap a woman while terrified neighbors look on not wanting to help her. Another strong point to the film are the performances with Vernon doing a very nice job as Dr. Orloff. What makes his performance work so well is that he manages to be both sympathetic but also evil in his own way. Valle is also quite memorable in his role. The atmosphere is another major plus with the B&W cinematography adding another dimension to the film. The bad moments are many of the supporting performances and certainly the awful dubbing if you happen to be watching an English track.

When a series of strange women disappearances cause the authorities to get suspicious, a police investigator stumbles onto the scientist responsible and his deformed assistant abducting the women for experiments on his daughter and race to stop him.This was overall a really enjoyable Gothic horror. One of the best elements to this is the film's rather gritty atmosphere from the different stalking scenes out amongst the fog-enshrouded city streets as the shadows flitting across the walls make for truly impressive shots, and the slow-building mystery surrounding the disappearances makes for an even bigger part of what's going on. The appearance of the deformed helper and his grotesque visage strikes a very imposing image as he moves through his scenes as obedient as possible, generating one of the film's stand-out scenes as he stalks a helpless victim through a multi- floor Gothic mansion as she desperately tries to get away, and with the film's rousing finale in the laboratory and a pretty queasy surgery scene thrown in it makes for the film's best points. There's some flaws here, mainly in the fact that it's a straight rip of several other films that won't be too hard to come up with as inspiration here, and that this does nothing new with the material other than added a deformed hulk doing the killings doesn't allow this to stand-out all that much. As well, the low-budget nature of this one is quite apparent and allows some silliness to shine through in inopportune times to really hurt this one somewhat, but it's still enjoyable enough when it counts.Today's Rating-R: Violence and Nudity.

Knowing Jess Franco's reputation, and having been subjected to his dire Flight X12 to Hell (or some similar title - I can't be bothered to look it up) I watched this early effort fearing the worst but was pleasantly surprised. The Awful Dr. Orloff is no classic, but it's not as bad as you'd expect. It probably ranks somewhere up there with a minor Hammer horror from the same period, perhaps. The guy who plays Orloff is eerily effective, and Franco manages to conjure up some eerie scenes and images. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the character of the dimwitted police inspector - a kind of late Victorian Inspector Closeau who stuffs urgent messages scrawled in lipstick by endangered heroines into his pocket to have a look at while he smokes a fag before turning in for the night, and who needs the town drunk to point out crucial clues to him. This is no classic, but don't be turned off by the prolific Mr. Franco's unenviable cinematic reputation.

It is very difficult for me to discuss the various merits of the 1962 Spanish-French horror film "The Awful Dr. Orlof" without comparing them to the French-Italian horror film "Les Yeux Sans Visage" ("Eyes Without a Face"), which came out three years earlier. While both films concern a deranged doctor who kidnaps young women in order to procure skin grafts for his mutilated daughter, "Les Yeux" is the classier of the two; more literate, more shocking and more poetic. Still, despite its lousy reputation, "Orlof" does have lots to offer. It is beautifully shot in B&W, with consistently interesting camera work, and features an effectively creepy score, utilizing mainly piano, percussion and weird sound effects. Thus, a genuinely unsettling aura is achieved throughout the picture. The film also boasts some surprising nudity and a few shock scenes; these latter are not as gross as the ones in "Les Yeux," but still make an impression. And whereas "Les Yeux" gave us the sinister and beautiful Valli as the mad doctor's accomplice, "Orlof" gives us Morpho, a scarred, bug-eyed human robot whose every appearance is visually fascinating. The gorgeous Spanish actress Diana Lorys also stands out here as the police inspector's ballerina girlfriend who goes undercover to stop the demented doctor. Though a fairly paint-by-numbers affair, "Orlof" still proved a fun and riveting entertainment for me, and, thanks to the fine folks at Image Entertainment, it has been nicely transferred into a fine-looking DVD. Too bad about the terrible dubbing, however; subtitles would've been so much more preferable.