50's British Horror Part Four

THE GAMMA PEOPLE

(1956)

Dir - John Gilling

Overall: MEH

A mad scientist romp by director/co-writer John Gilling, The Gamma People has some interesting aspects despite being a typically over-talky, low-budget genre film.  Shot on location in Austria and in development for a number of years with different actors attached at various points, it concerns a Ruritania-esque, isolated village/country overrun by a dictator in a castle who conducts experiments on the townsfolk which either mutates them into mindless underlings or enhances their brain capacity to genius levels.  There is a post-war, Nazi undercurrent of artificially formulating the "ideal" dictator who will be driven by perfection and rule without sentimentality, a diabolical overview that is ultimately won over by an American journalist and his British photographer who arrive unexpectedly by chance to ultimately knock the whole house of cards operation down.  Things never get that intense as it has more of a jovial tone than anything else and the action is kept to a detrimental minimum where the locals are either haplessly oblivious as to what is going on, in cahoots with what is going on, or afraid to talk about what is going on.  All of this gives it a repetitive feel that makes the inevitable conclusion, (which, granted, is more excitable than the rest of the movie), still not as gripping as it should be.

 

CAT GIRL

(1957)

Dir - Alfred Shaughnessy

Overall: MEH

A thematic cousin to RKO's Cat People, Cat Girl takes the bog-standard psychological route in its execution.  This was at the insistence of director Alfred Shaughnessy who only directed four films in a brief period of time and had a much more prolific career as a screenwriter.  Schaughnessy reworked the initial script "Wolf Girl" by Lou Rusoff into one where Barbara Shelley's protagonist does the usual hysterical woman in horror movies thing by having a psychiatrist tell her that her cat transformations are "all in her mind".  Things play out predictably from there, with a family curse thrown into the mix as an extra cliche, plus an ending that adds further confusion into the whole "overactive imagination" concept.  American International Pictures insisted on inserting some very brief, hastily filmed shots of an out of focus cat mask and paws to give the movie some visual spectacle besides competent, shadow-heavy cinematography or Shelley simply looking gorgeous.  The results are fine for what they are and the mere sixty-nine minute running time is an easy one, but this mostly serves as a minor curiosity in Shelley's future scream queen career as opposed to a properly gripping bit of feline-centered creepiness.

 

ESCAPEMENT

(1958)

Dir - Montgomery Tully/David Paltenghi

Overall: MEH

 

Ex-Nazis up to no good as always in Escapement, (The Electric Monster), a talky yet moderately enjoyable thriller with a pseudo-science angle.  Some of the components are quirky such as the surreal dream sequences, (which were choreographed by ballet dancer David Paltenghi); dream sequences that are filmed by a psychiatric clinic in order to beam into patient's brains for either soothing, therapeutic purposes or diabolical mind control ones, depending on which character is calling the shots.  Little of it makes logical or scientific sense of course and the film's villain is too needlessly one-note and the hero too square-jawed and boring to make for much engagement.  There also is not much of a mystery from science fiction author Charles Eric Maine's script as we get an explanation as to what is going on pretty early and then it just becomes a sluggish waiting game for the bad guy to get his comeuppance while the good guy gets the beautiful girl who is more than twenty years younger than him.  On the plus side, the electronic soundtrack by John Simmons is unique for its time and creates an appropriate, eerie mood even if the actual narrative fails to muster the right sinister intrigue.