The Mutations (AKA Doctor of Evil, The Freakmaker, The Mutation. 1974).
Dir: Jack Cardiff.
Donald Pleasence, Tom Baker, Brad Harris, Julie Ege, Michael Dunn, Scott Antony, Jill Haworth, Olga Anthony, Esther Blackmon, Hugh Bailey, Felix Duarte and Willie Ingram the pop eyed man.
Professor Nick Nolter (Pleasence) is just your average everyday science lecturer at some nameless English polytechnic splitting his time between teaching over forties who want to get better qualifications to get back into work (well from the look of the cast this seems to be the case) and conducting frankly bonkers experiments in an attempt to create a human/plant hybrid.
As you do.
But the professor needs a fresh supply of people to work on, so to this end he employs the fucked of face, scraggy haired Mr. Lynch ( Baker), a local bad man who just happens to co-own the local carnival. Lynch happily obtains young men and women for Nolter's mad experiments on the understanding that one day the professor will fix his face for him.
Anyway, back at the Restart classes, three trendy 'young' students; blonde buxom Hedi ( Ege), luscious Lauren (the bobble headed beauty Haworth star of
Tower of Evil) and Tony (Antony, from Ken Russell's Savage Messiah) decide to have a word with visiting scholar and token American hunk Dr. Brian Redford (B movie lunk Harris from The Mad Butcher amongst other classics) regarding rumours they've heard about Nolter’s research.
Being a nosy bugger Redford agrees to look into it.
"Shite in mah....oh, someone already has".
Meanwhile back at the carnival, suspicions are raised at the amount of new freaks suddenly appearing on show. Lynch's partner, a pre-Simpsons Mr. Burns (Dunn) tries to calm his regular workers by saying he put an ad in the paper.
Could he be lying?
All this talk of bearded ladies and tiny men in hats is beginning to annoy Lynch tho', and when his co-workers bake him a cake it sends him into a violent (and dribbly) rage that can only be sated by a visit to a dirty, baby doll night dressed whore.
Talking a break from their investigations, our tricky trio reckon an evening at the fair taking the piss out of those less fortunate than themselves is in order and head straight for the tent of freaks.
And this, dear reader, is the reason we're watching; there's an old lady with a hairy face (looking a wee bit like a sexier
Bill Oddie), a lady with really bad excema dubbed The Lizard Woman (Blackmon), a boy with no bones in his legs (no, really) non-sensationally named Frog Boy (Duarte), the bendy backed Human Pretzel (Bailey), a scarily sexy Monkey Woman and everyone's favourite, the fantastic Popeyed Jeff (Ingram) a man who can make his eyeballs pop out from their sockets.
"Eye son".
Now part of me wants to say that exploiting those born differently to what we call 'the norm' for cheap entertainment is distasteful and somewhat sickening in this more aware climate.
But fuck that, this guy can make his eyeballs buldge out of his skull! How cool is that?
Anyway, as you can probably guess Nolter's experiments get more and more freaky climaxing with poor Tony getting turned into a hideous venus flytrap/human/vagina hybrid with a taste for tramps and blondes (and trampy blondes) whilst the Professor makes a speech arguing the case for the creation of a race of super-humans and poor old Lynch is hunted down by a gang of dwarves using attack dogs.
Donald's cum face.
There's no denying that The Mutations is a bona fide classic of British exploitation cinema, what should be a crass and tasteless excuse to show differently-abled folk for cheap enjoyment is surprisingly entertaining and almost apologetic when it comes to it's subject matter.
It's mad mix of gore, girls and gro-bag induced terrors give the film a totally schizophrenic feel; the plight and humanity in the storyline regarding the (real life) freak show workers at odds with the main plot about man eating plants and a saliva slopping man with a potato stuck to his face.
The Mutantions is utterly brilliant and totally crap in equal measures.
Up the casino.
Scarily The Mutations was directed by an honest to goodness Oscar winner, Jack Cardiff (who won best cinematographer for 1948 movie Black Narcissus), showing that he had either a secret love of shlock horror or the onset of Alzheimer's - it's your choice, and it's this unsure style, coupled with his almost erotic obsession with time-lapse footage of plants growing, topless dolly birds and the real life freak show performance at the movies half way point that makes this the cinematic equivalent of drunkenly shagging your best mates mum.
It might be great at the time but with hindsight you end up feeling coyisly guilty and even a wee bit itchy from enjoying it so much.
Worth watching, but only if you're alone.
Or just very lonely.
