Fear Chamber (1968)

I recently bought a Boris Karloff DVD collection, containing four of Karloff's infamous last movies on two DVDs: "La Muerte Viviente" aka. "Snake People", "House Of Evil" aka. "Dance Of Death", "The Incredible Invasion" aka. "Alien Terror" and "The Fear Chamber" aka. "The Torture Zone", all of them directed by Juan Ibánez and Jack Hill.I was prepared for extremely trashy stuff, but after watching the extremely crappy, but extremely hilarious "Snake Peolple" I was sure I had found the epitome of a 'so bad it's good' kind of movie (I already wrote a review). Then I watched "The Fear Chamber", just to find out it is even a better example for how great awfulness can really be.Horror icon Boris Karloff's very last movie, "The Fear Chamber" was released in 1972, three years after Karloff's death. Not only am I a big Boris Karloff fan, but I also have utmost respect for Director Jack Hill for his great exploitation classics (like "Coffy" with Pam Grier for example). If you are a fan of unintentional comedies, "The Fear Chamber" should be your kind of movie.Near the earth's core, scientists discover a rock that is obviously alive! Hoping that the rock will reveal "all secrets of the universe", they bring it to a laboratory to examine it. But since the living rock feeds on human fear, they have to torture young women in a special fear chamber, in order to gain fear hormones and keep the rock alive."The Fear Chamber" is an extremely poorly produced flick and apart from Karloff and Isela Vega (who played Warren Oates' girlfriend in Sam Peckinpah's surreal masterpiece "Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia"), the acting is pretty bad too. The lab and the attached fear chamber look extremely ridiculous and resemble of the Ufo in Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space". The movie's crappiest (and most hilarious) aspect, however is its script, especially the dialogue. The head scientist Dr. Carl Mendel (Karloff) assumes, for example, that the living rock could reveal "all secrets of the universe" and "the secret of our very existence", although none of the scientists seems to have the slightest reason to make such an assumption.This may be one of the crappiest Sci-Fi Horror flicks ever, but it is also one of the most hilarious unintentional comedies I have ever seen. The great Boris Karloff makes anything worth watching, this, however, also has a big value for it is probably one of the most absurd movies ever, and for its (unintentional) fun factor. If you had fun watching "Plan 9 From Outer Space", I can guarantee that you will laugh your ass of watching this. Very bad, But I loved it!

Poor, old Boris Karloff. Reduced to appearing in a string of wretched Mexican horror films just before his death. I'm not sure what made him decide to do it, but this is not the way for a horror legend to go out. Fear Chamber is plain old bad. The plot makes little or no sense at all. Scenes and character seem to exist in a vacuum in that things happen that have no relation to what came before or what comes after. The cinematography and editing are shoddy. The acting is abysmal. Suffice it to say that everything I could mention is horrible. The reason I haven't rated the film any lower and the only reason to watch Fear Chamber is the curiosity value.

If you like old and strange movies this is your movie.Boris Karloff commands a group of scientists who finds an monster into the volcano. Experiments are made to understand this monster who converts fear in feed, but the monster is a rock!! Very good(?)!

A truly horrible movie, with no production quality whatsoever and Boris is immensely wasted in a small role as a scientist who conveniently becomes bedridden before the movie kicks into sadistic gear. A live rock is found under a volcano and Boris and his assistants set up a fear chamber to terrorize young girls. They then take the blood of the girls to feed the rock. Boris gets stressed out, bows out for a while, and his assistants proceed without him, kidnapping girls, whipping them, all sorts of sadistic merriment for fans of this stuff. There is even a strip tease for the rock! I can't say to avoid this movie, there are unintentionally hilarious moments, especially the character of Roland. But extreme fans of Boris will be shocked and outraged, to say the least.