The Thing with Two Heads (1972)

The movie starts with a rich doctor named Kirshner (Milland) who's developed a way to transplant the head of another creature, in this case an ape on to another's body and it survives. It will revolutionize science. Since he's the leading expert in medical transplants a young black doctor Williams (Marshall) wishes to work with him and learn all he can. We soon see that Kirchner wants nothing to do with blacks and says he can't work there. Williams gave up a lot to go there and is mad, so Kirshner reluctantly allows him to work for a short time. Kirshner confides in his colleague Dr. Desmond that he is dying and must have body immediately. The word goes out, and a death row inmate decides to "donate his body to medical science." Jack (Grier) claims he's innocent, but is brought over and put under for the procedure. In one of the funnier parts of the film Kirshner wakes up on a black mans body. They plan was to keep the other head sedated until Kirshner can control the body, but Jack makes a run for it, with Kirshner's head attached, taking Marshall hostage. In a chase that never seems to end Jack finally gets away from the cops and the brothers decide to get rid of the white mans head. One thing leads to another and Kirshner ends up with his head ready to be transplanted again while Jack, Marshal, and his girl take off for freedom. The End, what a stupid film. This has to be one of the dumbest films I have ever scene. Not only is it totally outlandish, everything else is bad as well. From the acting to the special affects its just bargain basement bad. With all that being said I watched the whole thing and was amused by most of the film. The effects are so bad you can't help but laugh, especially at Milland's head on Grier's body throughout much of the film as they run, ride and elude police. The effects are laughable, certainly Rick Baker went on to much better things. I guess this would be practice for future works with ape costumes, King Kong, Mighty Joe Young and Planet of the Apes (all remakes). And the story, Racist white guy gets his head put on black man's body? That's funny. This is your classic blaxploitation film with most of the white guys being shown as villains in the film, but just from a comedic angle. There are plenty of solid films of this nature but this is not one of them. This only serves to garner some stupid laughs from a stupid script. One of the worst parts of the film has to be the never ending chase. For what seems like and eternity Grier is chased by the cops on a dirt bike. But its goes on FOREVER! they must have spent half the budget on crashed police cars. Milland's a good actor so I'm surprised he did some of these low budget yarns, somewhat like "Frogs." The rest of the cast did their job, Grier was amusing nothing bad to say just a silly film all together. So overall stupid film of the era, but so bad its good quality bumps it up bit, 2 and a half stars.

This is one of the funniest movies that I've ever seen. Everything about it is absolutely horrible. How they ever got anyone to appear in this things is amazing. The dialog is worth the price of rental or purchase. The car/motorcycle chase is so funny that I nearly choked watching it. Every car crash was filmed from multiple angles and those were edited in to look like different crashes. Ray Milland and Rosie Grier on the motorcycle is the funniest scene ever in a movie. The budget for this movie did not exist. The music soundtrack is classic 70's bad-movie-music. I can't believe this movie does not have a larger cult following. If you only see one really bad, entertaining movie the year make it "The Thing With Two Heads".

friends, i am caked in chafe as i scribe these words, having recently experienced the horror of 'the thing in two heads' a tale of science gone mad, it shows us what will happen when doctors meddle with our genetic make ups, resulting in a monster of biblical proportions - a monster with two heads, one of these heads is a bird like skull with plastic beak skilled at pecking; the other a slavering wolf like critter, with menacing red eyes and teeth that have been perfectly moulded for chewing flesh and bone and gristle. as you can imagine, seeing this thing on its quest for meat is bone chilling and unorthodox. Half way through this film a strange thing happened to me. I looked up at the picture of me as a small boy on the mantelpiece and that boy, so unutterly unscathed by the ravages of time, smiled back and then his head turned 360 degrees around and around spinning and spinning out of the frame and towards me until only his face filled my room and it started screaming and screaming and in the end I shattered the night with a hammer and crawled into a white space where a peacock lived, and it whispered "that day you soiled your pants ... it wasn't your fault, Travis." The peacock then opened its feathers and my face as a boy was on each of its feathers.

I must start off by saying I love "B" movies, but even if you aren't normally a "B" movie fan you will get a kick out of this 1972 American International Picture. This movie pairs Ray Milland as a bigoted doctor who is dying of cancer who has his head transplanted on to the body of wrongly confused death row inmate Rosey Grier. The whole movie is bizarre from start to finish. Watch the two head gorilla run amok in a grocery store! See Rosey and Ray on a motorcycle trying to outrun the fuzz! Whoever came up with the concept for this turkey must have been on crack cocaine or LSD. One has to wonder what made Academy Award winner Ray Milland to even consider doing this movie. He had to be drunk, completely broke or both to appear in this mess. This movie is so bad it's great! If you have never seen this movie I recommend that you rent it and then call over a group of friends, break out the beer and the popcorn and then sit back for a fun evening.