The Revenge of Dr. X (1967)

I've seen a lot of monster movies before but this is the first one where the 'monster' is an 8 foot tall houseplant! "Venus Flytrap" (aka "The Revenge of Dr. X" although there's no revenge and no Dr. X) is another hokey monster movie with a Frankenstein theme. Overworked Dr. Bragan takes a vacation in Japan, where he goes to stay in a a remote, run-down hotel inhabited by a young Japanese woman named Noriko and a hunchback grounds keeper. Dr. Bragan brings with him a venus flytrap plant, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of grafting carnivorous plant parts together and powering them up with lightening and vitamin injections. His creation comes to life and begins terrorizing the local villagers.The acting is wooden by all of the Japanese actors, and James Craig's acting is thoroughly over the top, with him doing a lot of shouting and occasionally laughing hysterically. Noriko, his assistant, plays the stereotypical subservient Japanese female. There's a hunchback that appears from time-to-time, and a scene with some topless women who Dr. Bragan consults to ask the location of an underwater carnivorous plant. In reality it was an excuse by the screenwriter (none other than Ed Wood!) to throw in a lingering view of some (seriously nice!) titties to spice up the movie a bit.The best part is the creature of course. I am a devoted fan of low budget creature-feature movies and I have to say this is one of the best! This creature has got to be seen to be believed. Be prepared for venus flytrap hands and feet, a humanoid type body, and a head that somewhat resembles an upside-down onion with thick roots for hair. This movie is public domain and can be downloaded for free from http://www.archive.org/details/TheRevengeOfDr.X

So yeah, movie number 19! holy Jesus have we really seen that many on the "Chilling Classics" Box set? Yes, if you've made it this far, apparently we have. So this movie "The Revenge of Dr. X" or...one of the 30 other alternate titles this movie has from "Double Garden" to "Venus Fly Trap". And to be honest, both of those (well, maybe not double garden) make a whole lot more sense than this title. I can find 2 problems with this title. 1. he never refers to himself as Dr. X. so WHY is he Dr. X in the title? and 2. What revenge? who is he getting revenge on and why? it makes no sense.But anyway, onto the actual movie. A scientist at NASA completes his test to send something into space. yays! but he's very stressed and his assistant makes his take a vacation. He agrees and he's off to have a nice vaca in Japan. Hey! i'm currently living there now! But when he gets there he immediatlely wants to start work on a venus fly trap that over the LONNNGGG course of an hour he turns into a venus fly trap...man...thing. Why? i have absolutely no idea. I guess good scientists become evil scientists on vacation? no idea.That's one of the biggest issues i had with this movie. He goes on a vacation to make a giant venus fly trap man? HOW is that vacationing? Whatever. Eventually the thing gets loose, kills a few people and then he and the doctor fall into stock footage of a volcano. The End.One of the biggest problems i had with this movie is, of course, it's boring. It takes the doctor a good hour to create the monster. and when he does, it's so cheesy and stupid that it just makes you laugh. it looks like a guy in a rubber suit with boxing gloves on. And then there's an odd scene where there's a bunch of topless Japanese girl scuba divers who helped out the doctor by diving to find some weird plant to which the doctor doesn't even bat an eyelash, and in the next scene they're all wearing shirts on the beach. Don't get me wrong i'm not complaining, it just seemed....misplaced. It's the equivalent of watching a documentary on the civil war and they splice in cinemax. It's....definitely a surprise. a GOOD surprise, but a surprise nonethenless.It takes far too long for the monster to be created, and when he gets loose, he only stays like that for maybe 12 minutes. It's not nearly interesting enough and the monster's more stock than a cardboard robot from the 50's. This movie is the EPITAMY of B cinema, only with less monsters and more people who sound like Bob Barker talking. I spent half the movie playing cards because i couldn't seem to keep my focus until the last 20 minutes when something actually happened. This movie just takes WAY too long to say what it wants to say, and to me that's the WORST offense a movie can make (well, next to animal and eye violence).So all in all, "Revenge of Dr. X" Gets 2 boxing glove hands on a man in a rubber suit, out of 10

Now here is a wonderful premise for a film. A scientist from NASA goes on holiday to Japan and while there takes up his old interest in botany. Going on the theory that because life started in the sea thus all humanity is descended from plant life (come again?) the scientist cross breeds a venus fly trap with a Japanese equivalent and creates an artificial man-plant thing.To make it like a Frankenstein film the thing is hauled up to the roof while lightning is conducted down.("The earth is its mother, the sky will be its father!" says the scientist) Then of course the monster gets loose and encounters a child which it murders and aggrieved villagers go around with torches, just like those great Universal films of yore. This almost makes it sound exciting but it isn't. To accompany all this nonsense is a very jolly music score that is totally inappropriate. The version I saw was called "The Revenge of Doctor X" which is about as misleading to the story as you could get. Again it sounds just like an old horror title Universal would use in the 1930s. The monster itself looks hilarious.

and i thought the mighty gorga was bad,this is worse.i heard ed wood wrote this dreck.James Craig stars as a mad scientist who goes to japan and creates a monster plant man.even though his Japanese female co-star is very attractive it doesn't save this extremely poorly made sci fi horror.James Craig as you recall was in the 1957 Bert i Gordon film;the cyclops.this is one of the movies on the 50 chilling classics DVD movie pack.which had many stinkers on it,this being one of them.its a rip off of frankenstein and day of the triffids.it features the most inane dialog ever.and the most ridiculous plant monster that looks like it wandered off the set of hr pufnstuff.one of ed woods last movies.makes plan 9 from outer space look like gone with the wind. the original title is weird; the double garden.sounds,even revenge of Dr.x doesn't sound right,people will think its a sequel to the Lionel atwill/fay wray film;Dr.x from 1932.this is'nt even a so bad its good movie.its so bad its really bad,its 90 minutes too long.awful!!!