The Human Duplicators (1965)

This movie actually came off as better to me than most people here think. It might be because there is this one line that's actually really clever. A character says, "Say something" and the guy literally says, "Something". It was nice to have a recognizable actor, Richard Kiel here. The film is still for the most part bad. The bad special effects are particularly noticeable. It really is funny to see these androids lose their body parts and see their faces literally fall apart. It managed to entertain me like that.Everyone acts like a robot in this. It ends up making more sense than most examples. It's still fairly poorly acted, particularly with how ALL the characters/actors do that. It probably could have been shorter too. When there's not much plot going on, it always drags on. This movie is about an alien who tries to replace people on Earth. There's not much motivation, so it's still skippable. *1/2

Even though The Human Duplicators isn't a very good movie (it registers far too high on the boredom scale) there's something oddly entertaining about the whole thing that keep me from rating it a bomb as so many others. It's a crazy mix of 60s sci-fi and spy movies. The plot involves an alien named Kolos (Richard Kiel) who comes to earth to prepare the planet for a takeover. His plan involves kidnapping the Earth's most learned scientists and replacing them with duplicates under his control. Agent Glenn Martin (George Nader) is sent in to investigate the disappearance of the scientists and get to the bottom of things. Complicating matters is a blind girl (Dolores Faith) who Kolos finds himself strangely attracted to. Like I said, The Human Duplicators is not a good movie. It's actually quite bad. In all reality, the 2.3 IMDb rating is probably much more accurate than the 4/10 I've rated it. But I was entertained despite the movie's many problems. It might have been a case of "so bad it's good" (God, do I hate that expression). A secret agent with a blond floozy of an assistant, a giant alien in love with a petite blind girl, human replicants that shatter like terra cotta, a Medieval looking dungeon in Southern California, a roadside motel that doubles for a secret military establishment – it's all so bizarre!

Man, Richard Kiel sure did have a couple of stinkers under his belt before becoming Jaws in the James Bond films. Eegah, Phantom Planet, and this one are some pretty good examples. In this film, Kiel actually speaks, and he sounds like a drunken and drugged up Kermit the Frog. Anyway, this film is about an alien (Kiel) who comes to Earth and tries to replace people with robotic duplicates so he can take over. The duplicates themselves seem real until pushed or hit hard, then they turn into terra cotta for some unknown reason. Silly plotline and some pretty bad acting shoot this one down. In the scene where Kiel frees himself from the wall, look in the upper right corner of the screen, under the arches. You'll see a cameraman and camera come into view briefly.

The funniest thing about this film is star Richard Kiel's attempt to have an emotionless, alien voice. He sounds like a bored Valley Boy. Also, the fxs are awful. The duplicated humans break into little pieces like broken glass. Definitely fun to watch and laugh at.