Mit 1000 Volt in den Tod

After a film star is killed in a car crash, insurance investigator Jeff Keenan (Rod Cameron) is dispatched to get to the bottom of the death. Upon arrival in the south of France, Keenan discovers that others have died, and may be linked to his company's client. This might have something to do with a certain psychiatric clinic.

THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER has no "monsters" in the literal sense. Instead, it has psychiatrists / scientists messing around with the human brain in order to relieve patients of their anxiety. Oddly, this has something to do with implanting images of semi-erotic, modern dance routines!

Of course, this isn't a good idea, and leads to horrific results. In addition, a nefarious cabal is at work behind the scenes with an unsavory agenda.

This isn't a bad movie, and it's a shame it's been almost totally forgotten. The plot is interesting, and the movie could be remade. It's the sort of raw material that would make for a tremendous David Cronenberg film. Until then, it's enjoyable enough...

Saw this movie in DC when it first came out. It Was called The dream Machine. Now the name has changed and the DVD of it has a Large amount a footage edited out.

Cheaply made and slow moving B movie, it even uses the sets from "Z cars", (which are supposed to be Scotland Yard - this is on the coast of France) twice, in two different locations, a police station and a morgue.

An American insurance agent investigates the death of a film star and suspects a psychiatric clinic in France. By a huge and unexplained coincidence he happens to find a well upholstered ex working there.

In Charles Eric Maine's excellent (for its day) novel, a scientist invents a mind-tape-recorder (helmet on the head, bazillion-track tape), hoping to use it for Good, like studying mental disorders. A movie mogul gets hold of it and soon billions of people waste their lives and their savings in tanks "experiencing" recorded porn or schmaltz (ultraslow replay intensifies the sensations). The scientist decides to take drastic measures, batters the mogul to death and plays the recording to the billions, hoping to scare them back to reality. Instead they die and the book ends as he's about to be sentenced for the death of the mogul, raising the ethical question of the collateral damage.

Bear in mind that when Maine wrote this, brain waves were novel, magnetic sound recording was only about a decade old and video recording was still in the future.

In the Z-grade film, the WHOLE story is ripped out (daren't offend Hollywood) and we're left with an ordinary quarter-inch reel-to-reel recorder and a squawking electronic soundtrack that has nothing to do with the action on screen. I've completely forgotten the new plot, but vaguely remember people in leotards writhing around some cheesy gauzes to hint at forbidden pleasures.

I'd give it an award for Worst Adaptation ever.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Montgomery Tully; Produced by Alec Snowden; Associate Producer: Jim O'Connolly for Anglo-Guild Productions (England), released in America as "The Electronic Monster" by Columbia Pictures. Screenplay by Charles Eric Maine, from his novel; Photography by Bert Mason; Edited by Geoffrey Muller; Music by Richard Taylor. Starring: Rod Cameron, Mary Murphy, Meredith Edwards, Peter Illing, Carl Jaffe and Kay Callard.

British science-fiction movie about unethical scientists experimenting with electronic machines for manipulating their subjects' dreams until Rod Cameron disposes of the baddies in a slambang finish.