Sawbones

A very, very bad movie. It actually had some accomplished actors in it, i.e. Adam Baldwin, Nina Siemaszko, and Barbara Carrera. But they could not overcome the material. Usually, a "Roger Corman Presents.." film will have some gratuitous nudity which will partially redeem a bad film, and though there was a little, it was also not very good. I don't know if they thought that this would be campy, (one would think so, from the script) it never remotely achieved that. Just really bad.

If you're more than twelve years old, do yourself a favor and don't see this. It's just plain awful. It's about a young man who has just joined the endless ranks of those who have been refused a career in medicine, after having been browbeaten into believing that he must become a superdoc by his dad when he was a youngster. He comes from one of those families that believes the fetus isn't viable until it graduates from medical school.

Failing that achievement he goes around capturing "patients" and giving them a muscle relaxant, which prevents them from squirming or speaking but not from feeling pain. It also doesn't paralyze their speech organs enough to prevent them from moaning, or their periocular muscles enough to keep them from rolling their eyes. He then opens them up, while carrying out one of those casual jokey surgery-type conversations with the nurses and other physicians (who exist only in his head). "Hmmm, looks like we've got a bleeder here." "Would you mind closing the patient up, doctor?"

Maybe I'm making it sound more amusing than it is. It's not bad enough to be funny. It's just plain bad. Trust me, you don't need this operation. You suffer enough in real life.

believe me, I wouldn't pay to see it. It's got some blood, and the bad guy is so nutty it's commical.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like laughing at commical schizo serial killers, this may be right up your alley(a dark one)!

I haven't seen this movie for a long time, so maybe I would rate it differently now. But when I first saw it, I thought, oh. Something different. I remember this guy doing a liposuction with a vacuum cleaner - this was so bizarre it was almost funny. Adam Baldwin does a real good job as the disturbed young man who has been messed up by his dad but is very determined to be a surgeon, no matter what. I don't think this movie was meant as a crime movie but rather some kind of dark comedy. And as such it is good.