Body of the Prey

Despite this movie's alleged contributions by the immortal Ed Wood, THE DOUBLE GARDEN is an often soporific and ordinary project, lacking in Wood's monogram naive charms. Still, it's not undeserving of certain bad-movie encomiums...for instance, the pitiful creature costume is an utter riot, an upright-walking, turnip-headed rubber monstrosity with flytrap feet and hands which occasionally mewls like a baby. Similarly amusing is the stereoypically subservient Asian female lead who seems obsessed with serving mad doctor James Craig coffee and cocktails. Craig's role is pretty laugh-inducing, as well...he goes zero-to-sixty bonkers almost instantly, and the film is entirely unable to keep up with his unchained, ham-in-orbit thespian rampage.

While THE DOUBLE GARDEN isn't a total washout, it's mostly slow-going, and there's not really much to it. 4/10

I watched this movie last night in a state of total confusion. The opening credits read "Directed by Eddie Romero" and some other guy and "Starring John Ashley and Angelique Pettyjohn" so like any devoted B movie fan I was expecting lots of fun Blood Island Hijinks. The movie starts and it feels like a Larry Buchanan epic on a (slightly) bigger budget, but minutes drag by with excruciating slowness and there's no sign of the putative stars. Next thing you know we're in Japan and some mad scientist is trying to create humanoid life from a Venus flytrap in a scene that looks like a cross between FRANKENSTEIN and THE MUTATIONS. And all to background music that sounds like it was swiped from a local kiddie show from the 1950s! And weirdest of all, with all these surreal goings on I'M STILL NOT HAVING ANY FUN!!!!! Thank god for the IMDb! All has been explained and my world makes sense (sort of) again. Exit Eddie Romero, enter Ed Wood, and leave all hope of quality behind. I'm hesitant to use a phrase like "worst movie of all time" but I believe I have finally found that elusive worst movie. No entertainment value, not even of the camp or inadvertent variety, just 90+ minutes of stultifying ineptitude. Okay, there's one scene where the scientist is apparently seeking the help of a group of female divers and all the girls standing around listening to his half assed theories are topless, so for a few brief moments there are some pretty cute boobies on display. That's the sole redeeming feature of this film, and believe me it's not enough.

Written by Ed Wood, Revenge of Dr. X is an abysmal story about a verbally abusive NASA a-hole, James Craig as Dr. Bragan NOT Dr. X, who grunts and screams his way into an emotional breakdown. With a much needed vacation coming up, hopefully permanent, Dr. Nakamura suggests to the loudmouth Bragan that he should visit his home country of Japan. After the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the arrival of Dr. Bragan becomes the third greatest foreign tragedy on Japanese soil. Dr. Bragan uses this time to pursue his true passion of botany with Dr. Nakamura's niece Noriko. His piece de resistance is a Venus's flytrap he procured from a backwater snake salesman's lot in North Carolina. Using the "rain as your mother" and "lightning as your father" the bad doctor descends into insanity as he creates, quite possibly, the dumbest creature in movie history. This Frankenstein ripoff even comes with a Japanese hunchbacked assistant.

James Craig not only allows the viewer to watch him chew the scenery but also to defecate it out as well. I've never seen a character so abrasive to everyone around him. He constantly screams at his assistant Noriko who in turn offers him coffee to placate him in every instance. I know some Asian women are subservient to their male counterparts but I was begging her to liberate his fat head from his body via a samurai sword. The creature is definitely of the Horror at Party Beach caliber. The only reason this did not receive a rank of one star is the out of nowhere scene of topless female divers that is thrown into the movie almost to say we know this movie sucks so here's some boobs, please don't turn this movie off! For Ed Wood fans that are gluttons for punishment only.

"INSECTAVORUS!! YOUR FATHER IS THE LIGHTNING!", exclaims over-the-hill matinée idol James Craig, as his floppy Venus Flytrap man is brought to life in this American/Japanese co- production. Edward D. Wood Jr.'s insane screenplay emerges, for all who may chance to view this opus, as one of his grandest achievements. Nobody else on Earth could have hatched this masterpiece of delirious illogic and absurd cinematic devices.

This film exists only in bootlegged form as far as I know, and may be found under the title "Revenge of Dr. X" - with credits which have nothing to do with the feature of record. The direction will not disappoint Ed Wood aficionados - he might easily have directed this himself, though the Japanese section reveals a bit more in the way of technical resources than Wood was ever allowed. There is an extended underwater photography sequence featuring traditionally topless female pearl-divers.

Ed Wood originally listed this screenplay on his resume as "Venus Flytrap" (Japan), the title "Double Garden" can only be interpreted as a translation from the Japanese release (if any) - it has a sort of zen sensibility. If you can help it - DON'T MISS IT!!

This is a really weird Japanese movie about a scientist forced to take time off because he's so stressed out. Then it gets really weird. It's about what you expect based on the poster and title and is hard to find a DVD of but easy to get online because it has fallen into the public domain.