La cara del terror

The lugubrious, dermally destructive Sci-horror hokum Face of Terror remains a wild experiment in scientifically sinister terror!!! An ill-fated doctor Taylor (Fernando Rey) unknowingly tests his hugely unstable serum upon troubled mental patient Norma (Lisa Gaye), hoping to remedy her severe burns, only to induce hysterically antisocial results! Much has already been made of the derivative text, so I shall, instead, note the film's entertainingly psychotronic goofiness!

Catastrophically, the good doctor Taylor's revolutionary solution proves violently counter revolutionary, and briefly beautified Norma's plasticized dermal tissues angrily revolt, shockingly turning her into a shriekingly vengeful harridan! Talky, with a sluggish pace, Spanish 60s spookshow 'Face of Terror' will, to many viewers, appear like a relic from a bygone age. Arguably not on par with Jess Franco's macabre monochromatic masterpieces, this camp, melodramatic B/W Euro-schlocker is hopefully not without interest to more forgiving vintage Drive-In/Midnight Movie fans. The spectacularly shrill climax is exquisite, plus the groovy musical interludes, and lounge-y score are legit!!!

Fernando Rey is a wheelchair-bound professor who has developed a formula that can heal scar tissue. When he alights upon the badly disfigured "Norma" (Lisa Gaye) he injects her with his serum with almost miraculous results, which he proceeds to display to his peers and friends. Unfortunately, the serum begins to wear off and "Norma" - who had only recently escaped from a mental institution determines to exact revenge on the doctor and his assistant "Alma". The acting and dialogue are competent, but the pace is shockingly slow - far too many development scenes and far too little actually happens to keep the attention until the last ten minutes when "Norma" goes on a bit of a murderous spree. Although the dubbing is not bad, and it looks like some of it has been re-shot in English; it still struggles to make much headway leaving more blemishes on the story than his serum could really ever hope to cure.

Except that it's not justified why she was hospitalized in a mental institution and that in the second half of the film the heroine has the left half of the face destroyed instead of the right, it's a very good film. Lisa Gaye is impeccable in a difficult role for any other actress. Veteran Fernando Rey, Luis Bunuel's favorite from movies like: "Viridiana", "Tristana", "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", "That Obscure Object of Desire", is very good too. Me, I didn't like the end. Norma doesn't deserve that stupid death, falling on the shard of glass. She doesn't deserve to die at all. I would have preferred to be helped by the doctor once again, this time with the right serum and then to help her leave the country.

I thought this would be another "Facial Transplant" horror film, but not really. Our mad scientist (Aldo Rey), uses a new serum he's developed, to repair an escaped mental patient's face, (but he does not try removing others faces for the process.) Atmospheric, and often effective, the film is weakened by the director's insistence on filming it in English, despite much of the cast not actually being conversant in the language. Some performances are rather stilted by this convention, but it works, on the whole. Rey is near perfect as the lead, alternately masterful, then helpless, as the situation spirals out of his control. I believe this was removed from the usual PD sources, by the NAFTA/GATT stuff, but you know it's still lurking about. Rey was only a few years away from more "respectable", mainstream fare like "The French Connection". Well worth the effort for fans of gory 60's horror, and it's grisly highlights are often quite memorable.

Judexdot1

While "Face of Terror" ("La Cara del Terror") looks like a crappy Spanish horror movie on the surface, it's really very well made and the dubbing is pretty amazing. And, it's well worth seeing.

When the story begins, Dr. Taylor (Fernando Rey) approaches the board of directors at the hospital, asking permission to try out a radical new type of plastic surgery...using actual plastic and using it to rebuild the faces of badly disfigured people. Oddly, the board rejects his proposal so he decides to continue his work on his own. Soon, a badly disfigured woman arrives....telling Taylor she knew about his work and begging him to help her. Naturally, he's filled with compassion and performs surgery on her and incorporates his new secret formula.

What the nice doctor doesn't realize, however, is that Norma (Lisa Gaye) is actually an escaped and dangerous mental patient from the hospital. And, after completing the surgery and having outstanding results (she's now very beautiful), he learns the truth and insists she return to the hospital. However, she's afraid and conks him on the head....making her escape. Soon Norma has found a job and appears to be trying to create a normal life for herself. But being beautiful offers its own obstacles and soon she's being sexually harassed and ends up killing the pig. But this isn't her last killing.

I really liked this film for quite a few reasons. First, although it was originally a Spanish language movie, it was very seamlessly converted to English. Most Spanish horror films of the era were horribly dubbed. But in this one, scenes with Taylor and Norma were re-shot with the actors speaking English and doing their own dubbing. As for the other characters, they also were dubbed very well and it wasn't the usual clumsy and distracting dubbing. Second, although Norma has some mental health issues, you CAN understand and even justify a couple of her killings...it's NOT a case of a maniac just killing folks. I also liked the ending. All in all, a surprisingly good and enjoyable film that defies so many of the expected stereotypes and cliches.