The Unearthly

Although made in 1957, THE UNEARTHLY is one of those throwbacks to the kinds of cheap horror pictures cranked out by minor studios in the 1940's that often starred Bela Lugosi, or George Zucco, or as in this film, John Carradine as a mad scientist. This film, with John Carradine as a mad scientist trying to create immortal beings must of seemed old and shopworn to 1957 audiences. The film is talky and plodding. Scenes are dull. The last ten minutes the film picks up speed and we get a chance to see the botched results of Carradines experiments and some fine make up work by Harry Thomas. Its the only thing from preventing me from calling this a total disaster. Oh! I almost forgot, Allison Hayes is sexy.

Acceptable scare-fare here, with two of the B movie greats, Carridine and Healy, and the prince of the C,D,E,and F movies, Tor Johnson. Not as campy as an Arch Hall Jr. or Dennis Ray Steckler effort-the production values are too good-but still some good giggles at trite dialogue and silly plot.

Dr. Conway (John Carradine) runs a strange medical home in a decayed and isolated mansion. How strange is it? Well, it's so strange that Lobo (Tor Johnson) works there.

Ed Wood occasionally receives a writing credit for this bit of 1957 drive-in dreck; in truth his only contribution to the film is the character Lobo, which is lifted directly from Wood's 1955 BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Even so THE UNEARTHLY, scripted by John Black and Jane Mann, is certainly bad enough to be an Ed Wood movie. Unfortunately it isn't nearly as funny.

Dr. Conway's newest patient is Grace (Allison Hayes), who is unaware that the place is a front for unnatural experiments involving artificial glands. Fortunately for Grace, murder-on-the-run Mark (Myron Healey) stumbles onto the grounds and proves more than a match for the good doctor and his evil associates. Throw in Marilyn Buferd, Arthur Batanides, Sally Todd and an idea or two yanked from H.G. Wells' ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and there you go.

By this point John Carradine had been typed in mad doctor roles and he delivers a typical John Carradine mad doctor performance. Allison Hayes, a beautiful and interesting actress who never got the breaks she deserved, is an always welcome sight--and yes, it is fun to see Tor Johnson doing his slack-jawed routine again. But in a general sense THE UNEARTLY isn't so much a badly made film as it is an utterly uninteresting one. If you're among the hardcore fans of 1950s drive in fare you might enjoy it, but I'm not holding my breath on it.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

The Unearthly (1957) seems to be more at home with the kind of horror pictures featuring mad scientists that were produced in the 1940's. By the 1950s, such films had all but died out to be replaced by the scientist-hero saving the world from alien invaders and the monstrous products of the atomic age.

The film does adequately make do with what its meager budget allowed for. For instance, most of the action takes place inside the single locale of one house with only a couple of scenes away from the house itself. With such budgetary constraints, much of the film focuses on the tensions developing between the characters,

Perhaps the best feature of The Unearthly is the cast that was assembled for this film as well as its handling of issues to do with power, its abuse and of trust.

The current rating of 3.0 is undeserved and kind of baffling. The Unearhtly may not be the most thrilling or interesting movie, but there's nothing technically wrong with it. There are no grating performances, no editing errors or breaks in continuity, no especially poorly-written elements. It's not painful in any way to watch. It's just fairly standard for the time. And there are some enjoyable moments and quotable lines with a passably gripping story, so it's not like it isn't worth seeing. While there are some cliches, it should be noted that they weren't nearly as cliche in 1957 as they are now. Overall it's a decent "mad scientist" movie that shouldn't be completely disregarded.