Le tueur au cerveau atomique

Having just seen this for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised; this is a solid, well-acted and scripted, somewhat tongue-and-cheek but scary horror/sci-fi film with a premise simutaneously nightmarishly banal/outrageous: a petty American criminal (looking like a cheap burley thug, the kind who would "threaten" George Reeves on the cheap sets on the t.v. Superman) hooks up in Europe with a German (read: Nazi) scientist experimenting with neural stimulation, and uses the doctor to seek revenge on his enemies by having the doctor's lab subjects become zombiefied killing machines, all via t.v. screens and microphones. The scenes of the gangster and the conflicted scientist constantly standing in front of the screens is at once deliberately "boring" and yet so weirdly disturbing. Even more disturbing and nightmarish are the two of them constantly donning radiation suits to crawl through what looks like some sort of embryonic white plastic tunnel to get to the lab and work on the zombies brains. The science fiction is contrasted humorously with the white-picket fence-ish 1950's domesticity of Richard Denning and his little family. Ah, Richard Denning! Golden wavy-haired, stalwart, fine-figured, supremely handsome, serious yet light-hearted, flirting with his wife yet always ready at a moment's notice to follow up any lead as a police doctor. One of the delights of this movie is a sort of spoof of pipe-smoking! Denning and a detective constantly light up so much that the detective offers Richard to "try my special blend". We also get the much used and appreciated staple of 50's sci-fi movies, the educational film strip, although here it is a bare, er, "bones" demonstration, with just a little doggy who has electrodes on his head. (I do NOT recommend this film for children say, under 12 years old!) The climax has a very "modern" Night of the Living Dead feel to it. The plot moves along at a satisfying pace and never lags. The dialog is punchy and clever. The villains are definitely memorable in a strangely "unmemorable" way. (the genius of the movie, I think!) I highly recommend this to all sci-fi/horror film buffs.

Richard Denning is an actor who can turn any movie into a pleasant experience. Creature with the Atom Brain is one of those movies. This movie has been copied many times, but this is still the best. Written by Curt Siodomak (The Magnetic Monster) it deals with the resurruction of the dead with atomic energy.Sci-fi cult fans should really enjoy this one from start to end.

I'm glad that Skin-amax aired this monster movie from the 50's. In my opinion, this is not your typical cheesy b-movie material for MSTK3000 because the plot is surprisingly good and the atmosphere is beyond cartoonish. Well, you can't ask for spectacular f/x (or even decent ones) but this movie delivers.

The acting is beyond regular. The cinematography and the plot are the strong points of this b-movie. I highly recommend it for fans of old monster movies.

The effort deserves a mention mainly because the plot is well crafted and actually delivers some chills. Not in the likes of "The Elephant Man" but still it makes you imagine scary things.

This is a b-movie that deserves some little respect.

Released by Columbia Pictures in 1955 and without trying to mention it's low budget format, Creature with the Atom Brain is quite a sophisticated attempt to resurrect the dead using atomic energy and electronic circuitry. The idea of using a TV screen to receive images from the creatures "eyes" is fantastic. This movie reminds me of fast paced comic book story with a taste of film noir. Richard Denning,the star of this film, made a number science fiction movies in the 1950's before coming over to TV as the governor of Hawaii in "Hawaii 5-0." As far as I know, this movie is not available on the market as a retail product. You can, however, probably get it from a private collector.I think sci-fi fans will enjoy it!

I saw Creature With The Atom Brain when I was 11 years old. To this day, no horror film has scared me more. The opening credits are shown over a view of one of the creatures lumbering through the woods with the accompanying sound of a beating heart. At the final credit we get a closeup view of the creature's face complete with the telltale stitches across his forehead. The carnage has begun I guess it was that these seemingly unstoppable creatures looked so ordinary, except for their awkward gait and gruesome stitches, that made them seem so scary. I had to walk (run) by some woods in the dark on the way home from this movie and I was quite convinced that one of these guys was going to stroll out from among the trees and break me in half just as the first creature, Karl 'Killer" Davis, did to his gangster victim in the opening scene. Nobody should enter his garage without checking to either side of the garage door to make sure one of the creatures isn't lurking there waiting to rip the steering wheel from your car before throttling you with one hand. This was not a high tech movie nor was it overly bloody, but the threat of bodies raised from the dead being able to bend the bars on a window as if they were well done noodles and take multiple gunshots without noticing was more than enough to scare the pants of of an 11 year old. Once the creature had you zeroed in, there was no hope.