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

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.

How can a film so awful be so awful, if you know what I mean? We've got a terrible rubbery monster, a hypertensive mad scientist and his lovely ethnic assistant, and some boobs, but for some reason this film feels as if it's as long as Barry Lyndon and much less eventful.

Overworked, cranky scientist guy gets sent from NASA to Japan for some R and R and ends up instead trying to prove that mankind is descended from plants by getting a Venus flytrap and some underwater plant and sewing them together to make a man-plant that feeds mainly on dogs, it seems.

Now look at that last paragraph - that's gold to a bad movie guy like me! But in reality this film will send you into a coma. An awfully long time is spent by the scientist talking botany with his assistant (and as a guy who has an allotment, keeping a plant in a box away from sunlight don't seem like such a good idea, plus I only use lightening on my carrots and only feed dogs to my onions. Hollywood eh?) If you can stay awake long enough for them to reveal the beeping man-plant (the inclusion of boobs might help), then the last third of the film isn't so bad, but there's no gore whatsoever and you might miss the ending if you blink. Yes, the monster looks ridiculous but I felt cheated by the lack of blood and sauce. I watched this years ago and thought it was crap then. Wish I'd written an IMDb review back then and saved myself the time of watching it again.

"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!!

"Venus Flytrap" AKA "Revenge of Doctor X" AKA "Body of the Prey".

What an awful film but it is strangely entertaining! I couldn't help but to get a few giggles out of this one. The first hour or so of the film you will find "Dr. X" going to Japan & meeting his new beautiful female Japanese assistant who's father has several resorts but one that is abandoned with a greenhouse way up in the mountains. He and his assistant move into the resort and start building the greenhouse back up again. He has a Venus Flytrap that he carried with him from the U.S. and he decides to cross it or hybridize with another Flytrap that lives in the ocean in order to prove that all life, including mankind, has come from the ocean from evolution! In the meantime he and his assistant are falling in-love. It's the last half hour in Frankenstein style that "Dr. X" brings energy to the plant via lightening and that is when we get to see the Plant Creature! The creature can walk and ends up terrorizing a local village. This is where the film will remind you more of Frankenstein: the villagers go after the creature with torches!

The film is simply fun and sometimes funny. When the film first started, I thought I was either going to turn it off or fast-forward to watch it but I got caught up in the movie - I found it oddly entertaining yet awful at the same time.

6/10