The Unearthly

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.

Unearthly, The (1957)

*** (out of 4)

This 'Z' grade film to me is one of the best examples of something being so bad it's good. A mad doctor (John Carradine), with the help of his assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson) is using people from his psychiatric institute as subjects in hopes that he can find eternal life by putting glands in their heads. This film is about as crazy as any film can get and I mean that in a good way because this is one of the most entertaining bad films ever made. It might even be unfair for me to call this bad because, unlike a lot of these Z movies, this one here goes out of its way to try and be entertaining and come up with a real story. The so-called real story they come up with here is way out of left field but it's still a lot of fun. Carradine and Johnson as the bad guys just adds more enjoyment as the two men eat up each scene as if they haven't eaten anything in years. That wonderful glee in Carradine's eyes really shines and it makes you forget that this guy has been in some of the most loved classics in the history of cinema. The brute Johnson moves slowly and talks badly but this just adds to his charm. Myron Healey and Allison Hayes play the good guys with cult figure Sally Todd playing another one of the patients. Arthur Batanides plays a hot head patient and in interviews he said he was drunk throughout the making of the film and this isn't hard to believe. He makes his character very memorable and he's a joy to watch throughout the thing. The make up effects are all very well done, which again, isn't too normal for this type of film. The ending, clearly influenced by H.G. Wells, is a classic with a closing line that is hilarious.

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.