La vie amoureuse de l'homme invisible

Orloff and the Invisible Man (1970)

** (out of 4)

Answering the call of a medical emergency, a young doctor avoids all warnings and goes to the home of Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) where he is told about a medical breakthrough where Orloff has created an invisible man. Vernon would play the Dr. Orloff character several times in his career so it's obvious a role he has no trouble in doing. ORLOFF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN (one of its many titles) is a decent time killer if you don't expect anything too good or too serious. The entire film suffers from a very low-budget and it appears that director Pierre Chevalier doesn't have much faith in anything that he's doing. Most of the scenes seem extremely rushed or at least made quickly without too much effort put into them. There really isn't any story of vision on display here as it almost seems as if Chevalier was just a director-for-hire who got the film in the can as quickly as he could. It's certainly not on the same page as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF or DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER but there are a few interesting ideas here. It's funny how the entire doctor coming to the castle is handled because it's clearly ripping off the start of Dracula. The entire relationship between this young doctor and Orloff is a tad bit weird to say the least and the story never really bothered to explain why we need this younger doctor around. At just 75-minutes the film certainly goes by pretty quickly, although, to be honest, not much really happens in regards to the invisible man. The strangest sequence comes towards the end when a woman is stripped totally naked and sexually assaulted by the invisible man. Obviously the special effects aren't that good and the actresses acting isn't all that good either so we're left with an extremely weird sequence that belongs in the Euro Horror Hall of Fame. Vernon is good in his role and the supporting players aren't too bad either. There's plenty of nudity to keep fans of that entertained and there's some mild humor as well.

Moody terror movie about a mad doctor and revolving around an invisible man . The newcomer Dr. Garondet (Francisco Valladares) is called for healing sick professor Orloff (Howard Vernon) , but people in his village are afraid of going to his castle . The insistent doctor asks for his whereabout but the feared villagers tell nothing . The newcomer Dr. Garondet reaches the castle and the servants send him to talk to Cécile Orloff, who is the daughter of the professor and is worried about the insane health of her daddy . Eventually , Dr. Garondet meets professor Orloff and he tells what happened to Cécile sometime ago . But results that evil scientist has created a murderous , invisible ape man-lookalike . Due to strange circumstances , Dr. Garondet has to spend the night in the creepy location and soon he learns there's a dangerous being stalking the castle .

Austerily eerie terror film that contains thrills , chills , fantastic events and being mostly set at a sinister castle . This so-so Spanish/French co-production is generally characterized by botcher images , sleaziness , nudism and contaning a symbolic attack on the ethics of science . Although the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1970 the nudism , grisly killings and the susprising rape by the invisible monster still caused controversy , existing a double version , both , a light Spanish and another hard French one . Being produced in short budget by Marious Lesoeur : Eurocine , Célia Films and Producciones Miguel Mezquíriz . Initial releases of the film were met with negative reactions from film critics , while the general critical reaction had been poor , however ,today is considered an acceptable terror picture . Nice acting by Howard Vernon as Doctor Orloff , his classic role who would repeat over and over again . As Vernon is brilliant as a demented researcher/scientific/surgeon haunted by a past tragedy. Functional acting by the Spanish Francisco Valladares as the doctor who figures out the mysterious events . By the time , Valladares getting big success thanks to his role in hit Spanish TV series as Ana Karenina and Diego de Acevedo . And secondary acting by the great Fernando Sancho , the Mexican antihero in hundreds of Spaghetti/Paella Westerns .The motion picture was regularly directed by Pierre Chevalier . He was a director and assistant director, known for Escuadrón pantera or Panther Squad (1984) with Sybil Danning , Pigalle carrefour des illusions (1973) and La maison des filles perdues (1974). He made various exploitation films , though in his starts he directed A-films with known stars , such as : Micheline Presle , Raymond Pellegrin , Fernandel , Gino Cervi or Eddie Constantine.

This is third entry on the long series about Doctor Orloff , a former prison doctor who tries to use skin of his victims to repair his beloved daughter's fire-scarred face and whose role subsequently to show up in various flicks mainly directed by prolific writer/producer/director Jesús Franco . The Orloff character starred a saga , using the same shots in more than one film ; some of his actors relate how they they were hired for one film and later saw their name in two or more different one . Orloff was habitually played by Howard Vernon who initiated the terrifying saga in ¨Gritos en la Noche¨ (1962) , the best of all them , also titled "The Awful Dr. Orlof" , considered to be one of the best films in his first period and deemed to be the first movie of the ¨Spanish Fantaterror¨. This vintage horror motion picture , a classic in some circles , was well directed by Jesús Franco who never considered the film to be a terror story , but instead felt it was tale of "anguish" . Here Franco established his uniquely poetic , stunningly filmed in black and white and expressionist darkness with visually striking style , including unforgettable images that owed a great deal to early cinema in general and German Expressionism in particular , though imitating to classy "Eyes Without A Face" (1960) , the masterpiece directed by George Franju , packing a haunting poetic fantasy . It's followed by ¨El Secreto del Dr. Orloff¨ (1964) aka "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll" - USA . It's gone on by " Orloff y el hombre invisible (1970) aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" , ¨Ojos siniestros de Doctor Orloff¨(1973) . Furthermore , ¨El enigma Del Ataúd¨ (1969) aka "Only a Coffin" and ¨El Siniestro doctor Orloff¨ (1984) aka "The Sinister Dr. Orloff . Finally, ¨Faceless¨ or ¨Depredadores de Noche¨(1987) in which Orloff appears as a secondary role and of course, performed by Howard Vernon.

Everyone else's reviews on here pretty much say what I would say, however, I wanted to add that that music score is quite impressive. I usually don't listen to the music in a film unless it strikes me and this one stuck me as being more than just boring background music. Also, the lighting they used really gave the movie a unique feel. It seemed like everyone was lit up brightly with a light right in their face. It added much needed color to the film. Without the color and music, this movie would have been very drab. Also, the "horror" nature of this film focuses on rape more than anything gory or gross. The rape scene with the maid was too much for me to watch, I had to close my eyes. It seemed to go on forever. Quite unsettling and distasteful. And the ape suit guy was hilarious. Very far from the "superior race" of people the doctor thought he was creating. It seemed like just a dumb ape to me.

3/10 because of the music, lighting and unintentional humor.

The newcomer Dr. Garondet (Francis Valladares) is summoned by professor Orloff (Howard Vernon) but people in his village is afraid to go to his castle. The insistent Dr. Garondet reaches the castle and the servants send him to talk to Cécile Orloff (Brigitte Carva), who is the daughter of the professor and is worried about the mental health of her father. Dr. Garondet meets professor Orloff and he tells what happened to Cécile sometime ago and his experiment with an invisible man, and he explains that his daughter is deranged due to the reported incident. Dr. Garondet has to spend the night in the castle and soon he learns who is the insane in the castle.

"La vie amoureuse de l'homme invisible" is a lame and funny euro trash sexploitation by Pierre Chevalier, a wannabee of Jess Franco and Ed Wood. The silly story has poor acting, awful scenarios and gratuitous nudity. The rape of the servant by the invisible man and the bush of Brigitte Carva are scenes of so bad taste that become hilarious. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Monstro do Dr. Orloff" ("The Monster of the Dr. Orloff")

Anyone encountering this film on VHS in the UK as the Invisible Dead, tag line; " god help us if they rise again" will find themselves utterly baffled or just ripped off by the content of the actual film. Not only have they been lead to believe that it's a zombie flick by the sleeve art but the film itself has been sliced and diced, presumably by the distributors following the 1982 video act,so that sleazy content of any kind is absent, and what we are left with is essentially 80 odd minutes of people wandering through corridors very....slowly.....indeed. As others have doubtless pointed out, none of the dialogue bears much relation to the action on screen, some of the soundtrack has been left blatantly undubbed, and that goddamn music clangs away throughout for all the world like a troop of drunken boy scouts assaulting each other with biscuit tins. Listing the inconsistencies and "what the heck?.." moments would take too damn long, but suffice to say that it's one of those eurosleaze offerings that manage to conjure up a surreal, dream-like atmosphere chiefly through being incoherent and flat out badly made.And judging by the speed of the opening doors and "magically" appearing footprints, the invisible ape-man doesn't really pose much of a threat to anyone who can move faster than a relaxed stroll.It's crap. I quite enjoyed it