The Lucifer Complex

This movie could have been so much better if they would have had the lone survivor discovering that the video he is watching is really the Lucifer Complex and he was in it. Like he was discovering that he was a clone. But as the movie is, it makes little sense of anything.

A reviewer here on the IMDb said this is what THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL would look like if directed by Ed Wood and I have to say that assessment is pretty dead on. A young guy wanders around an island before heading into a cave with computers that have history on laserdisc. After checking out WWII and Vietnam, he heads to the "big war" of 1986 and the movie begins proper. Government guy Glen Manning (Robert Vaughn) catches wind of the Fourth Reich when his plane crashes on a small island off the coast of Florida and he finds Nazis working on a clone of Hitler. With the help of April Adams (Merrie Lynn Ross), Manning manages to escape and blows lots of stuff up with a tank and stop the bad guys. The end. Cut back to the guy in the cave who says something like, "Will man ever learn? I've got to explore this island more." Vaughn has a filmography that extends to over 200+ movies and TV series, but I'm going to boldly claim this was the worst thing he has ever been it. It was a production rife with problems and I'd say the Vaughn material amounts for maybe 65 minutes of the 90 minute running time. The wrap around screams of padding and doesn't make a lick of sense (man had the ability to record every single moment on laserdisc?). Keenan Wynn and Aldo Ray show up for a few scenes.

Near-abominable tale of an intelligence agent (Vaughn) assigned by his boss (Leo Gordon, uncredited) to infiltrate an island outpost where he discovers a shocking plot to clone world leaders in an audacious plan to resurrect the Fourth Reich, forty years following the end of WWII.

Vaguely reminiscent of its contemporary "Boys From Brazil" has a great cast that aside from Vaughn sleep-walking through his role, includes Keenan Wynn, Aldo Ray, the lovely Lynn Cartwright (in a distinctly unlovely role as a sadistic Nazi), Kieu Chinh as a female prisoner, Victoria Carroll as a double agent and Corinne Cole ("The Party") in a frivolous bit part as a potential one-night stand, though our secret agent is so inept, he manages one corny pick-up line ("you need less bump and more grind"), before duty calls.

And let's not neglect William Lanning in the ostensibly unrelated scenes that punctuate, as he narrates the tale watching it unfold from a laser-read time capsule. If you're confused by that plot synopsis, you're starting to appreciate what "The Lucifer Complex" has to offer the patient viewer.

The film is absolute dross, pure guff, atrocious in almost every department, totally bereft of suspense, thrills or coherency, BUT, in my opinion it does qualify as 'so bad it's funny' and for that reason, coupled with the distinguished cast of Hollywood A-listers and B-movie personnel (Cartwright was always a scene-stealer, and she alone earns this turkey one star for pure camp value), it's essential for any film buff's burgeoning collection.

I was one of the clones! The curly haired guy in a few scenes behind Robert Vaughn. He didn't say much, just smiled and did what he was told. Many of us were acting students from the Lee Strasberg Drama Institute - so much for method acting. It was filmed across the street from Paramount at a small sound stage we entered through a back alley. They feed us from MacDonalds! I never got paid for it, so I guess I might as well not hold my breath anymore. You'll notice there is a strip across where our private parts would be, so you couldn't see our bathing suits or underwear, and we just grabbed the feeding tubes and stuck them in our navels.

The trivia says this movie was never released to theaters, and I believe it. It's pretty bad.

It doesn't help that there's some sort of frame story involving a guy sitting inexpressively in front of a bank of TV monitors, watching a library of all the videos ever recorded (or something like that). He muses to himself in voice-over how there is more about wars than anything else. Most of the movie is something he's watching about a war in 1986 (or 96?). That story doesn't start until about twenty minutes in; probably once you realize how long the opening drags, you'll fast forward judiciously like I did.

A bunch of important people are killed on a bus. Robert Vaughn's character investigates, after he watches a belly dancer in a bar. He finds a camp of Nazis and is captured, and they try to convince him he never saw the Nazis. It turns out they're cloning world leaders, and the women in the camp help Vaughn fight the Nazis. That might sound sort of exciting, but it's not terribly engrossing at all, and it doesn't help that they keep cutting back to the guy watching all of this on video.

Not recommended at all. This is the sort of movie that would be helped by some special features explaining what they were going for with the movie, the trouble with releasing it, etc. I saw it on video, though, an old big box from a closing video store.