Il mostruoso dottor Crimen

Nora, an intrepid newspaper reporter eager for a juicy story, answers a mysterious "lonely hearts" ad and finds a brilliant but hideously disfigured plastic surgeon who only wants to be loved. Nora's sympathetic (if slightly repulsed) and the doctor seemingly gets his wish but when he finds out what she does for a living and what she may be up to, he resuscitates the handsome corpse of a presidential candidate to wreak a fiendishly ironic vengeance on Nora...

Director Chano Urueta (who seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing) takes a tip from Universal horror films of the 1940s by using an Eastern European village, a foreboding castle high above the sea, a mad scientist's lab, a wax museum, and a spooky cemetery with lots of fog to set the story. There's also a hairy sub-human in the dungeon who's transformed into a handsome instrument for revenge and the mad scientist, a lovelorn freak reminiscent of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in both looks and temperament, is got up to look like Claude Rains in THE INVISIBLE MAN with a black cape, panama hat, and a mean bullwhip which he uses to keep his creations in line. There's lots of black & white atmospherics and a couple of Ripper-like murders to propel this off-the-wall horror movie-cum-romantic melodrama and it's all taken quite seriously which only adds to the charm. Nora's played by the beautiful Prague-born Miroslava who made a name for herself in Mexican film (working for Robert Rossen, Jacques Tourneur, and Luis Buñuel, among others) before killing herself in 1955 when her bullfighter lover left her for Ava Gardner. My DVD-R is dubbed in Italian (where it was released as THE MONSTROUS DR. CRIMEN) and subtitled in English (!)

It was a major Mexican achievement carried out by Internacional Cinematografica near of the patten of Universal studio in America, mainly by expressive use of shadows in gloomy atmosphere, also allied by a fabulous sets and a clever-gripping storyline, to mourn just a weak make-up of the monster, furthermore I would like to underline the astonishing acting of the leading Lady Miroslava who sadly went to die tree months later.

Basically the premise gets closer of those Frankenstein's pictures where the beauty reporter accepts an weirdo invite to meeting an unknown man through a newspaper advertisement, actually an older European scientist with a deformed face, at first glance even scared the smart reporter pretends feel sorry for the ugly man aiming for gain your trust for greed only, so the monster get ready for a revenge, worthwhile a look for this small piece of Mexican horror that owes nothing to others foreigners productions.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2025 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.5.

Santiago Luciano Urueta Rodríguez aka Chano –son of a Mexican revolutionary leader- was probably the most prolific director of horror films in México, although he is not as well-known or praised as Fernado Méndez or Carlos Enrique Taboada. On one hand he made his horror films when the genre was disregarded by film industries and critics, on the other most horror cinéphiles have not seen his output. This was his first full horror film (with a dose of science- fiction), a typical Mexican low-budget production made in sound stages. It takes place in an "exotic locale" (the Balkans) with foreign names, but looking as genuinely Mexican as a taco stand. Beautitul Czech actress Miroslava plays a journalist that meets a mysterious man who turns out to be a deformed mad scientist, and she ends up involved with the undead. 1953 was a good year for Urueta, who also directed "La bestia magnífica (Lucha libre)", the film that started the rage of "wrestling movies", which were highly popular for decades. If you enjoy this film, look for Urueta's "The Witch's Mirror", "El barón del terror" and "La Bruja", all available in fine editions.

Mexican horror cinema is to be discovered but few titles are available. This "Monstruo resucitado" directed by Chano Urueta is one of the first in this Mexican horror cinema wave . Though it's low budget, the script develops some surprises with the main character who has grown disfigured and is full of hate. There are even touching scenes between the masked man and the journalist. There aren't too many visual scenes, but the masked man's point of view is the main interest, how will he develop? The settings are not wide, the frames really concentrate on the two main characters, the mad scientist and his victim. For B fan movies.

A disfigured scientist tries to win over a journalist trying to uncover a story about a deceased man rumored to be alive that turns out to be the handiwork of the scientist seeking revenge on the medical community who scorned him.

Really great Frankenstein adaptation that manages to get a lot right while also having very few things wrong with it. The most obvious flaw is the storyline, which is just plain odd and doesn't really offer much to make it make sense so it tends to ramble along without really being realistic or coherent, and the copying of several foreign horrors at the time are a little obvious, yet this is still a lot of fun. From the low-budget, since the deformed scientist is so ludicrous looking it's almost laughable throughout his scenes despite trying to appear threatening, the foggy landscapes that surround everything and the inclusion of some nice action scenes throughout, it's quite enjoyable when it wants to be.

Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence