False Face

Interesting that imdb has this under the initial title and not the one it seems to be better known for (Scalpel). You'll still find it easily with the title it is marketed (by Arrow for example) and it is a point that gets talked about in the extras of that release too.

Talking about the Arrow release, it is amazing that the original DOP was not just available but went above and beyond to make sure anyone who wants to watch this gets the closest to what he had in mind back when they made the movie! Kudos to him and Arrow for allowing him that (also putting their own version on the disc for anyone to be able to compare and decide which to watch).

But enough about technicalities (although I would argue more than important for the enjoyment), the movie itself is also quite a find. There are always curiosities in the horror world. Movies you may not have heard about, that do deserve to be watched though. This is one of them. It may have notions of other movies (like Eyes without a Face, a classic itself), but that does not take anything away from the movie or the lead performances! Rabid which was released the same year took a similar theme to a different extreme. Both movies are more than fine.

So if you are into horror and like to be scared, I can recommend this highly .. especially when it looks so good as it does ...

An old man has died, cutting out his only son from his will, as well as his other relatives, leaving five million to his granddaughter Heather. Uncle Bradley, the only son, is understandably angry. So is Dr. Reynolds, the old man's son-in-law and father to Heather. Dr. Reynolds is a plastic surgeon with definite psychotic tendencies when it comes to his family. He evidently had killed his wife, making it look like an accidental drowning while swimming, and also killed his daughter's boyfriend, making it look like an accidental drowning as a result of drunkenness.

Heather, however, isn't around to claim the inheritance. No one has seen her for a year.

Bradley and Dr. Reynolds almost run over a go-go-dancer with their car. She'd been ejected by a bouncer from a club in only her panties and high heels, and the bouncer had smashed her face into a wall several times for reasons unknown. The two men don't know where she came from, and take her to the hospital. Without telling Bradley, the Doctor rebuilds her face so she looks like his daughter, books a phony airline flight for her, then takes her home and teaches her how to impersonate Heather. They'll split the five million evenly. They begin a sexual relationship as well, making the Doc quite the pervert for being able to do that with his daughter's exact likeness!

Complicating things are the fact that the phony Heather can't play piano like the real one, Bradley grows suspicious, and the real Heather quietly shows up again.

Curiously, the other film directed by John Grissmer, Blood Rage, also deals with identical twins - though the characters are actual identical twins played by one actor, here they're identical by virtue of surgery and played by one actress. The fake twins are more or less act the same in False Face (which I saw on video as Scalpel), while in Blood Rage they're more pronouncedly different.

One of the chief problems with the movie for me was that it felt overlong. It was fairly engrossing, but at the same time nothing terribly special.

First, there was Vertigo...then, there was Eyes Without A Face...and now, there is Scalpel...

A plastic surgeon has become estranged from his daughter, after murdering his wife, and his daughter's long time boyfriend.

By his own admission, he does the devil's work...changing the ugly, maimed, and deformed, into the beautiful.

Though, clearly...he indulges in more gruesome aspects of the job.

The motives behind his actions are to secure his father's fortune.

As he knows his father had written him out of his will and left everything to his daughter.

Thus, he needs to keep her close, so that he could cash in on the inheritance he feels is rightfully his. . But this only acts to push her away.

So, having lost his daughter, when his father dies, he must come up with a new plan.

Which comes to fruition when he finds a battered stripper hobbling down the street.

Her face has been destroyed...so he recreates it in the likeness of his daughter.

Planning to use the woman, as his daughter's doppelganger, in order to trick his father's estate into handing over the money.

Little did he suspect, though, that his daughter would discover his plot...and return to try and foil it.

In a twist of fate, the two women start to work together, figuring he would resort to try and eliminate one of them.

Leaving them with only one option.

To fashion a scheme of their own...and turn the tables on him...

When you sell your soul to the devil...there's always a price to pay...and the time to pay it always comes before you think it will.

Just ask the not-so-good doctor...he's living proof.

Because he's now trapped in one hell of a bad trip...from which he'll never escape.

As the two women become the beneficiaries of everything he so desired to possess.

Such being the cost of playing games with the devil, on his terms.

Judith Chapman does an excellent job in both roles as Heather (his daughter) and Jane (the stripper).

And despite it's budget, VHS-quality format...the film is actually much better than one would suspect.

With a storyline that takes inspiration from, the aforementioned films, and then combining that with the plot from De Palma's Sisters.

Though all with an air of originality.

The whole thing was shot in Atlanta and Covington, Georgia...incorporating lots of beautiful scenery, and some great locations.

Exceeding all expectations I had going in.

It's definitely worth a watch.

7 out of 10.

A murderous surgeon (Robert Lansing) concots a twisted scheme to win his missing daughters inheritance money, by transfroming a Jane Doe (Judith Chapman) into her double. Twists within twists make the rather convoluted plot entertaining. Lansing's character is a real creep, and Chapman who plays both the daughter and Jane is superb. Over all this movie is a fun little Hitchcock wannabe that amuses till the closing credits.

A murderous surgeon (Robert Lansing) concocts a twisted scheme to win his missing daughter's inheritance money: by transforming a Jane Doe (Judith Chapman) into her double.

Although he was a constantly working actor, Lansing is probably best remembered as the authoritarian Brig. Gen. Frank Savage in "12 O'clock High" (1964), the television drama series about World War II bomber pilots. Genre fans may know him from "4D Man" (1959), "Empire of the Ants" (1977) or "The Nest" (1988). "Scalpel" is an early role for Judith Chapman who went on to star in a wide variety of soap operas.

The film has been called a "Hitchcock wannabe", which is fair. But really, it is as good as some of Hitchcock's work. Maybe not his best films, but better than average.