This month's movie is The Corpse Vanishes - directed in 1942 by Wallace Fox and starring Bela Lugosi as Dr. Lorenz, somewhat of a mad scientist (or a "mad botanist" - as I.M. Balm calls him) - who keeps his old and decrepit wife looking young and beautiful by injecting her with a serum made from fluid drawn from the glands of young virgins.
He does this by kidnapping brides on their wedding day, and he has an interesting way of doing this: He delivers a corsage laced with a poison which makes the young lady appear to die - right there at the altar. Then he sends his own van to take her away before the undertaker can show up. Once back at his lab, he removes the necessary fluid from her glands, mixes it with a little chemistry magic and injects his wife.
We find out later that his wife is about 80 years old. Funny, the serum apparently makes her look young on the outside but does nothing for her internal organs!
While the movie is slow in spots, it does carry that general air of creepiness found in other mystery/horror movies of the period. Some things are obviously thrown in just for effect - like Dr. and Countess Lorenz sleeping in open caskets; but overall the combination of classic props like secret passages, a deformed giant and his sadistic midget brother, along with the creepy soundtrack make this movie rather enjoyable - even though it's not really all that scary.
What struck me as I was editing the movie for the show, was how the plot of using brides-to-be to treat Dr. Lorenz's wife wasn't all that different from uncivilized tribes sacrificing young virgins to appease their gods. The "god", in this movie, is vanity; but the cost of an innocent human life is still the same.
Human sacrifice? Unfortunately, yes. The innocent in place of the guilty. The righteous in place of the wicked.
And of course, this is where my review gets spiritual. For who is really innocent enough to die in place of the guilty? Who is really righteous enough to die in place of the wicked. I can think of only One.
02 February 2008
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