Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

markwood272 Saw via DVD 7/23/17. One of Franco's best works, in a class with the best of Mario Bava or Dario Argento. The film is his distinctly personal take on the myth of the animated (or re-animated) as homunculus (cf. Caligari, Golem, Frankenstein). The movie achieves strong pathos when the young heiress encounters the monster, a Freudian moment combining the beauty of Agnes Spaak with the terror of a vintage Lon Chaney reveal. The cinematic technique is assured, with especially masterful use of lighting and camera angles. The black and white photography is as visually striking as Franco's Eastmancolor "Vampyros Lesbos" (1971). Anticipates Lynch while looking back at Franju's "Eyes Without A Face"(1959) with maybe some Antonioni thrown in here and there – who knows? As in the other Franco movies I've enjoyed, great soundtrack and music, with the master himself in a keyboard cameo in a jazz dive. Essential film for Francophiles, but maybe also a good starter work for viewers simply wanting a break from Bunuel (yes, they met, according to this website).

fertilecelluloid "Dr. Orloff's Monster" is an interesting curio, a sequel, in name only, to "The Awful Dr. Orloff", my favourite Franco pic. Only once in this version is the name "Orloff" mentioned. The Howard Verson role here, another disgraced surgeon, is played by Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui and his name is Dr. Jekyll. His "Morpho" equivalent, however, called "Andros" (Hugh Blanco), is a central character. Like Morpho, the blind manservant in "Awful", Andros kills for Jekyll and harbors a grudge or two.The story is straightforward. Jekyll's niece Melissa (Agnes Spaak) travels to Austria to visit her uncle at his brooding castle. She finds an unhappy household (shades of "A Virgin Among The Living Dead") and a hostile reception from Jekyll who is all work and no play. But being a curious lass, Melissa takes time to explore the castle at night and meets up with Andros, who turns out to be her missing, deceased father, a tragic figure who lives in a state of walking death and is controlled by low level sonics.Not as technically polished or atmospheric as "The Awful Dr. Orloff", it is still miles beyond most of the crap Franco churned out. Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, as Jekyll, is not a very charismatic male lead, and reminded me of a poor man's Sebastian Cabot (from TV's "Ghost Story"). Spaak as Melissa is very pretty and sexy and Blanco manages to elicit our sympathy for his shambling dead man.Stylistically, the film is uneven, and the pacing is funereal at times, evidence of Franco's work ethic melancholy. The director's trademark jazz clubs, saucy strippers and camera zooming are in surplus here, as is his penchant for lurid close-ups of deformed faces (something that must be admired). I like the film, but it lacks energy and suffers from cloudy motivation and one-dimensional characterization.Still worth seeing, though.

goblinhairedguy If you've suffered through some of the hack work Jess Franco cranked out in the last two decades, you may find it difficult to believe that he once took some pride in his craft and evinced a certain mastery of cinematic technique, as well as a modicum of discipline. "Dr Orloff's Monster" is a case in point. Despite the title, it bears no direct relation to the creepy and perverse opus, "The Awful Dr Orloff", which put the director on the map back in the early 60s. However, it shares the same doom-laden aura -- with the expected (but always riveting) kinky asides -- that so resemble that earlier picture as well as the German Edgar Wallace 'krimi' series which was reaching its peak at the same time.The picture is rife with carefully-executed camera angles and atmospherics, something that would become anathema to Franco's slash-and-burn methods of the 80s. The best scenes are reminiscent of (dare I say) Lewton and Franju. It builds up a strong pathos for the title character, thanks to a subtle, wordless portrayal that evokes Cesar in 'Cabinet of Dr Caligari' and Christiane in 'Eyes without a Face' (such homages were a Franco specialty). There is a particularly poignant sequence in which the zombie stumbles about near his own tombstone in a bleak, wintry cemetery. No matter what depths Franco's movies plunged to, they always offered a few wonderfully oddball cabaret scenes in smoky jazz or rock bars, and this is no exception. One singer performs a wacky, rhythmic Latin ditty that must have sparked the imagination of the members of the retro band 'Les Rita Mitsouko'. (These cabaret scenes were a welcome staple of the Euro-thriller genre of the 60s, also perking up the krimi series, several of the campier works of the Italian Gothic revival, and especially the outlaw melodramas of Jose Benazeraf.)There are already foreshadowings of the director's latter-day carelessness -- a few too many zooms, cutting from the middle of one scene to another, and a general neglect of motivation. And, of course, he'd end up doing the revenge plot to death. But overall, this one (along with the much more perverse 'Sadistic Baron von Klaus') comes highly recommended for Franco skeptics and genre fans alike. Surprisingly, this film was immediately followed by his magnum opus, the delirious 'Succubus' (aka 'Necronomicon'), which in its pseudo-sophisticated Radley-Metzger-like style is miles removed from the Gothic horror of his early work.

tim_age Although made on a shoestring budget and as a sequel to The Awfull Dr. Orloff, this is a very enjoyable flick and a fine example of early Southern European horror. It's actually better than it's predecessor.The plot is not real important (it contains a zombie-like creature, a castle and a mad scientist). What makes this movie is the mood, the often beautiful camera-angles, the art direction and the hints of later Franco movies.For example, there's several scenes with women performing, often in erotic scenes, with men watching - which is exactly the kind of voyeuristic cinema Franco would turn to in later years (Vampyros Lesbos, Demoniac).There's - of course - quite some nudity, which must have been considered quite risque in 1964. And there's a small cameo for the director himself, as a pianist who seems to be blind.....Also of interest is the use of electronic devices used to make the zombie a murderous weapon, they give a strange effect to the movie and reminded me of early 50's sci-fi B-movies.All in all, recommended for Franco fans and b/w horrormovie fans. If you've never seen a Franco I suggest starting with Vampyros Lesbos or Female Vampire.