The Mutations (1974) Online

This is a totally bizarre British horror film which deserves cult status of the highest order - I can't believe that this didn't have problems with the censor, it is a disturbing, nasty piece of work and should undoubtedly have cult status.

'The Mutations' has Donald Pleasence as a Frankenstein-inspired scientist, Prof Nolter, who in-between his lecturing is trying to fuse humans with plantlife, to create a creature which has the strengths of both species. The nature of the film is introduced early, with a travelling funfair complete with freaks ( played by real-life freaks as in Tod Brownings early classic ), and a hideously ugly normal-sized man, who moonlights as Prof Nolter's assistant.

The film has so many points of interest its difficult to know where to start - the similarities to 'Freaks' are acknowledged with a feast scene which includes the line "He's one of us - we accept you". The freaks are also shown to have more humanity than the other characters, although they do turn on their tormenter in the end, in a scene similar to the climactic chase in 'Freaks'.

There are also ideas and scenes close to the French classic 'Eyes without a Face'; Pleasance portrays a character similar to Pierre Brasseur's mad doctor, both living in a secluded mansion complete with pack of mad dogs.

As if all this were not enough, we are also treated to Julie Ege as the screaming heroine, showing of her acting limitations and bodily curves very nicely - special applause for the nude bath scene.

'The Mutations' is a real shocker, which viewed today has a strong impact - far more so than more famous 'shocking' films, like 'The Devils' and the earlier 'Peeping Tom', both of which viewed now seem relatively tame.

While not raising the film to any artistic height - it is a cheap 'B' Movie in all production areas - the film should really be seen by all film fans, and given its deserved status as a heavyweight of the gutter-horror genre.

How on earth have I never seen this film before? I watched it tonight 'cause there was nothing else on Cable (again) - lucky me!

It started with some time-lapse film of plant-life and looked like a programme from the Open University - but then the soundtrack signalled something strange was happening...

"Mutations" owes a lot to Tod Browning's "Freaks" but offers loads more: some nice 70's nudity; plants that eat live rabbits (why not pet food?); dialogue that mentions "cloning dinosaurs"; a soundtrack that judders from spaced-out, slowed-down, phased bass to free form jazz. This is a minestrone of madness with some nice inconsitencies in the plot. Great!

Tom Baker was obviously heavily influenced by his role in this film and took most of the wardrobe with him for Dr Who!

Ignore the uptight weirdo who spends 10,000 words bashing this movie. It's very enjoyable as long as you're a fan of the genre. With many gratuitous LSD references and a real live carnival freak show, how can you go wrong?

If you thought Swamp Thing was too intellectual and The Fly was just too gross, this movie might definitely be for you. One of many human-cross-animal or plant movies, what causes this one to stand out is the overall creepiness of Donald Pleasance and, basically, the entire plot (what you can make of it).

Time-lapse photography inserted for no particular reason just adds to the fun.

The people who made this movie must have had a blast and so will you as long as you're not some amateur wannabe film critic. Sheesh!

OK i seen the mutations when i was younger at a movie theater in;Paterson new jersey and to this day i cant remember the co-feature. but it scared the hell out of me.its a basic mad scientist story,with a brilliant but unbalanced Dr played by the late great;Donald Pleasence who went on to play Dr loomis in the Halloween movie series(1978 to 1989)creating mutations from plants.i know very weird.it all takes place in england,much to the distaste of fellow scientist from America played by Brad Harris.he gets his subjects from a deformed man played by;Tom Baker(who played Dr who in the 70's)this guy is so gruesome he would give Frankensteins monster the willies.anyway lynch(tom baker)is co-owner of a traveling carnival.the main owner is a kindly dwarf played by Micheal Dunn,who does'nt approve of the Dr's intentions.and like the earlier movie;freaks this movie features real human oddities. the one that gave me nightmares was a guy called pop eye,i don't need to say what he does.also starring in this movie is Julie Ege and Jill Haworth.the mutations has been released to video under the title;the freak-maker.its not as good as Tod brownings freaks,but it is very unsettling.i re watched this recently and found it very entertaining but it no longer gives me nightmares.all i can say is its still a very good film,with a great cast.and Donald Pleasence played the best mad doctors.I'm giving mutations(aka;freak-maker)8 out of 10.

This film is a definite cult-classic and a follow up to Tod Brownings FREAKS. Perhaps a bit poorly made, but with real freaks like the Alligator Woman, Pop Eye and many more. Julie Ege, Norwegian scream queen, is starring and making the best of it. If you ever want to see the definite B-film from British cinema during the Seventies: This is the one to see. The film takes place at a travelling carnival which also features a freak show. Donald Pleasance is the mad professor who mutates plants with humans and then puts them on display. The results are horrific and so are the monsters that looks like a mixture of broccoli and humans. The film is odd to say the least and the actors try very hard to make it believable. This is a film with a strange mixture of science, horror and drama. It moves along a bit slow, but you won't be bored. The last of the real "freak films".

Grimy, effective English shocker from Jack Cardiff is not a remake of Browning's "Freaks", but it does recreate several sequences from the 30's classic and uses some real, highly impressive freaks (to its credit). The tabletop scene, which introduced the "One of us!" mantra, is here, as is the scene in which the freaks turn on one of their own. One of the little people in this version even produces a threatening switchblade, mirroring the original.

Often titled "The Mutations", a title I prefer, the film is entertaining and filled with the great stuff of horror films -- deformities, a mad scientist, a sleazy carnival, half man/half monsters looking for love, a fiery conclusion.

The film feels like Gary Sherman's "Raw Meat" at times with its 70's dialog and haircuts, and the female characters wear a little Women's Lib on their shoulders, again reflecting the period. But what really distinguishes the film is director Jack Cardiff's effort to make some of his most hideous freak creations sympathetic. In particular, Tom Baker (TV's best Dr. Who, in my opinion) is gruesomely tragic as Mr. Lynch, a facially disfigured monster who begs mad scientist Professor Nolter (Donald Pleasence) to find a "cure" for his infliction. A scene where Lynch visits a prostitute and begs her to say "I love you" to him (for an extra pound) is quite touching..."I've got a nice selection of obscenities," she tells him when he initially asks her to say "things" to him.

The film is a rich tapestry and its theme is summed up in a couple of lines of dialog: "We are all a product of mutations. We mutated to survive." Plot involves Nolter's efforts to forcibly mutate local lasses and lads who end up as monsters running the streets in search of blood. The sideshow of a local carnival provides the perfect hiding place for some of the good Professor's rejected experiments. A particularly chilling scene involves one of the film's protagonists discovering a missing girl in a cage.

The make-up effects are more than adequate for their time and disturbingly gruesome. The score by Basil Kirchin, which combines animalistic sound effects with traditional strings, adds immeasurably to the atmosphere. Great time lapse photography of plants, too, cut to ultra-creepy music.

I like this accomplished horror film very much.

Not really enough money or effort put into this one. It appears that everyone thought simply that the presence of various 'freaks' Donald Pleasence, a bit of nudity and some man eating plants should see them through.

Actually this almost works, unfortunately Mr Pleasence is in particularly one note form and although the speeded up photography for the plants is fine the later costumes for those that have turned into half human, half plant are not half as effective. There are some decent moments and good ideas but it is all so uphill. Undeniably quirky, though and probably worth it for the fairground scenes.

I liked this movie, thought it was from the 1980's from the discussion at the beginning about cloning dinosaurs from their DNA and employing genetics on animals. Turns out it was from 1973 and ahead of it's time.

The movie does have some parallels to "Freaks" and the movie supplies the real thing. Michael Dunn, "Dr. Lovelace" of "Wild, Wild, West" is good in his role as the operator of the sideshow.

Well, to keep the puns going, this grows on you after awhile. Really, it does. While I had never heard of it before, I was pleasantly surprised to find this film about a British bio-engineer/professor mixed up with a carnival and who uses bodies(inexplicably) to help with his experimentation to create an animal/plant race of beings. We get a Frankenstein type film, but when you add the oddities(most REAL) from the carnival - and who create scenes eerily reminiscent of Tod Browning's Freaks - we get so much more. While undeniably cheaply made - the special effects are ridiculous as is the final "invention" of man and plant, The Mutations(I saw it under the title The Freakmaker)does have some truly jarring scenes. The carnival freaks in this movie are allowed to act - and, quite frankly, are the scariest thing in this film as they lynch Lynch(played nicely by a heavily made-up Tom Baker - make-up here is quite good too!) - a deformed man who wants to be 'normal" whilst distancing himself from his freak brethren by calling them freaks and himself normal. Needless to say things do not work out well for him. This is the subplot of the film but I found it more interesting than the story of Donald Pleasance working with plants and creating some starved half-animal half-plant creature the size of a human. Pleasence is good as he always is - but really is given little to do EXCEPT for his wonderful lecture at the beginning of the film. There we are also introduced to four students(later Brad Harris will join them)who will come to know the doctor's work firsthand. The only thing you need to know about these four is that three of them are HOT, beautiful girls: blonde Jill Haworth, sensuous Olga Anthony, and the incredibly stunning Julie Ege - we also get to see them in various states of disrobe - a MAJOR highlight. Harris is OK, but it really is the real-life "freaks" that caught my eye. Michael Dunn plays the dwarf running the carnival - and I think he gives his best performance in film. I always thought he was a pretty good actor that went beyond his stereotyped image. This unfortunately was one of his last films as he died at the age of 38. The Mutations is a solid film with many undesirable elements but does, in my opinion, scare - why? Well, that will be for you to determine.

Anytime Tom Baker graced the screen his characters were always memorable. Here he plays a freak with a self loathing that must be seen to be believed. The story concerns a scientist who tries to turn people into plants. He succeeds with a cross between human and venus fly trap. The makeup isn't great, but it does the job. First time director Jack Cardiff made a great little horror film. Donald Pleasence plays the doctor. I saw this on Cinemax during the 90's. Basil Kirchin from Abominable Dr. Phibes did the music. I wish this was out on DVD. Columbia Pictures has done worse.

I stumbled across this video at a pawnshop called "Cash Converters" at my town center. Once I blew off the dust I decided to buy it on a whim. I had never heard of it but its £2 price tag led me to believe I had nothing to loose. It now sits proudly in my horror collection. This film is in a word, freaky. It makes use of real life sideshow freaks to tell a disturbing story about a mad scientist and his ungodly experiments to create a plant man. The various mistakes that occur are put to use at the friendly local fair. The only problem this film has is the rather pathetic effects used when real freaks are unavailable. However, Donald's performance is as ever wonderful and the film maintains a creepy atmosphere. There is also some great titty shots of voluptuous young seventies women. Well recommended for horror fans (if you can track down a copy like I did).

Donald Pleasance stars as Professor Nolter in this sci-fi/horror as a mad-scientist who, in between lecturing at a local university, is conducting bizarre experiments as he tries to bridge the gap between human beings and plant life. To aid him in his devilish research he uses Lynch (Tom Baker), a hideously deformed man who runs a carnival freak show, to obtain for him young men and women to perform his experiments on using the seemingly empty promise of altering the way Lynch looks for the better.

I saw this one last night on Sky Cinema and have to say I was a little disappointed. The premise, although outlandish (though horror is geared towards the outlandish is it not?), seemed quite interesting. Unfortunately, this movie was poorly executed and rather slow-moving which made the movie difficult to watch. ‘The Mutations' has some interesting parts though and is worth watching if only for the ‘Freak Show' part way through featuring some quite disgusting acts.

The acting seemed rather wooden from everybody, including Donald Pleasance, which hampered the film even more. The only performance really noteworthy was from Michael Dunn in the role of Burns, the loveable guardian to the other acts in the freak show. What really was interesting was how to begin with the `freaks' (I really do hate using that term to describe these people as in fact they are just in some way handicapped) seemed like they were menacing characters but over the course of the movie we were exposed to more humanity coming from then than any other character in the film – one of director Jack Cardiff's few achievements in this movie.

In the end ‘The Mutations' becomes a barely average sci-fi/horror movie with little redeeming moments and many silly looking costumes. The direction was standard fare for films of this quality and it seems a shame that a great actor like Donald Pleasance was tied up in this, especially as his performance was undeniably lacklustre. The final ten minutes or so seemed hashed together very quickly and were thoroughly unsatisfying though did feature one good effect. I personally don't recommend this film but fans of sci-fi B-movies may enjoy it as it seemed to be made with heavy influence from the similar movies of the fifties and sixties. Though not exactly alike I would personally recommend ‘The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)' over this movie. My rating for ‘The Mutations' 5/10.

Now what were they thinking...? This film is an outright one-off, granted, but a disastrous one. Little thought seems to have gone in, and when there is thought, it is reflected in a composer's score that transcends and barely fits the images.

Let's not contemplate the script at length; word or narrative craftsmen are resoundingly not at work here. Unexplained, irrelevant scenes clutter the film's third-hand B-movie premise. For example, whither the 'dancing instructor'…? Lynch's startling, vulnerable scene with the prostitute is bizarrely isolated, and unfortunately not given emotional context in the rest of this peculiarly ramshackle film. Ethical question-marks starkly rear into view with the use – exploitation, rather – of real-life freaks in the 'fictitious' side-show. A freak show is effectively shown for five minutes of the film's duration, and it is profoundly unsettling viewing: seedy, dank, sickening; one really wonders what went on behind-the-scenes here… This film was made in 1973; there is no method to this display, beyond the flexing of cheap 'shock tactics'. As Brian says, "I didn't know these shows still existed". Clearly in the seedy world of 1970s low-rent British film, they did.

Very little in this film seems other than fake, besides, obviously, the actuality of the 'freaks'' 'abnormalities'. But there is little obvious entertainment value in the mad-scientist straddling, penthouse-peopled 'England' of "The Mutations". This is the worse considering what appears to be an effort at naturalism in the opening, which pins things down in staid, dully scientific terms. Need it be said that Pleasence is an embarrassment here? He is clearly on auto-pilot, giving little effort in what he surely knows is a farrago of a film. How utterly predictable that his dull professor is adorned with a Germanic accent? How stultifyingly insipid to model Nolter's delivery on that of a dry automaton? This spectacularly dull performance – oxymoron intended – sets the tone, and his oratory barely extends beyond the front rows of the London University lecture theatre. Ever more bizarrely, this lacklustre lecturer and stolid Sice-head is described as 'sexy', in pronouncedly giddy tones, by one of his students. This Lauren is something of an incessant, beaming blonde with fetching pigtails, invested, intentionally or otherwise, with vacuousness by Jill Haworth. What mostly lingers in the mind is her odd relish in watching the freak show, as if it were somehow a heart-warming spectacle.

She just about convinces as a student, at least in physical appearance, but she gives no impression that she reads Bio-Chemistry at degree level. Furthermore, Scott Antony's Tony is akin to any old token japer from the world of dispiriting 1970s British films (TM); has he wandered in from a depressingly small-fry juvenile sex comedy? The group of 'students' is rounded out with the Scandinavian curves of Julie Ege - bland and given tokenistic Leary invocations - and a girl who is quickly dispatched by the IDS-dull Pleasence. Oh, and did I forget our dear old Brian? Brad Harris 'essays', or rather phones in, an American 'scholar' who seems more like a redundant detective or sidelined action-hero. He has no real business being there, and yet somehow appears to have picked up Hedi as a girlfriend within a few minutes. This 'Sturdy Oak' archetype single-handedly 'saves the day' at the end, in place of the hapless students; admittedly, Haworth's simpering, would-be 'cool chick' seems unduly discarded, but would have been rendered useless and screaming by the chauvinistic script. One ought to reflect whether she was actually the only real student, as when Tony asks for entry to see the 'Lizard Woman' act, he specifically asks for "three and a half tickets" when four are there... Such pointless but amusing asides aside, Tom Baker is passable as a deformed ruffian and lunatic called Lynch. Hopefully no child fan of "Dr Who" ever stumbled upon this film, hearing of his presence: they'd be scarred for life! He overacts extravagantly in the "He's One of Us!" scene, which puts Tod Browning's similar scene in "Freaks" through the wringer; the freaks are played for all their 'weirdness' and treated as sinister; see also the inexplicable, brutish and farcical fog-drenched demise of Lynch, and indeed two of them stalking and capturing Olga Anthony's willowy unfortunate.

Other than for reasons of historical or academic study, I'd advise people not to see this appalling spectacle. However, there is a sole, sublime saving grace: the musical soundtrack. This majestic and incredibly innovative free-jazz music is on an altogether different plane to the squalid, murky seediness of the images. It is almost as if the soundtrack was a record that has been superimposed over the film – and it should be noted that Basil Kirchin drew some of its themes from his ongoing "Worlds Within Worlds" series. Merely the time-lapse Open University-esquire opening photography tallies with the alternately sedate and barnstorming strains of Kirchin's music. There are high pitched string-instrument stings redolent of plant life, that periodically score 'tension', but generally, the score is of another world, and utterly un-telegraphed. It should be released on CD in full; while this film is forgotten, this music should live in its own context, in its interpolating sedate deathliness and cacophonous blaring.

The opening to the film indeed is mercifully sedate and horn-rimmed-spectacled, in comparison to the ghastliness to come. Eastmancolour skies and dappled, felt-like plants, seem of another age, backed by the awe-inducing music. But... well, things ebb, completely… in all manner of exploitative, numb-skulled directions. To think that the lens-man of "The Red Shoes", Jack Cardiff, actually directs this... For me, the distasteful idiocy of this 'contemporary' 1973 film is ultimately exemplified by the smug, complacent face of Scott Antony; when the Monkey Woman enters, he tastelessly jokes "all sounds pretty hairy to me!" and in reply Jill Haworth's kittenish features crease into a fawning laughter.

The only balm is the music.

Mostly dry and boring horror film, with shoddy special effects - yet quite creepy if you let your imagination do the film's work for you. It all seems quite disturbing on paper (mutated man-plants, sideshow "freaks", etc.), but the film's only real merit is another good performance by the ever-reliable Donald Pleasence. For a genuinely engrossing and dramatic "mutation picture", I recommend the original "Fly" (1958). (**)

The Mutations is set in in London during the early 70's where Bridget (Olga Anthony) goes to University, after a biology class taught by the ever so slightly mad Professor Nolter (Donald Pleasence) she decides to walk home on her own through a park. Bridget is followed & kidnapped by the horribly deformed Lynch (Tom Baker) who part owns & runs a travelling freak show in which he was once an exhibit, Lynch has a deal with Professor Nolter to supply him with fresh young specimens to experiment on in return for Nolter curing his horrible disfigurement. A group of Bridget's friends happen to pay a visit to Lynch's freak show attraction & spot Bridget's unique medallion around the neck of a dwarf named Burns (Michael Dunn) who is rather vague about where he got & since Bridget has been missing for days her friends put two & two together & decide to investigate further. They discover Professor Nolter's insane plan to create a part man part plant mutation & find out that his hideous failed experiments becomes part of the freak show...

Also known under the title The Freakmaker & apparently Dr. of Evil this British production was directed by Oscar (& another whole host of awards) winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff & is maybe the least likely credit on his CV which spans over seventy years! I am in two minds about The Mutations, on the one hand it's a sleazy little mad scientist monster film with added seediness although on the other hand it's rather dull at times & lacks focus or much of a story. The script should zip along but somehow manages to drag at times, I mean we have a horror film featuring mad scientists, grotesque failed experiments, plant creatures, bizarre medical experiments, a circus of freaks, kidnapped young ladies, murder, betrayal & a London prostitute who charges £2! Boy, those were the days, those were the days... I mean two bloody quid wouldn't buy you anything now but I digress. The Mutations should be more fun than it is, the story is weak & takes itself a bit too seriously with Professor Nolter's reasoning behind his apparently revolutionary experiments vague to say the least. Once he perfects his plant creature then what exactly? Surely that laser beam to reverse the state of decay would be more useful? I mean no food would then ever go off or go rotten again & could be kept indefinitely & solve the world's food shortage, right? There's no one central character to root for or get behind or follow the story through with either, Professor Nolter pops up occasionally & Lynch gets a bit of screen time & even has a touching moment when he visits a prostitute & ask's for something a little extra which she charges him an extra pound for! The freaks aren't shown as the tragic character's they are but as oddities to stare at while none of Bridget's friends really comes to the fore either as they all stay on the fringes of the action.

There is quite a bit of fascinating time lapse photography of plants growing, decaying & roots burrowing underground but it feels like it belongs in a nature documentary rather than a horror film. There are a few monsters with decent make-up effects including a gross Venus Fly Trap man who digests Professor Nolter at the end. The early 70's London locations are surprisingly drab, the fashions are a bit dated & you definitely couldn't have sex with a prostitute for £2 any more but The Mutations does have a rather sleazy atmosphere. Real freaks were used in the carnival scene apparently, from the bearded lady to the human pin cushion & from the Alligator woman & Frog boy to a guy who can pop his eyeballs out of their sockets.

Filmed in London the production values are decent enough, surprisingly for such an esteemed cinematographer Cardiff makes a fairly dull looking film although there one or two moments. The acting is alright, Pleasence looks bored & unconvinced by the script, soon to be Doctor Who Tom Baker is almost unrecognisable under layers of latex make-up while most of the young female cast get naked at one point or another.

The Mutations is an oddity of a film really, from sideshow curiosity to mad scientist horror to 70's sleaze it never quite decides what it wants to be & suffers because of it but there's enough to keep you from being bored & I liked it overall even if it could have been even better.

A weird, obscure gem that rightfully deserves some form of cult status. I'd call it a genuine freak-movie classic, done vintage 70's B-movie style.

As much as it is a "freakshow" flick, it's also a "mad scientist" movie. Donald Pleasance, as Professor Nolter, leads a double life. Seemingly a well-respected University professor, he conducts secret experiments behind the closed doors of his mansion like a regular Dr. Frankenstein, attempting to create the ultimate symbiosis between human and plant life, thus creating a superior being and inevitably a whole new supreme race to walk this earth.

In its essence, this all is sleazy, shlocky B-movie territory with gruesome (and also dated and silly-looking) make-up effects, the exploitation of real-life freaks and the portrayal of plenty female nudity. But you just can't help feeling you're watching a true gem. The pace of the film is neither fast nor slow, and a well-structured plot is rather absent. It all boils down to a villainous doctor abducting humans to experiment and the final damsel in distress having to be rescued by a male hero that has simply nothing else to do in the plot than... to rescue her at the end of the movie.

Countless movies handle this set-up and plot-structure. One totally random old school classic example would be: 1953's HOUSE OF WAX (starring Vincent Price). THE MUTATIONS doesn't even hold a candle to this 50's classic, as it is far less stylish and has inferior acting from the supporting cast. But it remains a fun obscure 70's classic in its own right. And has enough merits to enjoy it, with the weird & offbeat musical score surely being an added value (in the scene where the first girl gets snatched in the park it even turns into some hectic 70's acid-jazz score - fun stuff).

Obviously, this film pays some sort of tribute to Tod Browning's FREAKS (1932), with director Jack Cardiff even unscrupulously saying "Thank you for that 'one of us'-line, Tod" in one specific scene. Knock-off or tribute, either way the scene is one of the highlights of the movie. And there are plenty more so. Watch Pleasance feed a cat and a rabbit to a monstrously deformed meat-eating (plastic) plant. And the 'final frozen shock ending' is a real winner too. So typical, yet so effective.

So in short: Recommended for freak-fans and mad scientist lovers and anybody else who digs obscure 70's horror efforts that star a cult-icon like Donald Pleasance.

I, along with maybe 20 million other male baby boomers, first fell in love with British actress Jill Haworth after her film debut in "Exodus" in 1960, and one of her too-rare screen appearances in 1973's "The Freakmaker" was reason enough for me to rent this film out. And while her role in this picture is disappointingly small, the film does have much else to offer. To begin with, it tells the unusual story of Dr. Nolter, a professor at an English university whose hobby is trying to cross plants with humans and, through genetic manipulation, create a new hybrid race. His human guinea pigs are conveniently provided by the Elephant Man-like proprietor of a local freak show, and Nolter's many failures are just as conveniently dumped in that circus. The film features much talent both behind and in front of the camera. Legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff directs the picture competently (if undistinctively), and an outre, discordant jazz soundtrack has been provided by one Basil Kirchin. In a very interesting cast, Donald Pleasence underplays the part of the mad doctor; future "Dr. Who" star Tom Baker is unrecognizable behind his Elephant Man makeup; little person Michael Dunn offers up the film's best performance; and Norwegian sexbomb Julie Ege emotes most awfully (but honestly, who cares?!?!). Not to mention yummy Jill Haworth, in her small role. The film makes at least half a dozen references to the 1932 movie "Freaks," and fans of that Tod Browning classic should enjoy the real latter-day freak show that is on display here. Despite the plot holes and cheesy plant monster FX, the picture is undeniably fun, although certainly nothing great. Fortunately, this fine-looking DVD from Subversive Cinema, loaded with extras, shows it off very nicely. "Plant" yourself down and watch!

Transgenesis was a new achievement in science back in the 70s which has since come to prominence. The effects are evolving slowly from the 1950s b movie in to more 80s latex creations. It would have benefited alot from crossing this with stop frame animation monsters as the latex suit was a let down at the end, although it wasnt at all bad in comparison to some other movies of the time. From the front in worked pretty well at a distance. If you think what they did with the Evil Dead less than 10 years later you cant help but feel they missed a few tricks, especially when they make good use of timelapse photography on other occasions in the movie. The director who was a famous cinematographer made this his last movie as a director. i imagine it was something to do with the movies reception as you can see why it would upset a few people. Dont get me wrong, its not a good exploitation movie from the 70s if it doesnt feature a dwarf; David Lynch still uses them menacingly to great effect today. However out of the band of disabled folk who make up a large part of the supporting cast, the only one who is wearing makeup is the arch villain side-kick. He is a tortured soul, driven to evil deeds by the wish to be normal. Seemingly they couldnt find a hideously deformed person to play that part for some reason, yet the other disabled cast members are repeatedly lambasted by this goon in makeup who despises them because they remind him of his own short comings. The story does partially right its self in the end but that would spoil it to much. Its not gory and partially funny which may be a problem for alot of people as it makes it even more unsettling in part. I watched BloodSucking freaks recently a notorious video nasty and found it less so repugnant, largely because we know where we stand with that movie; it is supposed to shock the senses and appal us. Nether the less Donald Pleasance is always a treat and it kinda reminded me of his later role in Dario Argentos Phenomena which i always thought was under rated also. Not one of his best performances here by far but still worth watching

Not one of my fellow horror loving friends have seen or even know of this movie. I saw it on TV in the 80's or 90's, got a copy on VHS,later sold it but then find myself buying another one as it doesn't appear to be easily available on disc (it really does deserve a release). The late, great Donald Pleasence is a brilliant but crazed scientist working on mutating humans with plants (in his lab he has a laughably bad rabbit eating plant!). He is aided by the hideously disfigured Tom Baker (of Dr Who fame), who runs a circus freak show. Many real freaks (probably an incorrect word these days) were employed, in addition to obviously fake ones. No attempt is made to hide the fact that this was in part inspired by the original 1932 classic "Freaks", to the point where the "one of us" line is used. Add to the mix nudity, 1970's London locations, LSD references, time lapse photography sequences, a few amusing gaffs and a pretty haunting musical score, this is an enjoyable slice of British exploitation. Not to everybody's taste, for sure, but this film deserves to be better known.

"You may think you're normal. But you're all a product of mutations. Your ancestors, our ancestors were freaks"

A traveling family of freaks, a crazy scientist with strange plant fixations, a deformed man who refuses to accept himself, a possible protagonist who is suddenly doomed, and one of the most original monster designs I have ever seen. All of these elements clump together rather crudely to form this bizarre, low budget horror that I really enjoyed for some reason -I partially blame the beautiful Julie Ege and Donald Pleasence-. It's creepy, campy and even sad in some parts, not to mention the crazy evolutionary ideas that it toys around with.

This grotesquely mad and slightly sick-spirited early 70's horror film couldn't count on too much praise from either the critics or the audiences, and there are a couple of (justified) reasons for this. First and foremost, director Jack Cardiff never really makes clear what his intentions are. Does he want "The Mutations" to be a cheesy and obviously fictional Sci-Fi horror flick about a mad scientist performing absurd experiments to create a new race of human vegetables? Or perhaps it was meant to be a harrowing and truly devastating portrait about the position of gruesomely deformed people in contemporary society, somewhat like Tod Browning's legendary classic "Freaks"? Either way, these two extreme themes are practically impossible to fold together and the film ends up somewhere in no man's land. Nonetheless it contains several genuinely disturbing and jaw-dropping moments, most notably when the collection of traveling circus freaks exhibits themselves and – in true Browning style – wreaks havoc on those who mistreated them. The whole plot is actually secondary to these sequences! The always-reliable Donald Pleasance stars as a nutball professor destined to integrate human tissue in his experiments of plant-mutation. Therefore he commands the horribly deformed & vicious owner of a circus to abduct human guinea pigs (students attending his own university lectures, which isn't that smart) and bring them to his private lab. When the experiments go inevitably wrong, resulting in a lizard-skinned girl and a male kind of Venus flytrap, Professor Pleasance just 'donates' them again to the circus as new attractions. Fellow students begin to search for their missing friends and, meanwhile, the circus' "natural" freaks plot to punish their cruel employer. The best sequence in "The Mutations" is a more than obvious tribute to the aforementioned "Freaks" and involves an attempt by the deformed people to befriend Lynch; nicknamed "the ugliest man in the world" (and he really is). One of us! One of us!! Whenever the action takes place outside of the circus tent, the film is pretty much scare-free and mildly tedious. Giant and clearly fake vegetable-monsters simply aren't creepy and several little (and stupid) details in the script just can't be true. Like biology students driving Jaguars, for example!

Tod Browning's milestone once got banned for over 40 years and it nearly cost him his career, supposedly all because his portrayal of deformed people was exploitative and unacceptable. Once you see "The Mutations", you'll acknowledge that Browning's film actually is the complete opposite of exploitative! He tried to put the emphasis on how independent, courageous and perfectly able to function they are, whereas Jack Cardiff's picture really exploits the spectacle and questionable "entertainment"-value of these people's condition.

Original is not a word to describe THE MUTATIONS . To sum up its plot it`s a hybrid between a mad scientist film and FREAKS. Unoriginality is not enough to condemn it of course , but what makes THE MUTATIONS a truly terrible film is the fact that it`s so sickening.

When Tod Browning made FREAKS in the 1930s disabilty and deformatity were I imagine treated differently in those days. Not so in the 1970s when the concept of a traveling " freakshow " wouldn`t have drawn an audience. Indeed it`s highly unlikely any council would have allowed it to take place on the grounds of taste due to a public outcry. There`s no way I`d pay to go and see that and I feel disgusted I watched a film where people with real deformaties are used in the name of entertainment. Perhaps the saddest one was " The skeleton woman " who looked like she`d just been rescued from a Nazi death camp.

*****SPOILERS ( though how can I spoil your " enjoyment " of this filth is beyond me ) ***** I`ve outlined a good enough reason not to watch it , but may I also point out that this film is also extremely sloppy and underdeveloped in terms of script and production too. For example the hero gets turned into a man eating plant and for no reason consumes a drunken passerby. I say for no reason because he can still control his human emotions which he demonstrated in the previous scene by talking to his girlfriend and demonstrates it again at the end by attacking the villain in his lab. And this action scene seems to have been directed, edited and had make- up artists by people who were too untalented to have worked on the worst school play production . Still it could have been worse , if the rest of the film is anything to go by the production crew might have dug up a decomposed corpse and used that for the villain`s death scene. And get ready for a final shock plot twist at the end though how can anyone be shocked by the final scene when we`ve already seen exploitation of the worst sort leaves me pondering.

You`re probably asking yourself why I decided to watch THE MUTATIONS all the way through instead of switching it off in disgust ? Make no mistake this film did disgust and disturb me. Well it did star a pre-fame Tom Baker as Donald Pleasence`s henchman . I can watch anything with Baker in it and to see him play a nasty piece of work does have a certain novelty value Check out VAULT OF TERROR ) , but even that didn`t stop wanting to swith off the TV frequently. And for my sins I had to get into a warm soapy bath afterwards and scrub myself clean , That`s how much THE MUTATIONS disgusted me

A university professor by day, mad scientist by night, Dr. Nolter(Donald Pleasence exuding a quiet mania, portraying his character as someone completely convinced that his work is for the betterment of mankind despite how diabolical his methods are), respected by his peers, creates hybrid plant-humans in a goal to form a new evolution of mankind, using his own students brought to him by a carnival owner, Lynch(Tom Baker, under effective hideous facial make-up)plagued with the glandular Elephant Man disease. Lynch believes reluctantly that Nolter will cure him of his problem, for which he continues delivering specimens, but as friends of bio-chemistry wunderkind Brian Redford(Brad Harris)and Hedi(Julie Ege)come up missing, it's only a matter of time before the professor's ghoulish experiments and Lynch's kidnapping will be discovered. Lynch has another problem of his own making..he treats his carnival employees(..freaks, to the "normal" audience who cheer, sneer & fear them during shows)cruelly, displaying an ugliness just as much inside as outside. Lynch's crew have tolerated his insults and nasty treatment for a long time, and this film shows how his behavior towards them will result in a violent revolt echoing Tod Browning's masterpiece "Freaks." And, as typical of "mad scientist" movies, the creation will get revenge on it's creator..Nolter creates a plant-man who ingests humans for consumption from a belligerent student of his who always replied in classes against his theories.

Macabre premise delivers some shocking moments including Nolter's creations and how one of them eats a street bum. Nolter's fate is especially grotesque. Baker is far removed from his charismatic, charming Doctor Who in portraying quite a tormented monster of a man who will do anything to remove the diseased face that keeps him removed from the society he yearns for. I found the seedy elements startling..such as Lynch's finding a prostitute willing to yield to his desires for a certain fee, the numerous displays of female nudity, and how female specimens have their clothes removed while unconscious on Nolter's laboratory slab before being experimented on. But, despite all the rather unpleasant mutations we are witnesses to, the opening of the plant cycle, set to rather unnerving music, actually was as effective(..if not more)to me than what comes after. And, director Cardiff has a lengthly showcase for the "freaks" of the carnival, with the viewer as "grossed out" or transfixed by each representative allowed to display their abnormality, as the audience in attendance. The script can be quite literate, whose "science-speak" might bore many viewers. If you're wondering whether or not Pleasence is hammy, he's indeed quite low-key, playing the doctor with a calm confidence.

"The Mutations" is a middling, mostly forgettable horror movie from the mid 70's. Set in trendy London, it tells the tale of a carnival freak show who run a sideline in kidnapping innocent victims to be the subject of evil experiments! That's all the plot there is, really, and the film doesn't really do a lot with it. It just goes through the motions of showing the freak show, showing some victims get nabbed, and then showing the expected climax. The film has several very silly elements to it. All the kidnapped youngsters are from the same college, and in fact they are all from a single group of four friends! The experiments themselves are very vaguely explained, but they lead to very dramatic mutated monsters.

As a London resident I also found a lot to enjoy in the locations...is Battersea Park (the location of the carnival in the movie) really such a dangerous foggy wilderness as it is depicted here? (Maybe it was in the 1970's...). And the exterior location for the students college is actually The Royal Albert Hall! They should be so lucky! Some good points are: Donald Pleasance does his usual good job as a softly spoken but deadly scientist. And Tom Baker does a great job, unrecognisable in ugly face make-up as the scientist's deformed assistant. And the monsterized victims look quite fun, and there's one grisly scene in which a walking plant-thing drains the life out of someone. Although check out a big goof here, where a really big gap between the monster's head and chest suit shows off the actors pink neck in between - which spoils an otherwise effective moment! There are also a few scenes that showcase some real-life "freaks" used in the film, which can't help but seem exploitative. They do get a chance to act, though, in the additional sub-plot in which the freaks rebel against the one among them who is "the real monster" - there are heavy echoes of Todd Browning's famous "Freaks" here.

To sum up, it's not really very memorable. The whole story is rushed through at great speed, there's no depth to any of the characters (no time!), and everything seems pretty small scale. The scientist's lab is also filmed at Oakley Court, which stood in for a spooky mansion in dozens of British horror movies filmed around this time, such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, And Now The Screaming Starts, Girly, and loads more, so personally, I have seen this place on celluloid far too often!

Here at IMDb it's called "The Mutations"; the version I saw was called "The Freakmaker." No matter what title you give it, the result is one pretty bad movie.

Donald Pleasance slums mightily in the role of a college professor/mad scientist whose ultimate dream is to create a race of half plant/half human creatures. He enlists the help of a horribly deformed owner of a carnie freak show to find human subjects for him to experiment on. These subjects end up looking like artichokes and cabbages, and are played by actors wearing rubbery costumes that don't look remotely realistic. Meanwhile, a group of students begin to unravel the mystery of the professor's doings, while the members of the carnie freak show (played by actual circus sideshow members, in an homage to Todd Browning's 1932 classic "Freaks") become increasingly angered by their boss's abuse and take revenge.

This sounds like the makings of a juicy cult classic, one that if nothing else would be in the "so-bad-it's-good" category. Indeed, this is why I watched it. Let me save you the time and trouble of finding out on your own that it's not so-bad-it's-good -- it's just bad. Bad as in fairly boring, poorly acted, poorly written. Much of it doesn't make any sense. It's almost unbelievable that Jack Cardiff, a film artist with a number of prestigious credits to his name, directed this. This is the sort of thing my wife and I might make using a video camera and some friends. Actually, I think we could make a better movie than this.

And am I the only one to wonder why the color in the film is so bright as to actually hurt my eyes at times?

Grade: D