davidcarniglia A strange but entertaining Atomic Age Frankenstein story. The horror element is stronger than the sci-fi: there's graverobbing, a creepy old house, innocent women lured into captivity, a sinister demented old lady, even a monster trolling around in the woods.Actually Frankenstein's apparatus had as much scientific credibility as Dr. Frank's nuclear-powered brain surgery. The premise is somewhat similar to the vain cosmetic entrepreneur's obsession with youth in Wasp Woman. The Atomic Brain is more intense, with slightly better performances. The villian here, Mrs. March, has an overpowering presence. She's envious, bitter, and cruel; literally wanting to possess the attractive young women who become Dr. Frank's guinea pigs. The pacing isn't bad, but the movie lags in the middle. There's too much of Nina and Bea wandering around, trying not to escape (to paraphrase another reviewer's description). When we finally get to the climactic surgery, Dr. Frank turns the tables on the old hag by somehow dishing her brain into the cat. The cat motif works great all around, as Anita's character makes a lot of her cat-brain with convincing and chilling cat behavior. It's really cool that Mrs. March (as a cat) manages to destroy everything. Her escape shows that she's still a menace. When the atomic stuff blows up, though, I expected a mushroom cloud. Why not just ditch all the atomic stuff, and have Dr. Frank mix in some voo-doo or something to explain his surgery? Anyway, the best part of Atomic Brain was the smarmy narrator. Usually I can't stand narrators. They tend to make a cheap substitute for character development, plot, and dialogue. But this guy is great. He's a commentator as well as a narrator; he critiques the characters, questioning their motives and generally making fun of them. He, the cat, and the old lady are the only interesting roles. The other characters don't add up to much. There is an attempt to differentiate the three girls (actually four, including the ghoulish one from the crypt). The Victor character is nothing more than a go-fer. That's intentional, though, as it emphasizes how domineering the old lady is. This is definitely watchable. The tone is probably the best aspect; we're not to take things too seriously, but that doesn't mean that the mayhem in Atomic Brain is harmless. The lurid gaze of the narrator takes over from the generally earnest feel of 1950s sci-fi.

Scott LeBrun Character actress Marjorie Eaton makes the most of a rare lead role in this patently absurd schlock feature, marking the only directorial effort for cinematographer Joseph V. Mascelli. (He's best known as the author of a book called "The Five C's of Cinematography".) Eaton plays elderly crone Hetty March, filthy rich and eager to extend her life. So Hetty funds the activities of mad scientist Dr. Otto Frank (Frank Gerstle, who also has pretty extensive credits), who has radical ideas about the transplanting of human and animal brains. Three young lovelies come to "work" for Hetty, and wisely decide to try and get out of her mansion of horrors."Monstrosity", also known as "The Atomic Brain", is a fairly agreeable movie. Overall, it's a little on the dull side, but as with many low rent productions like this, it still has its pleasures, *especially* the scenes with a "cat woman". Written by Vy Russell, Sue Dwiggins, and Dean Dillman Jr., it comes up with one delicious twist near the end. It has the appeal of classic cinematic crud, with decent black & white lighting by Alfred Taylor (whose credits range from "Spider Baby" to "The Paper Chase" to "Killer Klowns from Outer Space") and amusing makeup effects. The strangest touch is the narration; the movie has quite a bit of it for a while, then it becomes more sporadic. But it's always priceless stuff. It's also spoken by an uncredited Bradford Dillman, to boot!Eaton and Gerstle are good, the other players less so. Erika Peters ("Mr. Sardonicus") is an Austrian beauty, Judy Bamber ("A Bucket of Blood") an English one, and Lisa Lang a timid Venezuelan. Frank Fowler plays Hetty's loyal but disrespected associate Victor.Not a terrible way to spend 65 minutes, provided you know what to expect going in.Five out of 10.

gavin6942 A rich but unscrupulous old woman (Marjorie Eaton) plots with a scientist to have her brain implanted in the skull of a sexy young woman.This film pretty much owes anything good or bad about it to Jack Pollexfen, who was the producer, writer and even did a bit of the directing. While the film is generally thought of as a dud, this can be chalked up to it being in the public domain (meaning most copies are poor) and it being featured on "Mystery Science Theater", which tends to have people swarm to IMDb and rating it a 1 for no reason.Director Joseph Mascelli, who has only thing film on his list of credits for director, may be best known for two things: writing a well-received textbook on cinematography or for being the cinematographer of the abysmal "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?" (He apparently came out of the Arch Hall group.) All in all, this is not a terrible film, and could actually be a respected science fiction / horror piece if released in a decent version that was not faded. Horror fans might recognize villain Marjorie Eaton from "Night Tide", another film that needs a bit more love.

HEFILM The longest voice over introduction award belongs to THE LUCIFER COMPLEX and clocks in at about 22 minutes of voice over before the movie starts. That film also is mostly stock footage for that same amount of time. This movie deserves some credit. This movie has about 8 minutes of voice over set up.Atomic Brain is a poor title for this the original title Monstrosity is a good one. But there is an atomic element here.Either buy the premise or not. If you do there does seems to be genuine hatred between the scientist and the creepy old lady out for a new body. And yes the scenes of her checking out the girls to put her brain into is disturbing and that's the way it's intended to go. There is/are elements of exploitation here which at the time were probably pretty racy, lots of bare backs and even a scantily covered first woman in the atomic chamber who is wearing nothing but the slimmest of metal bands to cover her naughty parts.The plot goes places you won't expect, the women look pretty good and what happens to most of them is fairly disturbing and in one case both disturbing and funny. The makeup is occasionally graphic, and yes there is a monstrosity running around the garden.There is funny comic music theme to go along with one girl who claims to have the same measurements as Marlyn Monroe.I say give this movie a chance it's low budget, occasionally no budget but if you can forgive that there are a few flashes of style and fast paced horror mad scientist fun to be had. There are things in this movie you will never find anywhere else, give it points for that. This movie works in the way it's supposed to for the most part, give it a shot.