Scott LeBrun Bryant Haliday plays a research scientist named Paul Steiner, who's hard at work on a "projection" experiment: he hopes to be able to transmit matter from one place to another. His process works on inanimate objects, but not on living things. Despondent when it looks like the plug will be pulled on his entire operation, he uses himself as the first human guinea pig. As you can expect, this has disastrous consequences. When he regains human form, he's horribly disfigured, and has gained the "touch of death". (When he lays his mutilated hand on someone, they are electrocuted.) And, of course, he's now insane.This British sci-fi / horror effort does owe a fair bit to "The Fly", putting just enough of a spin on the premise to not come off as a carbon copy. It's not a great story, but it does entertain quite capably nevertheless. It's paced reasonably well by directors Ian Curteis and John Croydon, clocking in at a painless 78 minutes. A great deal of what effectiveness it possesses comes from the performances of an excellent cast. Haliday is an earnest, sympathetic lead turned deliciously crazed antagonist, and ultimately tragic character. Ronald Allen and Mary Peach, as his worried colleagues, figure into a romantic subplot that doesn't waste too much of the running time. Norman Wooland and Derrick De Marney are superb at playing sneaky, nefarious types trying to discredit / ruin the experiment. Gorgeous Tracey Crisp is appealing as the helpful secretary, and Derek Farr has a solid, reliable presence as the obligatory inspector who picks up Steiners' trail. Legendary stuntman Alf Joint plays the security guard. The makeup by Eric Carter is pretty good for the time this was made, Kenneth V. Jones' music is good, and the widescreen photography helps to keep things visually interesting.While the tale it's spinning is definitely on the routine side, this still makes for an enjoyable movie watching evening for fans of the science-fiction and horror genres.Seven out of 10.

Michael_Elliott The Projected Man (1966) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Dr. Paul Steiner (Bryant Haliday) is doing experiments on a laser machine that he hopes to use to transport objects from one place to another (think of THE FLY). All is going well until they suffer a setback at which point he experiments on himself. This leaves him as a deformed monster with the ability to electrocute people to death with a simple touch.THE PROJECTED MAN is a British horror film that seems to be a decade too late in the game. I say that because this scientific tale just feels very old-fashioned for a film from 1966. As I said in my plot description, the plot is pretty much lifted from THE FLY and nothing about it had been updated to make it fit the era that it was released. Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will also know that the film was spoofed by them and that helped form its current reputation.In all honesty, THE PROJECTED MAN isn't a masterpiece or even a good film but at the same time it's not nearly as awful as some reviewers will make it out to be. As I said, the biggest problem is the fact that it's a bit too old-fashioned for its own good but there are still some good moments in the film. There's no question that the highlight of the picture is the monster itself. The doctor pretty much has half of his body burned and this deformed look is actually quite memorable. I thought the special effects were good for what they were and the monster certainly made the film worth sitting through.Another good thing were the performances from Haliday, Norman Wooland and Mary Peach as the three lead doctors doing the experiments. I'd also argue that the cinematography was at least decent for this type of film. As far as the flaws go, the story itself is pretty unoriginal and it's really too bad that the monster didn't have more time in the movie. The movie works best when he's out killing but this takes up very little of the 77-minute running time.THE PROJECTED MAN will appeal to fans of British horror films. It's not perfect but it's entertaining enough for what it is.

Aaron1375 I enjoyed this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I am doubting I would have seen it otherwise, as I do not recall ever seeing this one play on television. A film that shares a premise with a couple of other films where a scientist is trying to do something grand, but instead of a rousing success story, the movie turns into a horror as something fails in spectacular fashion causing someone to get deformed, fused with something or have half their face looking quite icky, but on the plus side gain an ability to electrocute people so that they may take revenge on all those they perceive wronged them! Not a totally bad film as they did a wonderful job on the makeup, just takes a while for things to really get going and so for the most part during the first portion of the film we are treated to the wonderful world of grants, appropriation and sabotage. The film is already half over before we have the title character terrorizing the city and it kind of still moves slowly.The story has a woman arriving at an institution where a scientist is working on developing a device that can be used for teleportation. In fact, he has succeeded many times transporting inanimate objects from one point to the other and his only problem is doing the same with live subjects. Of course, the fact he was able to successfully transport inanimate objects should have been more than enough to secure funding for life, the people in this film seem to act as if this is not that big a deal. Kind of perplexing. Oh wow, you can transport things from one point to the other instantaneously...cool, wait, not animals. Loser! Well there is some sabotaging going on as soon the scientist who is played by the same guy who played the great Vorelli in "Devil Doll" decides to do something extreme to prove he has achieved success! The only way he can fail is if the other two scientist who are assisting him run into the room and yell, "Stop" right in the middle of the experiment...and they do, D'oh! He is transformed into a maniacal disfigured man who can touch people and kill them! This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as it is one of those films that has enough good in it so that their riffing does not have to completely carry the day. I would like to see the film without their aid as there seemed to be things that were not rectified on screen such as the mysterious man who seemed to be the one behind sabotaging the experiment. Most of the film though seems to be intact as the film only ran 77 minutes so most of it was likely featured. A lot of good jokes in this episode as I enjoyed Sheila in her underpants and the joke about being willing to give up half their face to break into drugstores and steal rubber gloves...just a very good episode.So the movie may have been good with a bit more work, it still made a fine episode of MST3K. I kind of wonder if Bryant Haliday's hair was naturally that orange color, if so it is a shame that "Devil Doll" was in black and white as that would somehow of made that film a lot creepier! This one had a great effect as Haliday as Professor Steiner's face was positively grotesque! I have seen things made a lot more recently than this film that did not look half as good as the makeup job they did here and it is the highlight of this film that is a bit strange as once again, shouldn't more people be shocked and in awe of something that can teleport stuff?

chrisdfilm This movie is no sci-fi/horror masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. But it is far better than most of the reviewers on IMDb would have you believe. It was originally released here in the USA on the second half of a double bill with the somewhat better ISLAND OF TERROR with Peter Cushing. I convinced my dad to take me to the drive- in for the bill when it was released, but it was a school night and he wouldn't tumble to staying for the second feature. Since then, it has been notoriously hard to track down. I finally saw it about a year ago and was surprised on how entertaining it was, especially considering how I had read various disparaging things about it in the interim. It does borrow elements from the earlier FLY pictures as well as the Karloff film, THE INVISIBLE RAY, and is by no means particularly original. However, since when does that really detract from the enjoyment factor of a low budget, sci-fi monster film? For the most part, you better resign yourself to that going in, or else stop watching films altogether. In its favor, it does move at a fast pace, has decent actors and color cinematography, some nice grisly shocks and certainly decent effects for a low budget sixties film from England. An added bonus, there is a distinctly assertive heroine scientist played by Mary Peach, a character who remains in possession of her wits, and aggressively intelligent without being obnoxious (her character is the sympathetic colleague of Bryant Halliday who becomes the tragically disfigured, death-dealing PROJECTED MAN) Undeserving of its bad rep.