Tuesday, May 6, 2008

MONSTROSITY (The Atomic Brain) - Gene Kauer - "She Thinks She's A Cat" (1964)

"The Atomic Brain" is a freaky little movie that seems a lot older than it is. Composer Gene Kauer, sometimes working as Guenther Kauer seemed to either have a penchant for, or just needed the money for, quite a string of freaky little movies. Titles like "Cape Canaveral Monsters", another 'Atomic' monster movie, "Beast Of Yucca Flats", "Mother Goose A Go-Go", and "Agent For H.A.R.M.", just to name a few, before ending his career with the music for the original "Faces Of Death" series. In 1958 Gene co-wrote two songs with Johnny Cash for a feature film "Five Minutes To Live", the title song and another song called "I've Come To Kill!" The film which starred Johnny Cash wasn't released until 1961, and was later re-released with added footage in 1966 as "Door-To-Door Maniac!" Quite an interesting and prolific tunesmith, Gene passed away back in 1983!! 
 
Normally playing a cop, a captain or a cowboy, Frank Gerstle does a good job in his only mad doctor role as Dr. Otto Frank. Combine his names in this film and he's Frank Frank!! 
 
It's pretty darn hard not to be weird, when you're talking about brain transplants because some evil rich old bag wants the body of a young woman!! 
 
So.....They transplanted a cat's brain into this lady, and so now what do you do with her? She eats mice and doesn't brush her teeth, and probably would be very popular on myspace!! 
 
The music from "The Atomic Brain" is odd, brash, eerie, pungent, spacey and will slap you in the face, and kick you if you go down, so listen with caution!!! 
 
Revenge really is sweet, and Dr. Frank's bad karma cup was filled to the brim and overflowing!! Go get a copy to find out his fate!!

1 comment:

Greg Goodsell said...

There's just more than a hint of Gertrude Stein as Erika Peters checks out all that pungent woman flesh in this movie!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??