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The Soul of a Monster More at IMDbPro »
| Index | 10 reviews in total |
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Look Into My Empty Eyes, 20 October 2007
Author:
howdymax from Las Cruces, New Mexico
If I hadn't seen the opening credits, I would have sworn this was a Val
Lewton classic. It has all the fascinating earmarks as well as much of
the weirdness. The story is simple enough. A doctor about to die is
saved by an evil spirit in the guise of a mysterious woman, but as we
know, there is always a price to pay for undeserved immortality.
This was, without question, a "B" movie dressed up to be more stylistic
than most. As in those Val Lewton movies, all the performances are
understated. The principals drift into indecipherable monologues that
leave you numb. Many of the scenes are shot in shadow and the whole
atmosphere is spooky. There is no bloody violence to speak of, but
there is enough heart stopping shock to satisfy the blood-lust in most
of us.
George MacReady leads the cast. This should tell us something. He was a
fine character actor, but only in a low budget thriller would he ever
be given the lead. His evil muse is played by Rose Hobart. I have to
admit I never heard of her until I saw this movie, but she did a more
than adequate job. In fact, she was downright frightening. The rest of
the cast is nameless, although I may have seen one or two of them in an
old Dragnet episode, but not one of them let the story down.
This production is well worth watching - if you can find it. My only
complaint is that it comes with a prologue and an epilogue. In fact, it
comes with a testament to good over evil. I don't know, it was made in
1944. Maybe they had no choice.
14 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
When you wish upon a fire..., 18 January 2005
Author:
the_mysteriousx
This little-seen Colombia horror film from 1944 is a pretentious, but
still interesting film.
It stars George Macready, in one of his first films, as a good doctor
who is on his deathbed. His wife, played by a solid Jeanne Bates,
wishes at the family fireplace for any force from heaven or hell to
save him as she has lost faith with her god. Her wish is instantly
granted by an unseen Satan as Rose Hobart plays a sort of 'Soul Master'
who coldly arrives on the scene and saves Macready. Her action, of
course, has a price.
Without revealing too much, this seems to have tried to copy the Val
Lewton formula, which was popular at the time. The film opens and
closes with a narrative quote. The direction is adequate. There is a
long "chase" scene in the middle that seems to go on forever. The two
characters walk as if elderly people on prozac. It is meant to be
suspenseful, but it's just too darned long to keep up the suspense.
The film has very few "horror" moments, but some nice cinematic ones.
There are shadows aplenty, but the best touch is the arrival and
departure of Rose Hobart's character. The film changes to a negative
image and then back to positive. I hadn't seen that technique used
before in a classic horror film and there were some effective dutch
angles that did a good job of building the suspense.
A decent film that unfortunately is just never too interesting, it's
worth viewing for hard core classic horror buffs only. 5/10
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Mis-titled, 15 November 2007
Author:
John Seal from Oakland CA
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Try as it might, this Columbia programmer just can't quite get over the hump. Even with George Macready and Rose Hobart heading the cast, there are too few scares and far, far too much walking. Rose walks (and almost gets hit by a car). George walks with a knife in his hand. Rose walks some more. Bland co-lead Jim Bannon even goes for a stroll. In fact, there's so much shoe leather burned in this film that I humbly offer Sole of a Monster as a more suitable title. It's all shot well by Burnett Guffey, and there IS a modicum of Lewton-style atmosphere, but the stifling straitjacket of Christian spirituality (not to mention the cheat ending) ultimately undoes whatever good work went into this production. An intriguing but ultimately disappointing failure.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Beautiful little Lewtonesque "B" horror film, 23 January 2005
Author:
dcole-2 from Glendale, CA
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie is a treat: a beautifully-shot, well-acted little horror film in the tradition of Val Lewton. Admittedly, it's very preachy and didactic with a load of pretentious spiritual dialogue, but it's far more advanced than any of the "Monsters jumping out at you" brand of horror that most studios were doing in the 40's. George Macready (always great) is a dying surgeon whose wife pleads with the forces of darkness, or any forces, to save him. Enter Rose Hobart, a mysterious woman who somehow brings him back from death's door. But Macready is now a changed man: moody, vicious, mean, distracted. He eventually leaves his wife and goes to live with Hobart. His friends try to save him, but he nearly kills one of them, then allows another to die when he could easily have saved him. This is all shot in a dreamlike style that takes place in a nightmarish night-world where every action seems to be a choice between life and death, every thought is about salvation and damnation. It's not perfect, but it's very unusual and very worth catching. Wish it were out on DVD.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
He who walks with "Evil" lives a life without faith. And without faith there is no life., 21 October 2007
Author:
sol from Brooklyn NY USA
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
**SPOILERS** Very esoteric and little know film about "Good" an "Evil"
that has to do with a man on his deathbed within moment of leaving the
world that he gave, in saving the lives of hundreds of people, so much
of himself to.
Dr. George Winson,George Macready, has done so much and asked so little
in helping those who needed his help as a brilliant surgeon and
psychologist. Infected by an incurable disease, from one of the
patients that he saved, George is now in the hands of the Almighty
waiting for his final curtain call. It's then that George's bereaved
wife Ann, Jeanne Bates, goes a bit off her noodle, mind, begging for
anyone, in this world or the next, to please save her husband from the
faith, death, that's now waiting for him.
Ann should have known better and left things the way they were but her
love for George and wanting him to live turned the man into a monster.
Not the kind and caring saint that he was before he fell into the
deadly coma that's slowly taking his life away from him. It turns out
that Ann summoned this "Evil Spirit" in the form of Lilyan Gregg, Rose
Hobart, who despite giving her husband back his life forgot, on purpose
of course, to give him his soul back with it.
Now fully recovered and in excellent health George was not exactly the
person that his friends family and patients knew him as. Stuck up and
irritable as well as rude to everyone, including his loving wife Ann,
he came in contact with it's obvious that George just isn't himself.
It's George's best friend Fred Stevens, Eric Rolf, who soon sees the
metamorphose that he went through and in an effort to save George's
soul tries to get the poor and confused man help. It's then that Lilyan
trying to keep George under her evil control turns George,like a guided
missile, on Fred only to be stymied when Fred who happened to find a
crucifix, lying there in front of him on the sidewalk, in just the nick
of time to stop the crazed and icepick waving George in his tracks.
It soon become a struggle between George who's Godly goodness, despite
him having no soul, is slowly getting the upper hand over the evil
Lilyan. It's then when Lilyan really goes all out to get George to
murder his loyal and admiring assistant Dr. Vance,Jim Bannon, and then
have him sent straight to the hot seat, the electric chair, for it.
It's this way that Lilyan can have George by being sent to the place
where the sun don't shine, and where it's hot as blazes all the time,
all for herself for eternity.
*****MAJOR SPOILERS****The surprise ending is a bit uneven in that it
left you up in the air to just what exactly it's trying to tell you.
Not in George's mental state but in the condition he finds himself in
as the movie ends. Still "Soul of a Monster" is by far one of the best,
as well as one of the most unknown, movies about the struggle between
"Good" and "Evil" ever to come out of Hollywood. The film is
surprisingly nowhere as corny or predictable as you would have
imagined, before you saw it knowing it's storyline, it to be and that
by far is the biggest surprise, together with the surprise ending, in
the movie.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Interesting if pretentious and preachy b-film, 2 December 2007
Author:
TimothyFarrell from Worcester, MA
From the bat, this instantly reminded me of a Val Lewton film. The
dreamlike atmosphere and effective almost noir like cinematography are
some of that legendary producer's trademarks that are present here. And
while this isn't nowhere near as good as "Cat People" or "I Walked With
a Zombie", its still an interesting if deeply flawed film. The
otherworldly atmosphere is what makes the film work ultimately. It
almost prefigures the cult classic "Dementia" at moments. However, the
film is brought down by being both pretentious and preachy. There's a
religious message here thats sappy and cliché, even if you are of the
faith.
On a technical scale, the film is pretty uneven. The direction by Will
Jason is decent, but the movie drags a bit too often. Far superior is
the cinematography by Burnett Guffey. Guffey is what ultimately makes
the film worth watching and lends a whole lot of atmosphere to the
proceedings. The acting is hit and miss as well. George Macready and
Rose Hobart both make effectively hiss worthy villains. However, the
protagonists don't fare as well. Jim Bannon is wooden and uninteresting
and Jeanne Bates, while a beautiful woman no doubt, is far too
over-the-top and histrionic. Both of them get rather annoying after a
while. Still, this is an interesting and unique film thats worth
checking out if it turns up on television. (6/10)
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Despite a good start, this film was hopelessly ruined by a lousy script, 7 November 2007
Author:
planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I wanted to like this movie, as it is a B-movie monster film--just the
sort of entertaining bit of fluff I love to watch!! Unfortunately,
despite a great premise and an excellent start, the movie was undone by
lousy and very heavy-handed script writing.
George Macready played a saintly doctor was on his deathbed. His
distraught wife is angry that such a good and selfless man should die
so young and she rejects assurances and platitudes from a friend that
he's "going on to a better place". And, in a weak moment, she announces
that she wants her husband well and could care less who could help--be
it Heaven or Hell. Well, not unexpectedly, he DID recover--thanks to a
strange woman who appears and magically heals him. Unfortunately, as
the film progresses, she turns out to be evil (though exactly WHO she
is working for is never revealed) and she is able to control Macready
with her evil mind!!! Now all this seemed great except for two
problems. Despite her voice appearing in his head with instructions to
kill, Macready never really got around to doing that much evil--and he
never did icepick victims like the voice commanded. However, much worse
was the ultra-heavy-handed moralizing that accompanied this. It seemed
like all the fun was missing from the script and it was just a very
preachy message about good versus evil--and not in a good way. It was
almost like combining "Davey and Goliath" with a 1940s horror
film--with much more emphasis on the Davey and Goliath aspects. It was
embarrassing bad--so bad I nearly turned off the film.
A low budget does NOT mean that a film must be dull or poorly
constructed. Don't let this film turn you off the genre!
Also, I read through the mostly VERY favorable reviews for this film
and this left me baffled. Sure, I could understand a person liking this
film (we all have different tastes), but to say this small film
deserves a rating of 9 or 10 is madness! Even the truly great films
like THE BLACK CAT, THE MUMMY and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN have many
reviews that were scored much lower than this!!! The overall IMDb score
of 4.9 would NOT indicate that this is a 9 or 10. Such super-high
scores should be reserved for only the great films--not run of the mill
"cheapie" films like this.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Well made movie suffers because the story has been used way too many times before and since, 17 June 2009
Author:
dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Much loved and saintly doctor falls sick and near death. In desperation his wife looks into a fire and asks for some power to save him. A dark woman appears and the doctor is saved…but something seems different. Breezy tale of possession and of evil coming into the lives of the friends and family of a well respected man is good and well acted, but suffers in that once you know what the premise is there really isn't anywhere to go with it. In all honesty the film is similar to numerous other films, radio and TV shows so its easy to guess where its going. I hung with it during the course of it hour long running time in the hope that some new twist would add some spark to the tale, but it never happened, the film just started and went straight on to the end on its appointed course. Not bad, but far from unique or original.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
THE SOUL OF A MONSTER (Will Jason, 1944) **, 23 January 2010
Author:
MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
What little reputation this film has is very mixed, so it is no surprise my own reaction proved likewise. Revolving around an intriguing concept, yet the script (by genre regular Edward Dein) is seemingly at a loss about what to do with it: an eminent and much beloved physician (George Macready) lies dying and, in desperation at the unfairness of it all, his wife (lovely Jeanne Bates – who, late in life, somehow got to appear in two David Lynch movies!) renounces God and asks the Devil for help; immediately afterwards, a mysterious woman (Rose Hobart – from the 1931 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE) turns up, restores Macready to health and basically starts running his life. While happy to see her husband get better, Bates soon notices that his personality has changed – becoming distant, aggressive and even loses interest in his work: in short, alienating everyone around him – so that she actually wishes he had died back then! All of this sends her running into the arms of Macready's best friend, Erik Rolf (looking like a cross between Glenn Ford and the young Orson Welles...or, for that matter a local film-buff friend of mine, Robert!!): his character and relationship to the couple is pretty ambiguous – he acts almost as their spiritual adviser (thus being instantly and openly averse to Hobart's machinations), yet is a constant presence even at social engagements, hardly deigning to keep the 'love triangle' situation in check! Anyway, Macready's negligence costs a colleague's life and the once-respected doctor is put on trial…only this takes us back to the very beginning, so that all that went on in the interim turns out to have been nothing more than a death-bed hallucination – the moral being that one must face up to death with dignity and resignation, apparently after having done one's bit for the good of mankind (which should have especially resonated with wartime audiences)! The film offers more than adequate atmosphere (courtesy of future double Oscar-winning cinematographer Burnett Guffey) and Hobart (with an icy demeanor and a devilish coiffure to boot) is quite good – the combination of which leads to its eeriest moment, the very first appearance of the Devil's envoy in which she is unperturbed by a car running her over and then, after following her in a tilted camera angle shot, no less, she is seen literally electrifying her surroundings! However, as I said at the start, the plot is insufficient as Macready is not seen doing much of anything after he is revived (what was the point, then?) and Hobart actually has to prod him towards committing murder (naturally because it constitutes the extremity of an evil deed)! That said, the choice of target (the 'pastor'/rival) would benefit each of them – only he flubs it and, so does the film, since this clearly Lewtonesque sequence is kept on going much longer than necessary!; consequently, the inherent suspense in having the 'sleepwalking' Macready (armed with an ice pick long before BASIC INSTINCT [1992]!!) stalk Rolf by night out on the streets is gradually diffused…particularly with the unintentionally comic off-screen effect of the sudden opening of a rising street elevator's hatch sounding like Macready had bumped into some dustbin or a mailbox around the corner! Mind you, I am glad I acquired the film also because, as it happens, this viewing actually urged me to get back to work on my unfinished review of the slightly similar but far superior ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949; which I had originally watched on my birthday back in August) – in which Macready now actually (and atypically) takes on the role of the Minister Of God who strikes fear into (and eventually brings down) the Agent Of Hell.
3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Poor Movie, 28 February 2008
Author:
Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY
Soul of a Monster, The (1944)
* (out of 4)
Forgotten horror film from Columbia about a doctor on his deathbed
whose wife prays, to good or evil, that he lives. He gets better thanks
to a mysterious woman but what they don't know is that this woman put
the soul of a monster into the doctor's body. There's a very good
reason Columbia hasn't released this sucker on any home video format
and that's because it's pretty damn bad. I took me three viewings
before I could watch the entire film without falling asleep. The film
tries very hard to recapture the mood and feel of a Val Lewton film but
it fails on all levels.
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