After kicking off his final year by costarring with London neighbor Christopher Lee in Tigon's "The Crimson Cult," Boris Karloff spent only a few weeks recuperating before starting a quartet of Mexican features completed by Juan Ibanez south of the border, Roger Corman protege Jack Hill writing all four scripts as well as directing the star in Santa Monica's Dored Studios in March 1968 (unable to work in high altitudes), all four roles in the can by May (each one issued well after his Feb. 1969 passing). Producer Luis Enrique Vergara had previously hired John Carradine to shoot a number of horror titles in Mexico City the year before though, unlike Boris, his voice would never be heard as none of them were dubbed into English. First up was "Fear Chamber" (La Camara del Terror or The Room of Terror) which, despite its title, only uses the titular location on two occasions, Boris as Dr. Karl Mantell sending daughter Corrine (Julissa) and her fiancee Mark (Carlos East) to a remote cavern where curious signals emanate from an unknown source, to which Mark has the answer: "a rock formation that appears to have an interior life!" 'Pure crystallized intelligence' is another explanation for a life force that demands human hormones to survive, extracted from female victims in an extreme state of terror, thus the necessity for the so called Fear Chamber. Once the clearly ailing Boris is put to bed we are left to deal with his vulgar assistants, a mentally challenged killer (Yerye Beirute) who believes the rock lobster to be his friend, an Arab who continuously spies on the naked girls, a laughing dwarf (Santanon) snuffed out rather abruptly, and Mexico's great beauty Isela Vega, seen in three of Carradine's entries but just this lone Karloff, as Helga, a trusted psychologist who gets too wrapped up in the sadism involved. This may well be the absolute weakest plot ever devised for a Karloffilm, and with such wretches carrying on while he remains offscreen makes this perhaps the worst of the four though director Jack Hill considered it to be the most faithful to his work (he added that he never saw all four, however). Even at age 24, Julissa had previous experience in two K. Gordon Murray imports, "Spiritism" and "The Curse of the Crying Woman" (she did two more with Karloff), as did Yerye Beirute, as a grave robber in "The Vampire's Coffin," plus a mad scientist opposite Lon Chaney in "La Casa del Terror" (he would rejoin Boris only for "Incredible Invasion"). Isela Vega would continue to gain popularity outside Mexico, exploding on an international scale with starring roles in Sam Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," as well as "Drum," the Steve Carver sequel to "Mandingo," both opposite cult actor Warren Oates (a 1974 nude Playboy spread proved to be icing on the cake). Best avoided is the infamous butchered VHS version called "Torture Zone," lacking the more salacious details, but then again not much else is preferable save for the noble efforts of its dying star, whose 19 minutes screen time is the second most in this final four (next up is "Snake People").
Review of Fear Chamber
