Poor Boris Karloff... a great actor reduced to appearing in something as terrible as Fear Chamber, which is bad even by Mexican horror standards. The plot is utter garbage, the direction is amateurish, the acting is diabolical, and the film's monster is pathetic. The film's only redeeming quality, other than featuring an indisputable icon of the genre, is that it is wonderfully trashy at times, offering up plenty of cheeze and a touch of sleaze (with gratuitous nudity and a smattering of torture).
The movie opens as scientists Corinne and Mark (Julissa and Carlos East) venture into the bowels of the Earth, discovering a strange rock that exhibits signs of life. Corinne's father Dr. Karl Mantell (Karloff) is delighted, believing that the rock can provide data that will benefit all of mankind - the only problem is that in order for the rock to stay alive, it must be fed on a substance that is secreted into the bloodstream by women in a state of extreme terror. To this end, the scientists have created a 'fear chamber' where they trap unsuspecting women and terrify them, before extracting the precious substance required to nourish the rock; they are helped in their work by nurse Helga (Isela Vega), a lobotomised dolt named Roland (Yerye Beirute), an Indian called Syed who looks a bit like Ringo Starr, and a creepy bald dwarf (who is enough to scare anyone).
All of Karloff's scenes were directed in the US by Jack Hill, the elderly actor phoning in his performance (quite literally in many of the scenes); he does his best with the awful dialogue he has been given, but most of it is cod scientific mumbo jumbo and completely unintelligible. Beirute gets all the best lines as Roland: 'I like di-a-monds a lot!', 'I'm going to be king of the world!' - slap!!!
2/10 for Roland and the sleazy bits. Definitely one of the worst Karloff films I have seen.
The movie opens as scientists Corinne and Mark (Julissa and Carlos East) venture into the bowels of the Earth, discovering a strange rock that exhibits signs of life. Corinne's father Dr. Karl Mantell (Karloff) is delighted, believing that the rock can provide data that will benefit all of mankind - the only problem is that in order for the rock to stay alive, it must be fed on a substance that is secreted into the bloodstream by women in a state of extreme terror. To this end, the scientists have created a 'fear chamber' where they trap unsuspecting women and terrify them, before extracting the precious substance required to nourish the rock; they are helped in their work by nurse Helga (Isela Vega), a lobotomised dolt named Roland (Yerye Beirute), an Indian called Syed who looks a bit like Ringo Starr, and a creepy bald dwarf (who is enough to scare anyone).
All of Karloff's scenes were directed in the US by Jack Hill, the elderly actor phoning in his performance (quite literally in many of the scenes); he does his best with the awful dialogue he has been given, but most of it is cod scientific mumbo jumbo and completely unintelligible. Beirute gets all the best lines as Roland: 'I like di-a-monds a lot!', 'I'm going to be king of the world!' - slap!!!
2/10 for Roland and the sleazy bits. Definitely one of the worst Karloff films I have seen.