Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 7.0 | 17/32 | Body Horror 3/4 | Decades 6/6 | 1950s
It’s after midnight. Gaston clocks into work at a factory. When he turns on the light, he sees Hélène (Patricia Owens) at the hydraulic press. Blood seeps from underneath the press. When Hélène sees him, she runs off.
François (Vincent Price) receives a call from Hélène. She confesses to killing André — her husband and François’s brother — and asks François to call the police. Later, Gaston calls to tell François that someone is dead — their head under the press.
The police investigate, but Hélène’s confession doesn’t line up with the facts. Despite that, she refuses to give motive or details. Someone has trashed André’s lab, and Hélène seems obsessed with finding a white-headed fly.
François pretends to have caught the white-headed fly, encouraging Hélène to tell the story.
André had developed a matter transporter. It disintegrates at one point and reintegrates at another. He believes it is perfect, but Hélène points out a flaw in the replication. He tries it on the cat, and it never rematerializes.
Still, André carries on until he finally tries it on himself. The results are too horrifying for the family to bear.
The film plays with the concepts of television transmission and applies it to matter. When André asks François to come over and see the invention, François’s first guess is that it’s a flat-screen television.
This movie captures a contemporary feeling — that technology is progressing faster than we can understand, and morality gets lost in the race. You know, hubris and whatnot.
It's not who invents these technologies — it's just the fact that they exist.
The movie’s greatest asset is its restraint. The lab glows bright blue and emits striking colors. It understands imagination’s power, leaving gaps for us to fill in the movie. The reveals, while silly-looking, are also effective.
My only major complaint is the length. The movie meanders before getting to the main story. Some of it works — taking time for characterization makes the disaster more impactful. But other scenes feel aimless or drawn out.
I like to think the movie is François’s extended fantasy — this is the scenario he envisions must happen for it to be morally okay to hook up with his brother’s wife.
One of the better creature-features from the sci-fi boom of the 50s.