Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

Young women are mysteriously dying at their wedding alter. Stranger still, their bodies are stolen before they get to the morgue. The police, brilliant as they always are in old movies, are clueless how to stop it. Fortunately, a society reporter who covered one of the weddings, is on the case.

Cub reporter Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) finds a strange orchid at the alter and decides to ask the creepy Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi) who lives in a creepy castle miles from town. You can guess the rest.

It's well known that if you extract ... something out of the neck of beautiful young virgins (they were taken before their wedding night, you know ...) and inject it into the neck of your old, vain, and creepy wife, she becomes young and beautiful again. It's a scientific fact. Of course you'll need a steady supply of hot young virgins because it wears off over time.

Bela sleeps in a coffin and has a dwarf and gimp as servants, so they tried to pump up the creepiness. I'll give them some credit, but not too much. So Bela Lugosi draws the life force out of young women like one of those ... what do you call them? I forget. Bela in the role he was born to play, and had to continue playing even after he died.

Not scary, not funny, not thought provoking. Mostly forgettable. AMRU 2.5. See for yourself.

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