Mansion of the Doomed

[Andrew]

After we watched this movie, Katie and I came to a conclusion:  with all the remake madness, somebody should do this one.  The premise and general script is horrifying, but the execution was heavily flawed.

Due to an unfortunate car accident, a doctor’s daughter is blinded.  Determined to restore her sight at all costs, the doctor begins drugging and abducting people.  He then cuts out their eyes and transplants them into his daughter.  The first operation (where he steals Lance Henriksen’s eyes) seems successful.  Unfortunately, something happens and the young girl loses her sight again. 

The doctor kidnaps and mutilates a number of people in his pursuit of eyes for his daughter.  Each surgery fails; I believe it was seven people in all.  You can tell that the guilt begins to weigh on the doctor; though he continues in his twisted search for a solution.

The daughter is kept sedated most of the time, so she never sees the progressive disfigurement of her face as the surgeries build more and more scar tissue.  Worse is the plight of the unwilling donors.  The doctor and his nurse keep them in an electrified cage in the basement.  Each is dumped into the cage with a bloody bandage around their head.  When the bandage comes off, you find rotten sockets and mutilated flesh.  One of the women donors dies, probably of infection.

I think we can all guess how this may end?  With the doctor in the cage, having his eyes gouged out by the people who are little more than feral animals.

Again, the movie could be amazingly effective if done the right way.  The doctor would be a monster, even if you understand why he would do such inhuman things for his daughter.  The suffering and misery of the eyeless victims is hard to watch.  A polished working of the tale would make it nearly unbearable.

[Yaddo 42]

In a weird semi-coincidence, I looked this movie up Sunday night. I was in a barber shop with a buddy while we were out looking at cars Saturday, the barber co-owns a car lot with his dad. On the walls of the shop were some old newspaper movie ads from 1977-78. Most of them were mainstream stuff, but there was an ad for this film running at the old Joyland Drive-in, which closed in the mid 80s. There's a McDonald's, a Jack's, an car wash, some insurance offices, an apartment complex, some houses and a religious school on that ground now.

The ad made me go to IMDB and read up on the film, I had heard the name before, but knew little about it. Sounded worth a look.

Plus it was weird to remember the local theaters taking out major ad space for all kinds of films, they don't do that nowadays here. Just ads with listings and times (sometimes just the phone numbers to call to get the times), except when it's an independent religious themed film, and I'd bet those are paid for by someone other than the theater chain.

[Flangepart]

Ewwww....grosse no matter how you cut it. Uh...think i'll pass, guys.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I can't help but notice the similarities to the excellent 1960 "Eyes Without A Face".  Was this a remake by any chance?

[Andrew]

I can't help but notice the similarities to the excellent 1960 "Eyes Without A Face".  Was this a remake by any chance?

I would assume that the idea came from there, but the plight of the victims in the basement is pretty gritty mean in this one.