Mutations / Chosen Survivors (Both 1974) UK Quad DB Poster #New
Jack Cardiff may have been one of the greatest cinematographers ever, for his work with Powell, Hitchcock and Huston, but he rarely scored as a director. The Mutations was his final film and one of his best, a grim body-horror tale much of which appears to have slipped past the censors. It features Tom Baker as a hideously disfigured boss of a circus freak show working for mad professor Donald Pleasence, kidnapping victims who are turned into mutated plant-like creatures. With inevitable nods to Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) and Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960), it's enlivened with an experimental score by Basil Kirchin, and an ending that prefigures body-horror king David Cronenberg's The Brood (1979).
The Chosen Survivors were placed in a mile-deep underground facility in order to sit out global thermonuclear war - unfortunately someone forgot to tell vampire bats that they weren't invited too. The usual group of misfits battle to save themselves from a double menace. Despite the low budget, every creative department comes up trumps. Director Sutton Roley, a TV man through and through, achieves a wonderfully claustrophobic atmosphere, with stylish lighting and compositions from Gabriel Torres, excellent production design by José Rodríguez Granada - The Devil's Rain (1975), Total Recall (1990) and moody electronic score by Fred Karlin - Westworld (1973). An underseen 70's classic.
Aka: The Freakmaker, Dr. of Evil, /
Condition: VERY FINE - two small pinholes top left corner, small mark top centre
Cast: Donald Pleasence, Tom Baker, Brad Harris, Julie Ege, Michael Dunn, Jill Haworth, who went from a schoolgirl in Brides of Dracula (1960) to originating the role of Sally Bowles in the Broadway production of Cabaret (1966) / Jackie Cooper, Alex Cord, Richard Jaeckel - The Outfit (1973), Grizzly (1976), Bradford Dillman - Bug (1975), Piranha (1978), Diana Muldaur, Lincoln Kilpatrick - the 'family' assassin in The Omega Man (1971)