Venus Flytrap (film)

Last updated
Venus Flytrap
Venus Flytrap FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed byNorman Earl Thomson
Screenplay byNorman Earl Thomson
Story by Ed Wood (Uncredited)
Produced byNorman Earl Thomson
Starring James Craig
James Yagi
Atsuko Rome
CinematographyArnold Dibble
Edited byKenneth G. Crane
Distributed by Toei Company
Release date
  • 1970 (1970)
[1]
Running time
94 minutes
CountriesUnited States
Japan
LanguagesJapanese
English

Venus Flytrap (also known as Body of the Prey (working title) is a 1970 American-Japanese science fiction horror film [2] shot partly in Japan. It was distributed by the Toei Company of Japan. The film was released in Japan as Akuma no Niwa (The Devil's Garden). [3]

Contents

The plot features a mad scientist who uses lightning to turn carnivorous plants into sentient man-eating creatures. The film was later released on U.S. video as The Revenge of Dr. X and Venus Flytrap.

Based on an unproduced 1950s screenplay written by an uncredited Ed Wood, the film was directed and produced by pulp writer Norman Earl Thomson. (Thomson rewrote Wood's screenplay considerably.)

Credit is often incorrectly given to the editor Kenneth G. Crane, who directed the 1959 American-Japanese horror film The Manster . The American video release print additionally erroneously featured the credits for a 1969 Philippines production called The Mad Doctor of Blood Island. [4] [5]

Plot

Dr. Bragan (James Craig) is a workaholic rocket scientist at NASA working on a mission to outer space. The stress of the mission causes him to have a mental breakdown, so his assistant, Dr. Paul Nakamura (Yagi), suggests he takes a vacation in Japan at his abandoned luxury resort to recuperate. Dr. Bragan accepts his offer and flies to Japan.

In Japan, Dr. Bragan stays at the defunct hotel of Nakamura with Dr. Noriko Hanamura (Kami), the lovely cousin of his coworker who takes on the role of his assistant. Bragan begins a bizarre experiment in botany in the hotel's secluded greenhouse to prove his theory that humans evolved from plants. With a potted Venus flytrap he brought from America, the scientist grafts it to a Japanese carnivorous oceanic plant to create a hybrid creature that becomes humanoid and requires the blood of mammals to flourish. But Bragan is just as obsessive and moody as he was in America, and his behavior causes Noroko to suspect he is going mad, especially when he secretly takes a victim's "heart blood" to feed it. When his creation, "Sectovorus" uproots and begins moving around on its own, it becomes dangerous and it's not long before the creature begins seeking human victims from a nearby village. The villagers riot and Dr. Bragan must decide between protecting his creation or killing it in order to save mankind. He opts to lure it into a nearby volcano.

Cast

Angelique Pettyjohn is credited in the opening credits as one of four cast members, but does not appear in the film.

Reception

Kim Newman found the movie weird and amateurish, but noted it had enough bizarre elements to keep your attention. It is further noted that despite one of the titles, there is no Dr. X. in the film. [6] Creature Feature gave the movie one star. [7]

Legacy

The syndicated series Cinema Insomnia mocked the film on Halloween 2011. [8]

In 2012 RiffTrax released a comedic commentary on the film featuring the voices of Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. [9]

The film is available for streaming for free on many sites, including, as of October 2011, by YouTube [10]

Production

Atsuko Rome had never acted before, instead having been a model and ballet dancer. She praised director Thomson for making the process smooth. The shoot took about a month. [11]

The movie was reportedly discovered years later in a warehouse with no opening credits, and credits from another movie (The Mad Doctor of Blood Island) were sloppily spliced onto the print. This has caused the confusion of the identities of the cast and crew. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Wood</span> American filmmaker, actor, and author

Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor, and pulp novelist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venus flytrap</span> Species of carnivorous plant

The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native to the temperate and subtropical wetlands of North Carolina and South Carolina, on the East Coast of the United States. Although various modern hybrids have been created in cultivation, D. muscipula is the only species of the monotypic genus Dionaea. It is closely related to the waterwheel plant and the cosmopolitan sundews (Drosera), all of which belong to the family Droseraceae. Dionaea catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a "jaw"-like clamping structure, which is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves; when an insect makes contact with the open leaves, vibrations from the prey's movements ultimately trigger the "jaws" to shut via tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. Additionally, when an insect or spider touches one of these hairs, the trap prepares to close, only fully enclosing the prey if a second hair is contacted within (approximately) twenty seconds of the first contact. Triggers may occur as quickly as 110 of a second from initial contact.

<i>Zaat</i> 1971 American film

Zaat is a 1971 American independent science fiction horror film produced and directed by Don Barton, and co-written by Barton, Lee O. Larew and Ron Kivett. Produced on a $50,000 budget, the film stars Marshall Grauer as a mad scientist who aims to transform himself into a mutation to seek revenge on those who spurned him.

<i>The Invisible Mans Revenge</i> 1944 film by Ford Beebe

The Invisible Man's Revenge is a 1944 American horror film directed by Ford Beebe and written by Bertram Millhauser. The film stars John Carradine as a scientist who tests his experiment on a psychiatric hospital escapee, played by Jon Hall, who takes the invisibility serum and then goes on a crime spree. The film was announced on June 10, 1943, and began shooting on January 10, 1944 finishing in mid-February. On its release, reviews in The New York Herald-Tribune, The New York Daily News and The New York World-Telegram noted that the film series and its special effects became tired, while a review in The Hollywood Reporter declared it as one of the best in the series. Although Hall’s character shares the name “Griffin” with characters in other Universal “invisible man” films, the film does not follow the continuity of the series.

<i>Blood of the Vampire</i> 1958 British film by Henry Cass

Blood of the Vampire is a 1958 British colour horror film directed by Henry Cass and starring Donald Wolfit, Barbara Shelley, and Vincent Ball. The film was produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman for Tempean Films, from a screenplay by Jimmy Sangster.

<i>Commander USAs Groovie Movies</i> American movie showcase series

Commander USA's Groovie Movies is an American movie showcase series that ran weekend afternoons on the USA Network.

<i>Space Amoeba</i> 1970 Japanese kaiju film

Space Amoeba is a 1970 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, written by Ei Ogawa, and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and Fumio Tanaka, with special effects by Sadamasa Arikawa. Produced and distributed by Toho Studios, the film stars Akira Kubo, Atsuko Takahashi, Yukiko Kobayashi, Kenji Sahara, Yoshio Tsuchiya, and Yu Fujiki, with Haruo Nakajima portraying both Gezora and Ganimes.

<i>Latitude Zero</i> (film) 1969 film

Latitude Zero is a 1969 tokusatsu science fiction film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. An international co-production of Japan and the United States, it stars Joseph Cotten, Cesar Romero, Akira Takarada, Masumi Okada, Richard Jaeckel, Patricia Medina, and Akihiko Hirata.

Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove is a 2005 horror film written and directed by William Winckler. It is the second film from William Winckler Productions. Filmed in black and white, the film is an homage to classic monster movies, harkening back to the days of Universal's "Monster Rally" heyday. The film was released direct to DVD in 2005 and has since gone on to acquire a growing fan base. Part of the success of the film to date has been the support it has received from horror hosts and fans of late night cinema, with a national syndicated showing on Mr. Lobo's Cinema Insomnia Halloween special as well as local airings on shows from the Horror Host Underground. The film was awarded the "Best Feature Film" award at the 2006 World Horror Convention.

The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant.

<i>The Return of Doctor X</i> 1939 film

The Return of Doctor X is a 1939 American science fiction-horror film directed by Vincent Sherman and starring Wayne Morris, Rosemary Lane, and Humphrey Bogart as the title character. It was based on the short story "The Doctor's Secret" by William J. Makin. Despite supposedly being a sequel to Doctor X (1932), also produced by Warner Bros., the films are unrelated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnivorous plant</span> Plants that consume animals

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds. They still generate all of their energy from photosynthesis. They have adapted to grow in waterlogged sunny places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875, Charles Darwin published Insectivorous Plants, the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of painstaking research.

<i>Blood Beach</i> 1981 American horror film by Jeffrey Bloom

Blood Beach is a 1981 American horror film written and directed by Jeffrey Bloom and starring David Huffman, John Saxon, and Burt Young. The premise, conceived by Steven Nalevansky, involves a creature lurking beneath the sand of Santa Monica Beach that attacks locals and vacationers. The film's tagline is: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water—you can't get to it."

<i>Terror Is a Man</i> 1959 Filipino/American horror film directed by Gerardo de León

Terror Is a Man is a 1959 black-and-white Filipino/American horror film directed by Gerardo de Leon.

<i>The Mad Doctor of Blood Island</i> 1969 Filipino film

The Mad Doctor of Blood Island is a 1969 Filipino horror film, co-directed by Eddie Romero and Gerardo de Leon, and starring John Ashley, Angelique Pettyjohn, Eddie Garcia and Ronald Remy.

<i>The Brides of Blood Island</i> 1966 Filipino film

The Brides of Blood Island is a 1966 Filipino horror film directed by Eddie Romero and Gerardo de Leon from a screenplay by Cesar J. Amigo, and starring John Ashley, Kent Taylor, Beverly Hills, Eva Darren and Mario Montenegro. It was the first movie that Ashley made in the Philippines, beginning a long association between Ashley and that country. The Brides of Blood Island was the second in a series of four horror films produced by Romero and Kane W. Lynn known as the "Blood Island" series, which also included Terror Is a Man, The Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood. Brides of Blood was later released to television syndication in some areas as Island of Living Horror.

<i>Beast of Blood</i> (film) 1970 film by Eddie Romero

Beast of Blood, released in the UK as Blood Devils, is a 1970 Filipino horror film. A sequel to The Mad Doctor of Blood Island, it was directed by Eddie Romero. It was the fourth in a series of four Filipino horror films, produced by Romero and Kane W. Lynn, known as the "Blood Island" series, which also included Terror Is a Man, Brides of Blood and The Mad Doctor of Blood Island. It was also Romero's last film for Lynn's Hemisphere Pictures, as the two went their separate ways after this film was completed.

Kane W. Lynn (1919–1975) was an American film producer who made a number of movies in the Philippines with producer Irwin Pizor and Filipino director Eddie Romero as Hemisphere Pictures, or the House of Horror as they often referred to themselves. Later Pizor quit the company after an argument, and when Romero left to form a production company with actor John Ashley, Lynn tired of making movies and his Hemisphere Pictures became just a movie distributor, mainly handling adult films and low budget B-movies. It was his guidance that kept Hemisphere Pictures solvent and constantly moving forward, releasing a diverse product line of low-budget independent movies from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s.

References

  1. "THE REVENGE OF DR. X aka VENUS FLYTRAP (1967) Reviews and overview". 15 November 2017.
  2. Weldon, Michael (1996). The Psychotronic Video Guide. Titan Books. ISBN 1-85286-770-1.
  3. "THE REVENGE OF DR. X aka VENUS FLYTRAP (1967) Reviews and overview". 15 November 2017.
  4. Venus Flytrap at IMDb OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  5. "THE REVENGE OF DR. X aka VENUS FLYTRAP (1967) Reviews and overview". 15 November 2017.
  6. "Film review – the Revenge of Dr X". 9 April 2017.
  7. Stanley, J. (2000) Creature Feature: 3rd Edition
  8. FRED Entertainment. "How Lobo Can You Go?".
  9. "The Revenge of Doctor X". 19 September 2014.
  10. The Revenge Of Dr X. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
  11. "RECOLLECTIONS OF 'BODY OF THE PREY'! Atsuko Rome Looks Back on Her Starring Role in ed Wood's Japanese Monster Movie!". 16 October 2018.
  12. "The Revenge of Doctor X (1970)". 19 October 2018.