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Turn of the 20th century: Benevolent professor Mayer (Boris Karloff)
conducts a series of experiments to harness the power of radium, for peaceful
uses of course, but when an alien race gets wind of his experiments they think
otherise, knowing that the power of radium can also be used as a weapon. So
they send one of them (Sergio Kleiner), dressed all in silver to earth to stop
the professor, & they plan to do so by taking over both his body and that
of rapist/serial killer Thomas (Yerye Beirute), who becomes Mayer's new
assistant ... much to the surprise (& dismay) of his old assistant Isabel
(Maura Monti), his niece Laura (Christa Linder) & her boyfriend Paul
(Enrique Guzmán). Soon, the possessed provessor & Thomas plan up to blow
their machine for harnessing the radiums power, & the whole lab &
village with it, just to discredit the professor's invention once & for
all, but the aliens have to realize taking over human bodies isn't as easy as
it may seem (& does it ?): While the professor fights his alienmindrobber
vigorously, Thomas' old, womenmurdering mind soon shines through, & he
starts killing women again, until he is tracked down & killed by an angry
mob. The professor's alien mindrobber meanwhile feels oncoming danger &
leaves the professor's brain to settle in Laura's. but while being possessed,
the professor has learned much about alien mindrobbers & is able to extract
the thing from his niece & destroy it. However, Mayer has learned his
lesson about the use of radium, destroys all his documents & hopes that the
radium's power is never harnessed again ... fat chance !!! Shortly
before his death, Boris Karloff made a quartet of Mexican produced films
(though his scenes were shot in the USA), which are generally consideered among
his worst films ever & are thus hardly discussed anywhere at all ... I beg
to differ (albeit only slightly): This movie does feature an interesting blend
of serial killer motifs, mad scientist- & alien invasion-story, however all
these elements are mixed together way too clumsily to make up a coherent story,
thus most of the time the film looks just like a trrible mess, &
budget-conscious sets & special effects as well as mostly wooden actors
(except Krloff of course) don'T do much to lift the film's quality. But
because of all that, the film is at least enjoyable for its trash-value alone.
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