You know when a movie is so bad that it's good? Well this movie was just bad. Despite it being called "The Atomic Brain", there was no atomic brain in the movie. The original title was "Monstrosity" which I think is more fitting since this movie was quite the monstrosity.

This movie has not been rated by the MPAA but I feel the content is suitable for all ages. However the content most definitely would not capture the interest or attention of any child (or most adults for that matter).

- - -Plot details below- - -

This movie is about a miserable old woman who has a mad scientist working in her basement. He has learned how to transplant animal brains into human bodies so she decides she wants her brain to be transplanted into the body of a younger woman. She tricks 3 young ladies to her house thinking they are getting a live-in housekeeping job, but she ends up locking them inside and disconnecting the phone line. These girls are pretty stupid because even when one of them disappears and the other 2 figure out they are in danger, they hardly make an effort to escape. Meanwhile 2 humans with animal brains are running around the yard. This is amusing, but not enough to actually laugh.

I watched this movie with 2 other people and for approximately the first 45 minutes we kept asking each other what was going on, but no one could figure it out. Well I guess we could, but it all seemed so pointless. There were so many scenes with no dialogue which had trying-to-be-scary-but-not-scary music. The entire movie is extremely slow and never picks up. At one point the old woman is walking down the stairs and we have to watch her slowly walk down practically every single step. This might be useful if suspense is building, but it wasn't. Another problem was the extreme graininess of the film. I know the movie is old (1964) but they could've done a better transfer of the film. Additionally, the sound has some issues because multiple times in the movie you can hear unintentional thumping noises, which sounds like someones microphone was being knocked into.

At the end the scientist decides the old woman is annoying and after removing her brain, he puts it into a cat's body. Nothing atomic ever happens, and no problems ever result from any brain. I assumed a brain would be atomic and cause problems. This is not the case.

If you are very patient and have an interest in very old horror films you might get a kick out of this. But I doubt it.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD