Directed by Ford Beebe
and Saul A. Goodkind, written by George Plympton, Basil Dickey and Mildred
Barish
Starring Bela Lugosi,
Robert Kent, Dorothy Arnold, Jack C. Smith and Edward Van Sloan
1939
In this 12-part serial, a
mad doctor menaces the good guys on a quest for world domination (and revenge)
with a giant robot, the power to turn invisible and exploding robot spiders
that put their victims into… suspended animation!
It was a pleasure to
finally get around to watching all 4 hours of this horror serial, mostly to
revel in Bela Lugosi’s perfect villainous performance, but also just to enjoy
the sheer insanity of it all. Serials were not meant to be viewed back to back,
but when they are, the break neck speed of plot twists, red herrings, action
set pieces and cliffhangers lulls the viewer into a weird surrealistic state
that makes everything that much more enjoyable. Lugosi presents all 3 of his
world-dominating inventions all in the span of the first episode, and things
just get more convoluted from there as opening crawl after opening crawl
becomes more and more bizarre and each cliffhanger escape becomes more
implausible than the last.
Since this adds up to 4
hours of entertainment and your average Universal horror film clocks in at
around 1 hour, I’m counting this as 4 movies. Also because I’m lazy.
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