Curse of the Faceless Man

The name of this movie eluded me but I was fortunate enough (I guess) to have seen it once or twice on "Doctor Shock Theatre" that we picked up out of Philly. Looking at some of the stills online, the walking statue is kinda ominous looking. I wouldn't want to see it following me home. It also looks like a costume the creature wore from the Lost In Space episode, "Wish Upon A Star." I wish I could remember more about the movie but it's been too many years since I last saw it. I remember it was supposed to take place in Italy. Written by Jerome Bixby who wrote many stories for episodic TV including the original Star Trek. If you happen upon this gem by all means add your review here.

I guess the age of Camelot is dead. Modern viewers don't seem to appreciate a love story about a petra-fried beau trying to save his gal from Vesuvius. Ah! His love was hotter than the volcano; but, unfortunately, he was combustible. The artist feels drawn to her centuries old beau and murder ensues in this awesome-effect B movie. The film is reminiscent of the mummy genre. The title character is hideous and scary. There is a love triangle that is quite poignant. Performances are acted with affection and the cast is solid. Direction is typical for the 50's (and that's a good thing!) Excuse the pun; but, this film is definitely not a 'potboiler'.

Curse of the faceless man 1958 I watched hours ago. B/w horror film which hadn't seen previously. Users reviews already stated etc plot and opinions expressed! I found myself slightly in different to film in general. The head leading lady Tina Enright played by Elaine Edwards I thought was about the best thing in film. A few scenes with her were among the better in entire film. It was two or possibly three separate scenes with Tina Enright which had potential atmospheric plausibility! I gave 'Curse' low 2 stars but even though poor this horror isn't a bomb!

"The Curse of the Faceless Man" is a rather inconsequential yet enjoyable horror film from the 1950s. It stars Richard Anderson of "The Six Million Dollar Man" fame. The story begins with a body and a box of jewels being found in the ruins of Pompeii. This isn't that unusual. But the body itself is silly because it looks exactly like the ones they have on display there...but those are actually plaster casts of the bodies which had long disintegrated. Inexplicably, this is supposed to be an entire person....and looks exactly like one of the casts. However, it holds a secret...it's not quite dead! And, it has a murderous appetite if anyone comes between it and his beloved...much like in the old classic horror film "The Mummy". So is it any good? Well, I must say that the costume looked really good. As far as the plot and dialog go, they are, of course, quite silly. But many folks (like me) like schlocky old 50s horror pictures...and it's well worth seeing and reasonably entertaining. Far from perfect, and with needless narration, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of nonsense.

Back in the day when there was NO cable (only 10 tv channels with an antenna on your roof).... CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN was a weekend fave. Still is. Direct from the school of super low budget horror, and loving it, also somewhat in the fashion of the MUMMY. Instead of Egyptian ruins, writers set the story in the ancient city of Pompeii where a dedicated team unearths a stone "faceless man" ---instead of a mummy. Fairly neat switch and even campier when the walking man of stone busts down doors, crashes through walls in search of his long lost reincarnated love. The curious angle is the Faceless Man goes in and out of a state of suspended animation. Bottom line... all the archaeologists would have to do is chop him up. THEY DON"T, which makes this thriller all the more wild. This one also borrows from the school of "just stand there and scream!." The Faceless Man walks about two steps an hour... so the victims usually just stand there instead of simply walking out the door! The over the top music score by Gerald Fried, who worked on other chillers, adds to the atmosphere, and at the precise moment when the Faceless Man is about to crack someone's skull! Good cast with reliable Richard Anderson leading the search and rescue team and veteran radio actor Luis Van Rooten playing an archaeologist and narrating the creepy adventure. Directed by sci fi master Edward L. Cahn, who was cranking them out in the 1950s about as fast as Roger Corman. Out on dvd, the perfect addition for all us fans of 2000 year old Roman gladiators.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (1958) is little more than a low-budget rehash of "The Mummy" story set in Griffith Park Observatory doubling as the Museo di Pompeii and Malibu locations doubling as the Bay of Naples. Though the film clocks in at sixty-three or so minutes FACELESS MAN plods along at a snail's pace. Quintillus Aurelius is an Etruscan buried in the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius who returns to the 1950's to reclaim his lost love (who has superhuman lung power - when this girl screams, she SCREAMS!) Not completely without charm but not a memorable moment in horror film history either. With Richard Anderson (FORBIDDEN PLANET, SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) and Wolf Barzell (FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER). This flick is probably best enjoyed by Baby Boomers who were frightened by it as kids.

Excavated from an expedition at Pompeii, a professor and his assistant find that the recovered mummy of an ancient guardian believes that she is the princess he loved reincarnated and sets out to reclaim her forcing them to protect her while trying to find a way to stop him. This here wasn't all that bad of a drive-in feature. One of the films' better features is the fact that there's quite a lot of work here on the build-up to the reveal of the mummy and its condition. The connection to ancient Roman history, setting the whole affair around the eruption of Vesuvius which is carried out rather nicely through the discovery of the mummy, and it's contents from the dig site which leads rather well into the dreams she has about the mummy coming for her which comes off as the vast majority of the first half here. When it gets to the point about him being alive and coming after the medallion, this one gets even more fun as these are where the film really offers its best scenes as the first resurrection in the museum in front of her is quite the impressive offering, while the main attack in her apartment after it chases them out after it's chamber and goes on stalking her throughout the building which is a really fun and exciting sequence which remains a nice highlight. Even the finale is rather nice, from the final abduction out of the museum and the trip through the countryside where they arrive at the beach when the police arrive and engage in the final confrontation with the creature which is a rather nice and unexpected finish that ends this on a rather fun note. Along with the great look and imposing features of the mummy, these here are what make this one fun enough to hold over the flaws. The issue here is the fact that a vast majority of the film has an annoying and utterly irritating voice-over narration that is completely unnecessary as a whole. The voice-over tells us absolutely nothing important about what's going on since it merely describes the action playing out on-screen or shoots off a quick blurb following up on what was just learned which renders the exercise quite comical as well as irritating. Since it's carried on throughout the whole film, oftentimes just for a line or two, it's pointless needling on the story really gets old, and becomes a hindrance due to its continuation while it stayed only for the beginning this wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, the only other problematic issue is the overall cheap and quickie feeling to it as there's just not a whole lot here that denotes too much went into this, from the cheap look and cramped sets to the flimsy look of everything which makes this look incredibly cheap. That does tend to lower this one, although there's still plenty to like overall here. Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

Curse of the Faceless Man (1958) * 1/2 (out of 4) When the ruins of Pompeli are searched, a stone man is recovered. He's taken to a museum where he apparently attacks a woman, which puts her into a state of shock where it seems she has dreams to where she might have some connection to the man. According to the film, this stone man is caught somewhere between life and death and I'm sure the majority of the viewers are going to know that feeling because there's very little to enjoy here. I say there's very little to enjoy but thankfully the film is bad enough to where you can enjoy bits and pieces of it but this only applies to those who enjoy bad movies and can get some entertainment out of them. There are a lot of questionable things in this film but the biggest one to me is a scene early on where a doctor reads us something about the stone man while the image on screen is just the letter that is being read to us. This entire scene struck me as poorly made because if they're going to show us the letter the entire time then what's the point of having it read to us? Since it is being read to us then why not have the camera on one of the characters to try and get a reaction shot? The dialogue in this film is bad enough to turn anyone to stone as the majority of the running time it has either this doctor or that doctor explaining that everything they're saying is true yet the viewer will be wondering where the proof is. There's no question that this is made like a mummy film but the only exception is that instead of bandages our man is made out of stone. The ending, which I won't ruin, is the exact same as one of the Universal Mummy films from the 40s (I won't give the title just to avoid spoiling the ending). Another major problem is the performances, which range from poor to downright bad. The majority of the lines are bad enough and the poor delivery certainly doesn't help them any. At just 67-minutes the film isn't too long but one just wishes that there was more energy in it. The bad dialogue and bad acting adds a few laughs but there's still no doubt that this is a poorly made film that doesn't have enough life to keep it going.

I am predisposed to like 1950s B-movies. And this one had a lot of potential. It was basically the mummy story, set in the shadow of Vesuvius. Standard scientists and pretty girl who screams. There were two major flaws though. One was that the dialogue was full of exposition – "as you know, your specialty is… " And "as you know, you were once engaged to him." This is not only clumsy but easily remedied. In a strange twist, this movie actually made me scream aloud – but not for the reasons that the filmmakers would have wished. It was the voice-over narration. The film begins with it … All well and good. And then it goes away for 12 or 15 minutes and the next time it came back it surprised me so much I literally screamed. And it was ludicrous: the shot was of the scientist looking concerned for his girlfriend and the narration said something like " he was concerned for his girlfriend." It is as if they didn't trust their own actors, who were actually conveying the emotions quite well. The ending is very strange too. This could've been a solid seven star film for people like me who like old black-and-white horror and science fiction … But the two flaws were serious.

We're expecting more snow and cold weather for the next few days. Sooooo...out came another Amazon Prime video pick for a cold winter's afternoon. This time we watched 'The Curse of the Faceless Man'. It wasn't bad, I was hoping for more. It's basically a mummy story with a twist taking place in Pompeii instead of Egypt. There is an Egyptian tie-in explained in the plot. Something convenient about the man being killed during the eruption as he was stealing a box of treasures from a temple in the Egyptian area of Pompeii. Never knew there was such an area...but whatever. Instead of bandages this creature is covered in a rock like crust somehow formed from his being trapped during the volcano's eruptions thousands of years ago. There is the usual mummy like plot of the creature searching for his lost love reincarnated in the present time. This time he was a gladiator slave in love with a beautiful girl from a wealthy family. The ending was a bit convenient, still the movie did have its scary moments. Like when the woman was alone in the museum late at night drawing the stone like creature as it was laying on a table. As she draws she notices slight changes in his position and at first corrects her drawing...finally she realizes it is not a mistake he is moving ! Eventually he gets up and walks towards her. She is so frightened at first she can not even scream. Moments like that made it worthwhile. I give it a 4 rating.