The Human Duplicators

source: The Human Duplicators

"Human Duplicators" has an imaginative premise, and some ideas that are ahead of their time (cyborgs / androids), but they receive a low-budget, earthbound treatment. The story is presented as a mystery for a while, even though a look at the title tells you what's going on, and Richard Kiel's line delivery explains why he only had one line to deliver in his two James Bond films (it's better when his towering frame does the talking for him). Still, this is by no means a 2.7/10 movie as it is currently rated on IMDb - it's more like a 5/10.

An alien (Dr. Kolos, Richard Kiel) is transported to Earth to prepare for an invasion by perfecting human duplication, with which an unlimited supply of obedient slaves and soldiers could be created. Written by the usually imaginative Alfred C. Pierce, the plot is a throwback to the numerous 'alien duplicate' films of the 50s and early 60s with a minor plot twist before the otherwise cheap and predictable ending. The towering Kiel is amusingly robotic as the alien who becomes infatuated with Lisa, Delores Faith's short and extremely unconvincing blind girl, 'Leave It to Beaver's Hugh Beaumont shows up as a cop while 'Robot Monster's George Nader is the stalwart secret-agent hero Glenn Martin, complete with a superfluous, brassy New Yawker girlfriend (Barbara Nichols). The story doesn't make a lot of sense, especially the inconsistent duplication process, which seems to result in super-strong, bullet-proof yet oddly fragile mannequins. Other than an early scene of Kolos being sent to Earth via "teletrasporter" (a process remarkably similar to the transporters in 'Star Trek', which debuted more than a year after this film came out), the special effects are cheap and laughable (especially the climatic "pulse laser beam"). Pierce's low-budget science-fiction films are usually better than they should be (such as 1966's 'Cyborg 2087') but this one isn't, and beyond an undeniable appeal to camp and/or genre fans (primarily due to the cast) has little to offer to justify sitting through 80 minutes of boring bargain-basement 'spy-fi'.

This movie actually came off as better to me than most people here think. It might be because there is this one line that's actually really clever. A character says, "Say something" and the guy literally says, "Something". It was nice to have a recognizable actor, Richard Kiel here. The film is still for the most part bad. The bad special effects are particularly noticeable. It really is funny to see these androids lose their body parts and see their faces literally fall apart. It managed to entertain me like that. Everyone acts like a robot in this. It ends up making more sense than most examples. It's still fairly poorly acted, particularly with how ALL the characters/actors do that. It probably could have been shorter too. When there's not much plot going on, it always drags on. This movie is about an alien who tries to replace people on Earth. There's not much motivation, so it's still skippable. *1/2

Aliens come to earth and try to take over by converting people into animated ceramic zombies. At least, that's what the IMDb write up says. I found this movie to be a bizarrely awful one, because it was simultaneously dull and incomprehensible. This is unprecedented in my movie-viewing - although it is possible that my steel sieve of a memory has blessedly let slip others that match this description. Incomprehensibility usually draws my attention as I try to figure out what is going on. Is this the result of an abysmal script? Terrible editing? Poor actors? There were those, certainly, like Ted Durant as 'The Galaxy Being'. Maybe it was because there were also some fine actors trying to treat what was going on as normal, performers like George Macready and Hugh Beaumont and Richard Arlen. Well, Arlen was the Mikey of film actors. He'd play in anything. The others, though, are a bit more puzzling. Perhaps they simply liked to keep their names before the public, or needed the money. There are certainly people like that. I just don't know. Given that I spent a couple of hour looking at it, and half an hour puzzling over this review, I am going to drop the matter. I've wasted enough time on this one. However, if you ignore this review and look at this one, let me know if you figure it out.

the human duplicators was one of those b-movies that is so bad its good, i remember watching it as Elvira's Mistress of the dark movie of the week.and later on mst2k.a n alien ship that looks like a swag lamp beams down an alien(Richard Kiel)that forces scientist(George mac ready) to duplicate people.then he falls for the scientists pretty blind niece. the budget is low but this is an entertaining move nevertheless.George Nader(not Ralph)plays a g-agent is sent by his boss(Hugh Beaumont of leave it to beaver)to investigate the goings on.androids go amok. I'm giving this little screen gem 5 out of 10.kudos to Elvira for showing this on her program.Trekkie's take note Kiel beams down from his ship to earth,sound familiar???

Man, Richard Kiel sure did have a couple of stinkers under his belt before becoming Jaws in the James Bond films. Eegah, Phantom Planet, and this one are some pretty good examples. In this film, Kiel actually speaks, and he sounds like a drunken and drugged up Kermit the Frog. Anyway, this film is about an alien (Kiel) who comes to Earth and tries to replace people with robotic duplicates so he can take over. The duplicates themselves seem real until pushed or hit hard, then they turn into terra cotta for some unknown reason. Silly plotline and some pretty bad acting shoot this one down. In the scene where Kiel frees himself from the wall, look in the upper right corner of the screen, under the arches. You'll see a cameraman and camera come into view briefly.

When a film's best special effect is the casting of a 7 foot tall giant (with a thick, inexpressive voice) as the main villain, the film is in trouble. And when the film's best actor is Hugh Beaumont, and it wastes him in a small supporting role, it has no choice but a destiny for eternal "B" movie status. Still "Human Duplicators" isn't really a "bad" movie. It's just kind of under-powered and under-budgeted. And compared to toxic wastes of film like "Pod People", "Beast Of Yucca Flats" or "Cave Dwellers", "Human Duplicators" is like spending an afternoon at the Louvre. It's typical of many of the movies that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" riffed on in Season 5 and 6 - mediocre, cheesy, 2nd rate, but presentable and at least mildly entertaining. Give the film creators credit for trying to put a novel spin on the old "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers"/"Colossus" themes by incorporating Cold War paranoia with the concept of a 'fifth column' of android impersonators. They took Kiel's stiff, inexpressive persona and tried to work with it by framing him as an cold, impassive alien and having all the actors playing the "android replacements" act the same way. (It's high school level theater technique of course, but at least it's a deliberate choice). They set most of the proceedings in and on the grounds of an elaborate old mansion (complete with secret passage and a dungeon) and loaded the sets with all the elaborate bric-a-brac, flocked wallpaper and ornate furniture they could stuff in it to keep the settings visually interesting. They tried to work in some 007 style suaveness and romance with a smug,smarmy hero (who actually seems to have some brains) and his Girl Friday type. There's even a fairly hot "blind" brunette running around the mansion and she's pleasant to look at (once you get past her clown outfits). The trouble is, of course, that none of this is enough. You can't pull off romantic scenes and witty war-between-the-sexes by-play when the Girl Friday has a nasal Jersey voice that hits the viewer like nails on a chalkboard. Kiel tries hard, but he doesn't have any charisma to back up his startling size and his lines sound like they've been wrung out of a wash cloth. The way the scenes are shot inside the mansion are dull and interesting - as Joel remarks in the MST coverage, "it's like a slow motion British bedroom farce" only without the humor, or the sex, or the comic timing. Most of the special effects are silly and unconvincing , especially in the "climactic" battle at the end of the movie where Kiel does battle with a bunch of android duplicates while the hero shines a "pulse lah-zer" on them to screw up their mechanical brains. The deus-ex-machina, er, sorry, "pulse lah-zer" looks like a Klieg light on wheels...you can tell that they just didn't have room in the budget or time in the schedule to make something credible looking or stage its use in a compelling way. Still, it's more professional looking and less cheesy than anything from the Corman factory or from Ed Wood, Larry Buchanan or Herschel Gordon Lewis. You could put this on during a 'science fiction' themed evening of movie watching and get a nostalgic chuckle out of it before you went on to the "hard stuff" with Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney. In spite of my complaints, no one involved with "Human Duplicators" has anything to be overly ashamed of. (As far as I know!) 4 stars out of 10

How can anyone not love this movie it is so awful! The girl running around the house in chiffon, the alien who obviously never attended The Actor's Studio, the secret agent who keeps pronouncing the professor's (of course there has to be a professor, this is a science fiction movie)full name as if it were his LAST name, the nurses in white in the lab acting like nothing was out of the ordinary - and above all the lead is Ralph Nader, his girl Friday is Barbara Nichols, wisecracking her way through her scenes and the boss is good ole Hugh Beaumont of "Leave It To Beaver." (Maybe he needed some extra cash.)This even has a version on MST 3000, but can stand by itself. Everyone should have a copy.

Human Duplicators stars Richard Kiel as Dr. Kolos, an alien sent to prepare the Earth for invasion. His mission is to contact Prof. Vaughn Dornheimer, Earth's leading scientist in regards to cloning, and use Dornheimer to aid in creating a colony of clones (androids) on Earth. It doesn't take long for Kolos to locate Dornheimer and start producing clones. However, not everything goes as intended, and an investigation by an agency into investigating stolen parts and the death of a scientist related to Dornheimer's research. Also Dr. Dornheimer's lovely but pesky niece weighs more and more heavily on Kolos as the story develops. Now on to why I think many people enjoy this film. Personally I find it reminds me of the original Star Trek series. As fan a fan of Star Trek TOS, I'm not blind to stiff acting, mediocre sets, and goofy special effects. But it's part of the charm of Star Trek, these things are less important than the story telling and dreams that TOS represented. This film, although not related to Star Trek, manages to capture a bit of the same charm for the same reasons.