Anton Diffring is Dr. Georges Bonner, a physician with an eye for sculpting beautiful ladies, and when provoked by mysterious mood-swings (which require a smoking green potion to bring him down), literally loves them to death! What is causing his homicidal tendencies? Only one person seems to know the answer, and he is Dr. Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marle'), a visiting doctor who at first seems to be Dr. Bonner's mentor until a shocking truth is revealed. The fact that he wants to involve the beautiful Hazel Court in his evil discovery brings the sinister past of this doomed soul to light, covering a series of murders of women strangled after having their busts sculpted.
This is a fascinating study of a megalomaniac so consumed with his own immortality that he doesn't consider the people that he loves with desires so selfish and cunning. You know that his come-uppance is going to be delicious just like the fates of so many monstrous humans in horror films that utilized the talents God gave them for their own ends which resulted in a lavish destruction. Delphi Lawrence is pathetically memorable as one of Diffring's victims while Court is a combination of loveliness and charm who must suddenly turn to stupidity when Diffring locks her in a basement laboratory and simply sits there waiting to be left out. Christopher Lee gets to be a little bit more sedate and non-villainous as a doctor acquaintance of Diffring's who is shocked by what he learns. Marle' is the heart of the story, an elderly doctor filled with regret by what he did in his past in the name of scientific discovery and must now pay for his part in Diffring's devilish plot.
This is a fascinating study of a megalomaniac so consumed with his own immortality that he doesn't consider the people that he loves with desires so selfish and cunning. You know that his come-uppance is going to be delicious just like the fates of so many monstrous humans in horror films that utilized the talents God gave them for their own ends which resulted in a lavish destruction. Delphi Lawrence is pathetically memorable as one of Diffring's victims while Court is a combination of loveliness and charm who must suddenly turn to stupidity when Diffring locks her in a basement laboratory and simply sits there waiting to be left out. Christopher Lee gets to be a little bit more sedate and non-villainous as a doctor acquaintance of Diffring's who is shocked by what he learns. Marle' is the heart of the story, an elderly doctor filled with regret by what he did in his past in the name of scientific discovery and must now pay for his part in Diffring's devilish plot.