The debate was understandable.
In the decades following the publication ofSybil, multiple personality cases became all the rage.
If you think about it, of course we all carry multiple personalities around with us.
Certainly much rarer than the talk shows would have us believe.
Ad content continues below
Well, dont tell Hollywood that.
If theres one thing the movies teach us, its that transplants are simply not a good idea.
Conrad Veidt stars as a famed concert pianist who loses both hands in an accident.
So the unwitting donor was a condemned strangler, whats the big deal?
it’s possible for you to imagine where things go from there.
In between concerts, bodies start popping up everywhere.
Screenwriter Curt Siodmak admitted hed plundered Stevensons novel for 1941sThe Wolf Man.
Lets just say the juice is hard to come by, usually when you need it most.
When one of his experimental subjects dies, hes convicted on murder charges and sentenced to the gallows.
Weirder still, its during these spells assorted people who helped put him away keep ending up all strangled.
Theres no real mystery here; the audience sees exactly whats happening.
What the hell was I just saying about transplants?
Unfortunately, he chooses the handy brain of the still-breathing gangster in the next bed.
He also begins disappearing for long stretches, during which he does unseemly things.
It doesnt take Karloff long to figure out whats happening here.
In the end, its Karloff who gets the chair for putting a stop to all the madness.
Isnt that always the case?
One deals in wholesale murder… the other serves as a torture-master of the living dead!
See it and shudder!
you could understand why theyd want to push it as a straight horror number.
Its simpler that way.
Trying to encapsulate the actual plot in tagline form was pretty much out of the question.
Theres an awful lot of crazy business afoot here for an hour-long film.
Being a no budget picture few would see, director Wallace Fox could get away with such things.
On the surface hes Dr. Frederick Brenner, esteemed author and professor of abnormal psychology.
Even if it isnt the greatest multiple personality film ever made, it certainly remains a doozy.
Not only is he able to keep the brain alive, but the darn thing even starts growing.
As it does, it also begins to develop psychic powers.
As the spells grow worse and longer, he even starts killing people.
Hitchcock simply couldnt help himself.
Given the subject at hand, Ill just say this: Hitchcock was obsessed with pop psychoanalysis.
Screenwriter Joseph Stefano was himself in analysis dealing with his own mother issues when he wrote the script.
It all happens about 25 minutes in.
But when the car stops sinking with the roof still exposed, something shifts.
Who really cared about Marion anyway?
Our own personalities and perspectives have subtly shifted without our realizing it.
It fit right in with what was happening at Hammer at the time.
The standard Gothic options and characters had grown creaky.
People were getting a little weary of the top hats and cobwebbed castles and carriages.
Makes sense, right?
An unusually good Margot Kidder plays Danielle, a French Canadian model whos recently relocated to Staten Island.
She also used to be famously conjoined to her insane twin sister Dominique (also Kidder).
Even Neals clothes arent safe for godsakes!
A series of letters and phone calls imply the new book is quite literally driving people to kill.
But like Rick James noted, cocaines a helluva drug.
Then, after another intervening decade, he signed John Lithgow to star in a third stab at it.
Lithgows Carter is suffering from multiple personality disorder).
But thats only the beginning.
For a while there, Stephen King and George Romero were pretty inseparable.
While not a standard split personality film, its certainly a variation on the theme.
So is Stark the parasitic twin who miraculously survived and grew up?
Is it all a psychological game a laPsychoin which Beaumont is doing battle with a split personality?
Or is it all just a silly allegory about that writing cliche?
As far as I know, this marked the last time King and Romero worked together on a film.
I do like anything with Meat Loaf, but will never forgive them for using that Pixies song.
Im not quite sure how this worked.
Maybe I should look into it.
it’s possible for you to see why.
So Cusack finds himself among a group of strangers stranded at a ramshackle roadside motel during a terrible storm.
When by chance they all learn they share the same birthday, things get even weirder.
Oh, come now, people!
If you havent guessed where this is going 10 minutes in, then you havent seen nearly enough movies.
Or at least enoughTwilight Zoneepisodes.
