- Directed by Damien Leone
- Written by Damien Leone
- Stars Ashton Leigh, Constantin Tripes, Brandon deSpain
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n8WkoBW_Ic
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was surprisingly good, with a full treatment of each monster. The reason they are brought together is way out yet plausible at the same time, it’s a clever script. Effects, makeup, everything was all around entertaining.
Synopsis
Two shady-looking men meet. “There’s another list here. It’s imperative that the specimens be intact.” He adds that this’ll be the final time. Credits roll.
“Professor F” gives a lecture on the “Philosophy of Medicine” while we alternate cuts of him working in his filthy-looking lab. “We are gods and gods are us; the boundary is an achievement. The two most powerful things are to give a life or to take a life.”
Elsewhere, Professor Naihla Khalil gives a lecture on Egyptology. Quite a few of her students believe aliens built the pyramids. After class, Victor gives her a big hug; they’re dating. He asks her how her recent expedition worked out—she brought something interesting back.
She shows him the mummy of a king. Professor Walton wants to take the mummy to England for dissection, and Naihla’s not happy about that. Victor notices that the mummy’s ears have been cut off, which is unusual. A scroll in the Userkare’s tomb says the mummy’s soul is still trapped inside his body, and there’s a curse. Old man Walton says the curse is nonsense.
The school’s janitor is Carter, the creepy man we saw before the credits. Carter encounters a homeless man, and they have a conversation. Carter stabs the guy and saws the top of his head off.
Naihla and Victor talk about religion; she assumes he’s a Satanist, but she doesn’t really understand what that means. She believes in the supernatural, but he doesn’t. He admits that he became a doctor because his mother committed suicide; people shouldn’t have to die! This leads to kissing and a sex scene.
Back at the lab, Dr. Walton works on the mummy’s body. He finds a rune embedded in its chest, and when he pokes it, it shoots out gas that knocks out the old doctor. When he wakes up, Walton starts acting strangely. When assistant Isaac comes in, Walton cuts his throat and drips the blood onto the mummy.
The next morning, Naihla enters the lab, and the mummy’s still on the table. Walton says he hasn’t seen Isaac since last night. Walton then gives a lecture to a class, but he keeps having headaches. He offers Lenora an internship position if she comes by the lab this evening.
Victor’s working in his lab, and he narrates notes about his own experiments. Things are progressing nicely. “The serum works! Final reanimation of a body is a go upon delivery of specimen.” Carter comes to the door with a brain but wants to “renegotiate our agreement.” He wants $30,000 instead of the promised $5,000. If he doesn’t, Carter will expose him. Soon, Victor has two bodies in his lab. Except the brain has been smashed. Fortunately, Carter has one that he can use.
We get a quick surgery montage, and then Victor throws the big switch. The body on the table twitches and convulses. When he turns the power off, nothing happens. It’s not alive. Meanwhile, Naihla waits for Victor to call about their date.
In the mummy lab, Lenora arrives to talk to Professor Walton. Walton tells her Userkare’s full history just before the mummy sits up and grabs her. Userkare rips out her heart and eats. He shares some with Walton. He sees a picture of Naihla and wants her.
Victor cuts up and disposes of Carter’s body, but when he returns, the experiment is gone. He soon finds it wandering around, and it bites him before he can chloroform it. He screams, “It’s alive!” He then chains it to the wall. It looks like a zombie, but he can speak; he asks for water. He can read too.
Detective Brynner comes looking for Lenora, and he asks Naihla what she knows. She asks the old man about Lenora and Isaac; Walton was the last person to see both.
William, a student, wants to assist Victor. He’s found out about Victor’s weird history in Europe, trying to reanimate corpses. Naihla sees the bite mark on Victor’s wrist, but he doesn’t want to explain anything. She follows Victor into an abandoned building on campus.
Victor brings the monster a sandwich, and his table manners are atrocious. Naihla opens the door and sees everything. She runs away, and Victor chases her. He has to explain what he did, but she’s not supportive of his success. Meanwhile, the monster in the basement breaks his chains and gets out. An ambulance driver spots Naihla and Victor and goes inside to explore. The monster kills him quickly.
Victor is soon captured by the monster, who remembers that he was Carter. He wants Victor to transfer his brain into a young, healthy body.
Detective Brynner sneaks into the mummy lab and looks around. He finds Lenora’s body, but the mummy finds him and pulls his brain out through his nose.
Frankenstein’s monster knocks on Naihla’s front door, and she soon finds him in the house. He starts to rape her, but she stabs him and runs outside—right into Dr. Walton, who injects her with something and puts her into his car.
Soon, Walton and Naihla go into the mummy’s room, and she gets a look at him. Userkare thinks she’s the sorceress who forced his soul to be immortal. He wants her to free him.
She speaks Egyptian to him and promises that she can break the spell. Walton says she’s lying and slaps her, but the mummy obeys her command and kills Walton. The mummy takes Walton’s nose, tongue, and ears as well as other parts you don’t want cut off. Naihla finds the dead detective’s gun and shoots the mummy before running to Victor’s lab and releasing him.
The mummy, however, has followed her to Victor’s lab. The mummy punches Victor’s guts out. He’s about to stab Naihla when Frankenstein’s monster interrupts.
The two undead monsters fight with knives as Naihla tries to get Victor outside. Frankenstein pulls the mummy’s beating heart out of his chest and smashes his head.
The monster comes over to Victor and Naihla, but Victor looks dead. Without Victor to transfer his brain, he’s trapped in that ugly body. No, Victor’s not dead; he smacks the monster in the forehead with a meat cleaver. He asks her to destroy all the evidence of what he’s done and then dies.
Later, student William wanders through the burnt wreckage and finds Victor’s lab notes and voice recorder…
Commentary
Max Rhyser, as Dr. Frankenstein, doesn’t look old enough to be out of medical school, much less teaching university courses or cheating death. Boomer Tibbs, as Professor Walton, is really cool—he looks like Peter Cushing merged with Julian Richings.
The “dead” mummy prop looks really good. The mummy’s makeup is pretty good, too, although Frankenstein’s monster just looks like a zombie (which he is, more or less). He grew on me as the story progressed. The gore is very well done.
This was actually far better than I was expecting. It’s a bit long, but it does fully deal with both monsters. The “VS” part of the title makes you think there’s going to be a big battle, but there’s not much of that. It brings to mind “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (1943). There wasn’t really much of a battle there, either, but it was still fun. It’s more about the monsters than the battle.
They never show us how Naihla’s going to explain all the dead bodies with no evidence of the monsters.
It’s good!