Going by its title, The Atomic Brain (AKA Monstrosity) sounded exciting if not good, in a goofy 50's - '60's way. As it turns out, the story takes place almost entirely in a dreary old house and tension is built primarily by watching people climb and descend stairs. Throw in some horrible accents and lapses in logic and we have another low budget sci-fi clunker. Despite how lame this movie is this was only the second-worst film director Joe Mascelli worked on in 1964; he was the cinematographer for the horrible The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies.
From the get go we hear a narrator, not from the wacky Criswell school of narration which I prefer, but from the dreaded Coleman Francis school of deep thinking. A radioactive suit-clad guy who will be known as Dr. Frank messes around in a laboratory with the inevitable beakers of colored liquids and electrical buzzing gizmos. The narrator drones about advances in human transplantation, wondering "… is the next step transplantation of the human brain? Many scientists say yes." If that's the case, I know some screenwriters who would be prime recipients. Then its pondered whether rich people will one day buy the bodies of the young and beautiful to use as replacement hosts. Great, that'd be all we need, dumb bimbos now afflicted with senility and incontinence.
In the lab there is a chamber, called a cyclotron here. This cyclotron is about the size of a small walk-in closet or a million dollar Manhattan apartment. An unconscious young woman is propped up inside while Dr. Frank fiddles with some instruments. We learn the girl was buried yesterday, then stolen from the cemetery. The narrator tells us that inside the dead girl's body Dr. Frank has installed a living animal's brain, though I have my doubts about that animal still being a living one. Dr. Frank sets off some atomic fission reaction in the cyclotron, which causes lights to flash and dry ice to mist. Evidently, the brain gets transplanted electrically rather than physically, which brings up so many issues that I'll just leave them to your imagination instead. The narrator blabs some more but is cut off by a loud noise in the lab; I guess he's describing the story from the same room and in real time.
At night in the cemetery, Dr. Frank sneaks past a guard to pry open a vault. A guy with some bad 'Wolfman' makeup appears and kills the guard. We learn that the wolfman guy obeys the scientist and is called the "Monstrosity". I myself would have named him something like 'Joe' for brevity's sake, which is also less likely to offend the big lug. Dr. Frank carries the 'freshly' dead body of another young woman to his car as Mr. Monstrosity follows. Forget brain transplantation being the big mystery here; I wish they'd explain what's killing all these young women!
Following some gratuitous driving footage, plus watching the car's entire wait for the front gate to open, the doctor prepares for another experimental brain transplant. We learn his lab is in the basement of an old lady's house. The old lady, Mrs. March, is seen in her bedroom with her gigolo Victor. The narrator wonders aloud why she would keep Victor around, then proclaims its probably cheaper for Mrs. March than paying a personal servant. I hate it when the narrator goes so far as to give us his own trivial thoughts on things; did he know the mike was still on?
Anyway, Mrs. March looks through some job applications for the maid position she advertised. The resumes include the women's pictures and measurements. These ladies must really be desperate as they obviously found nothing fishy about putting their bust sizes on a housekeeping job application. In fact, this is the beginning of Mrs. March's nefarious plan to have her own brain transplanted into the body of a young healthy chick. I can somewhat relate; heaven knows back in school how many times I hoped to plant something of my own into young healthy chicks. Ahh, to be young! Following ten pointless seconds of watching Dr. Frank fool around with some knobs and switches in his basement lab we cut back to Victor. He frets that the doctor's experiments have yet to be successful while the old lady worries about the police eventually discovering their scheme.
Mrs. March goes downstairs to visit Dr. Frank to voice her fears about the cops. Dr. Frank reassures her, showing her a switch that if used, will turn the entire house and all the evidence inside it into a "radioactive hole in the ground". This plain looking self-destruct switch sits right out in the open on a control panel, an easy item to confusingly turn on or even just bump into accidentally. Go figure. Mrs. March seems reassured, even though whoever pulls that switch, I assume, would also be part of that radioactive hole. Maybe she should ask the Doctor to work on a remote version, just a thought. The doctor, in his radioactive suit, checks something inside the radioactive chamber, removes the helmet part of his suit, THEN walks out of the chamber, so I suppose the suit is only a fashion statement. Mrs. March notices a zombie-like girl standing in the room, the girl who was the subject of the Doctor's first experiment. There is also a zombie-like-looking man suffering through a film... oh, wait, that was just my reflection. It turns out things didn't work out so well with that first transplant; Dr. Frank says of zombie girl, "She'll be able to move around but the brain deterioration is too extensive", so at least she can still get a job as a sideline reporter at football games.
Sitting outside an airport, three young foreign housekeeping applicants wait for their ride to doom. One of them is Bea, who hails from England by way of Kentucky, judging by her accent. Another is Anita, who is Spanish but the less said about her inflections the better. The other is Nina, who hails from Austria and will turn out to be our heroine. I was surprised to find out that Erika Peters, the actress portraying Nina, was born and raised in Germany because she speaks with your standard American accent. I can only guess she felt pressured by the other actresses not to make any attempt at linguistic accuracy. Bea chats up Nina, asking her if she knows how far Hollywood is. You're very, very far from it, Bea, and getting further away by the minute. Spanish Anita puts her accent (or lack thereof) on display: "Pour favorsse, I no speak inn-glayess very good"; judging by that, I doubt she speaks Spanish very good, either. Sleazy old gigolo Victor arrives to pick the women up.
While we watch some additional thrilling driving footage (great, I'm watching the friggin' director's cut), the narrator lets us know how lonely he is, describing the ladies' "Three fresh young live bodies!" before filling our mind with unwelcome images: "Victor still felt uneasy… making love to an 80 year old woman in the body of a 20 year old girl… its insanity!" Victor should look at the bright side: a hot woman who likes yarn instead of diamonds and the house won't have that old maple smell anymore! They finally arrive at the old house, where we again wait with baited breath, watching the front gate to the driveway open. We see the Monstrosity wander around in the woods for two seconds, just to remind us that he's in the film.
