Showing posts with label Marianna Hill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marianna Hill. Show all posts
 |
| David Mooney (Manzy) and Ruth Roman |
Social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) is a widow who lives with her mother-in-law, Judith (Beatrice Manley). She asks to be assigned to the case of the Wadsworth family, who live in a big rundown house and live off the money given them by the state for the care of a member they call "Baby." Although he has the mind of an infant and sleeps in a crib, Baby (David Mooney/Manzy) is actually a grown man. Ann comes to believe that his problem isn't true retardation, but that for some reason his mother (Ruth Roman) is holding him back developmentally. In the meantime Baby is poked with an electric prod by his sadistic sister Alba (Suzanne Zenor); his other sister Germaine (Marianna Hill of The Astral Factor) takes off her clothes and climbs into the crib with him; and in an even more tasteless scene -- if that were possible -- his babysitter abuses him. But as awful as the Wadsworths may be, is it possible that Ann Gentry is even worse and has her own plans for Baby ...? The Baby is well-acted, especially by Mooney, but it is so exploitative of the mentally ill that it's rather hard to take at times. The movie gets points for originality, but little else. Even the plot twists are pretty sick. This is the kind of movie that does no one's career any good. Tod Andrews, who plays a doctor, was the star of From Hell It Came.
Verdict: Too repellent to be entertaining. For a more sensitive look at the mentally-challenged see A Child is Waiting. **.
Roger Sands (Frank Ashmore) is a psychotic who murdered his unloving, self-absorbed mother and while in prison has developed the ability to enter the astral plane, become invisible, and escape. Once out, he runs about strangling women who remind him of his mother and/or who testified against him. Lt. Charles Barrett (Robert Foxworth of Prophecy) is the chief detective on the case, assisted by Holt (Mark Slade); both do a fairly miserable job of protecting the victims, but the killer is highly unusual. The Astral Factor isn't a very good movie, its chief interest being its bizarre C-list cast: Stefanie Powers is Barrett's nutty girlfriend; Elke Sommer is one of the potential victims; Sue Lyon is Sands' mother; Leslie Parrish [Missile to the Moon] and Marianna Hill are two other victims; and Cesare Danova and Percy Rodrigues also have small roles. Elke Sommer [Deadlier Than the Male] actually gives a pretty good account of herself as a nervous lady all alone in a big mansion waiting for Roger to show while the cops stand by. The film meanders terribly but there is some suspense at the end. The scientific/paranormal aspects of the script are pretty much muddled.
Verdict: The poster is much better than the movie. **.