In 1974’s The Mutations, Donald Pleasence stars as Professor Nolter. A genetic scientist, Nolter is convinced that plants are the greatest examples of evolution. During the classes he teaches at the local university, Nolter raves about the wonders of the Venus flytrap. Is there anything better than a plant specifically developed to eat bugs? When we see Nolter’s students listening to him, the majority of them appear kind of bored with the whole thing. Only Brian Redford (Brad Harris) is really that interested in anything Nolter has to say.
What no one knows is that Nolter has been conducting experiments of his own. Nolter has hired the deformed Lynch (Tom Baker) to abduct young women and eventually young men so that Nolter can try to speed up their evolution by injecting them with plant DNA… or something. To be honest, I’m not totally sure what Nolter was doing in that laboratory, and I kind of suspect the same was true for the screenwriter. What I can say for sure is that there were a lot of close-ups of the hypodermic needle Nolter was holding in his hand. Unfortunately, all of Nolter’s experiments have failed, and his victims have been transformed into strange creatures. One girl becomes a lizard woman. One guy is turned into a crab-like plant monster.
Fortunately for Nolter, Lynch owns a carnival, and Nolter’s victims just become the latest attractions. Lynch was himself once a carnival “freak.” He was known as “the ugliest man in the world,” and he’s never recovered from the shame and the trauma of being taunted for years. Nolter has promised to cure Lynch of his disfigurement in return for Lynch continuing to abduct new subjects for him. However, when a group of Nolter’s students come to suspect that a classmate has been transformed into a reptile, everything starts to come crashing down.
The Mutations is an odd film. On the one hand, the carnival setting and Donald Pleasence’s mad scientist definitely feel like they could have been lifted from any number of old, black-and-white horror films. At the same time, the nudity, the gore, and the clear implication that Lynch is a pervert, along with everything else, clearly establish that this film was made in the ’70s. Indeed, there’s a scene in which some students talk about dropping acid that practically seems to be shouting, “See? This film is modern and hip!” The film works best when it pays homage to the older films that inspired it. As always, Donald Pleasence seems as if he was born to play an obsessive and quite mad scientist. Tom Baker is brutish as Lynch, but he also communicates the pain that Lynch carries in his heart. (Baker especially deserves credit for managing to give such an expressive performance despite acting underneath a ton of makeup.) Michael Dunn also gives a good performance as the sympathetic leader of the freaks. Unfortunately, the college students are never as interesting. Our heroes are duds. Luckily, the villains are entertaining.
This film was directed by cinematographer Jack Cardiff and, not surprisingly, it looks great. This was Cardiff’s final film as a director. After this film, he returned to working as a cinematographer. One of his last credits was for Rambo: First Blood Part II. No matter what you may think of that film, it looks good! The same can be said of The Mutations.
