This film is bundled on a DVD with THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT and while they are both very bad, perhaps THE THING WITH TWO HEADS is a bit worse--though this is like comparing cholera to cancer--they're both quite nasty!! This film from American-International is a strange melange of genres--being a horror, Blaxploitation, action comedy all rolled into one. And, sadly, it really does none of these genres very well.
It begins with a rich racist doctor (Ray Milland) announcing that he's dying and only has a couple weeks to live. It seems that his body is dying and he has a crazy notion to graft his body onto a donor body AND eventually have the donor's head sliced off--placing him in total control of the body. Considering that this is illegal and immoral, they decide to find a guy on death row. But the only available donor is the very large and very Black Rosey Grier. This is a serious problem not just because the head and body would not match, but because Milland plays a very, very racist man and he's not happy when he awakens to see his new body!
Rosey isn't particularly thrilled by the new arrangement and instead of just sitting by passively until they saw his head off, he decides to run away in order to prove he isn't a murderer as well as to get someone to remove Milland. In this escape scene the film degenerates to amazingly low levels of entertainment. The getaway seems to last almost a third of the film and looks more like an episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard" or SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT with its ridiculous police chase. It begins with Grier/Milland AND a Black doctor jumping on the back of a mountain bike in a race. Grier's riding ability is better than that of anyone in the race as the others just keep falling off the bikes again and again--leading to Grier et all actually winning the race!!! Then, cops begin to give chase and in the process 14 police cars are totaled and the guys escape!! Talk about ridiculous!
There's more to the film than this and it actually is occasionally funny (I love the line the girlfriend says when she asks if they have two of EVERYTHING), but in spite of this it still really stinks. But, if you are a bad movie fan, you actually might like it because it's THAT bad--so bad you will laugh along with it--particularly since the film never really takes itself very seriously.
It begins with a rich racist doctor (Ray Milland) announcing that he's dying and only has a couple weeks to live. It seems that his body is dying and he has a crazy notion to graft his body onto a donor body AND eventually have the donor's head sliced off--placing him in total control of the body. Considering that this is illegal and immoral, they decide to find a guy on death row. But the only available donor is the very large and very Black Rosey Grier. This is a serious problem not just because the head and body would not match, but because Milland plays a very, very racist man and he's not happy when he awakens to see his new body!
Rosey isn't particularly thrilled by the new arrangement and instead of just sitting by passively until they saw his head off, he decides to run away in order to prove he isn't a murderer as well as to get someone to remove Milland. In this escape scene the film degenerates to amazingly low levels of entertainment. The getaway seems to last almost a third of the film and looks more like an episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard" or SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT with its ridiculous police chase. It begins with Grier/Milland AND a Black doctor jumping on the back of a mountain bike in a race. Grier's riding ability is better than that of anyone in the race as the others just keep falling off the bikes again and again--leading to Grier et all actually winning the race!!! Then, cops begin to give chase and in the process 14 police cars are totaled and the guys escape!! Talk about ridiculous!
There's more to the film than this and it actually is occasionally funny (I love the line the girlfriend says when she asks if they have two of EVERYTHING), but in spite of this it still really stinks. But, if you are a bad movie fan, you actually might like it because it's THAT bad--so bad you will laugh along with it--particularly since the film never really takes itself very seriously.