This is a very unusual low-budget horror film. While it stars perennial horror star John Carradine, he plays a most unusual sort of 'mad' scientist. That's because while the idea of reanimating the dead seems quite crazy, his motivation and demeanor are rather normal. In fact, he even seems kindly and very well-intentioned. His notion is that a recently dead person might be brought back to life using electrical gizmos--and it's really not all that different from using shock to bring heart attack patients back to life today. Unfortunately, the secret formula and the flashing electric gizmos seem to be only partly successful--leading to a deathlike marble appearance on one corpse followed by an almost immediate re-death. Soon, the good doctor tries this formula out on his dog and the animal is revived. But when his wife is murdered by an evil voodoo priestess (seriously, folks), will he dare use the technique on his wife? And, if so, what will her new life be like? While the film isn't as silly as you'd expect, the film does suffer some from a relatively lifeless script. You want to like the film but there are just too many slow patches. A 3 is perhaps a bit overly generous but the movie doesn't quite raise to the appropriate level of awfulness to earn a 2.
Review of The Face of Marble
