| The Devil Commands |
| The Devil Commands is an obscure Boris Karloff 1941 Columbia programmer
that didn't turn up on tv too often (if at all). It was the last of the five "mad doctor" films that Karloff did at Columbia. The Man They Could Not Hang,The Man With Nine Lives & Before I hang were just a few of the others.This film ranks up there with Not Hang as the best of the lot. Karloff plays Dr Julian Blair who has invented a machine that can read brainwaves. His theory is that each individual has distinct brainwave patterns. Science fiction of the 40's becoming reality years later. Blair's wife is a test subject in a demonstration for his colleagues and her waves are recorded. Later that night Blair's wife is killed while running errands for the return of their daughter Anne. Struck with grief Blair discovers that his wife's brain patterns live on when he accidentally starts his machine back up again. Meeting with a phoney spiritualist who actually has some powers Blair is convinced he can communicate with the dead. By using the medium as a "living battery" he fails to convince his peers that he can pierce the veil of the beyond. Rejected by his friends Blair and the medium move to the New England coast where they can work on the project in secret. Using the medium and corpses dug out of graveyards and put into diving suit like apparatus, Blair frantically tries to establish communication with his dead wife. The local townsfolk become suspicious when the graveyards are vandalized and loved ones turn up missing. The plot comes to a boil when Blair's daughter returns and he decides to use her in a last ditch effort to contact the dead. Tragedy looms large and Blair may actually rip open the dimension to the world beyond. Karloff is very sympathetic as a man who pines away for his departed wife. Yet he also is extremely driven to contact her no matter what the cost. The medium is creepy, cold and quite domineering as she realizes there is power and mone to be made via Blair if he is right. The movie never drags as it is only 65 minutes long. Nice miniature work and some creepy outdoor scenes work well. The corpses chained together around a table in the weird suits also will stay with you. Columbia delivers an okay dvd at a somewhat high retail price. This is a rather rare print but they could have sold more to the general public at half the price. |
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