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| It seems that a family curse has plagued the Drake family for a few hundred years.All of the males die at the age of 60 and lose their heads.I've heard of absent mindedness but that is a stretch. After Jon's brother dies of heart failure he rushes to Kenneth's home.They open the coffin in the living room but it is too late!Somebody has absconded with ol' Kenneth's cranium. The police lead by Lt Jeff Rowen quickly consult Dr Emil Zurich, a noted authority on South American headhunters.It seems that over 200 years ago Jon Drake's ancestor tried to rescue an offical from his company.The official was kidnapped by a tribe of headhunters deep in the amazon.He was too late so Drake murdered the entire tribe except for the witch doctor. (Oooh bad move.Always be thorough when exterminating the locals).The doc placed the aforementioned curse on the Drake family.The heads have been removed and shrunken, then placed in the Drake family crypt. Then Zutai the gruesome zombie with his lips sown shut appears.Zatui attacks poor old Jon.It looks like the end of the line for the Drake family unless the cop can put down his donut and figure out who the brains is behind the killings.Jon is near death and Zatui is coming for his head! I like this movie.Granted it is cheap and shot on threadbare sets of which there are few. However this is a cast of old timers who really do the job well.Old familiars like Henry Daniell as the evil Dr Zurich,Eduard Franz as Jonathan Drake, Grant Richards as Lt Rowen and Paul Wexler as Zutai the zombie all do well in their roles.There isn't much in the way of a whodunit but that is half the fun.This movie moves along nicely and is well directed by Edward Cahn. We are treated to some rather unsettling scenes of head shrinking which may have caused a few heads to turn from the screen in it's day.Makes me want to cry out "Soup is on!".You also have to love Zutai's wobbly dagger. This was available at one point on laserdisc as part of a 4 movie set.It probably will show up on cable before it ever turns up on dvd. |
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