THE MUTATIONS: “We’re All Freaks”
“You may think you are normal. But you are all a product of mutations. Your ancestors, our ancestors, were freaks.” –Dr. Nolter
True enough, Dr. Nolter. Every living creature is a mutant of some kind. Without mutations, human beings would basically all be identical. This is no surprise to any student of science.
Ah, but our friend Dr. Nolter takes things a bit too far in The Mutations, a low budget British fright fest from the hallowed year of 1974. Nature isn’t moving fast enough for him, so he wants to help it along some. As a fellow mad scientist, I know the feeling! But when mutations are taken too far, you wind up with genetic outcasts. In other words…freaks.
In the overly sensitive times we live in, the very word “freak” now carries a huge stigma. But it also has a devilish fascination. People have a perverse interest in nature’s “accidents”. For years and years, people paid to see such extreme deviations from the norm. These were the “freak shows” that drew crowds of tasteless gawkers morbidly mesmerized with the less fortunate. By the time The Mutations was released in 1974, the freak shows were already on their way out. Most were not sorry to see them go. But that attraction still remained, and it resulted in this movie, which was exhibited at the cinematic equivalent of the freak show…the grindhouse.
Tasteless or not, it’s hard to tear your eyes away from The Mutations, which was also released under the name The Freakmaker. In addition to grotesque monsters created by science gone mad, the film featured real “freaks” in its cast. The line between real and imaginary is thus blurred, resulting in a state of lurid unease.
The Mutations is by no means a “good” movie. But neither is it a terrible one. It was directed by one of the greatest cinematographers in the history of film, Jack Cardiff. Cardiff’s career went from the silents all the way into the 21st century and included films like The African Queen, The Red Shoes, Rambo: First Blood Part II and dozens more. And among the film’s cast, it boasted actors such as renowned Donald Pleasance as Dr. Nolter and no less than the future fourth incarnation of Time Lord Dr. Who, Tom Baker.
I suspect neither Pleasance nor Baker would put this movie towards the top of their resume. But they’re in it and there’s no escaping the fact. Also popping up in the film was European B-movie star Brad Harris (who was a co-producer) and the great dwarf actor Michael Dunn, unforgettable as the evil Dr. Loveless in The Wild, Wild West TV show. And in keeping with its exploitation bloodline, there are some lovely ladies seen in various states of undress, including the gorgeous Julie Ege, a one-time Ms. Norway.
Any movie dealing with the subject of real-life freaks will be compared to that notorious Tod Browning film of 1932, Freaks. That film shocked people so much on its first release that it went virtually unseen over the subsequent forty years. It, too, features a bevy of real-life freak show workers. In some ways, The Mutations is an uncredited remake of Freaks combined with a mad scientist film. Both movies explore the inner workings of a traveling carnival, and both attempt to show the freaks as real people. Both also climax with the freaks wreaking horrible revenge on those who have abused them.
But where Browning’s Freaks always seems to take the side of the freaks and portrays them with a lot of compassion, there’s more of sheer exploitation in how they’re shown in The Mutations. The later movie dwells on the grotesque aberrations of Popeye, who can shoot his eyeballs out of their sockets like a cartoon character, and the Alligator Girl, whose condition has made her scaly-skinned and bald. The result is that The Mutations becomes an exploitative freak show itself. But one thing is for sure, the scene where the carnival characters display their deformities in front of a real crowd is absolutely unforgettable.
Let’s dive into the strange and twisted world of The Mutations. Spoilers follow!
Perhaps the most striking scene of the movie is the opening credits. Here we see just how great a cinematographer Jack Cardiff was. As the credits roll, we see beautiful microscopic photography of small plants growing, blooming and changing their shape. Many of these plants seem to be insectivores like honeydew and pitcher plants, mixed in with molds and fungus. While these fascinating scenes unfold, we hear a weird soundtrack mixing laidback modern jazz with electronic sounds. The movie’s soundtrack, by Basil Kirchin and Jack Nathan, also grabs the attention. In many ways, this opening credit sequence is the best part of the film.
We transition to the lecture room of a London college, where genetic horticulturist Prof. Nolter is delivering a lecture to a crowd of young students. Nolter is played by Donald Pleasance, who gives a pretty subdued performance. Pleasance was known for playing disturbed or unbalanced characters; Nolter was certainly as nutty as any of them, but Pleasance is so quiet and restrained as Nolter that he seems to be on the verge of falling asleep. At several points, I had to struggle to hear what he was saying.
Using a huge ray machine to turn a moldy orange back to a healthy one, Nolter expresses his belief that controlled mutation is the key to mankind’s future. Specifically, he believes that man’s genes can be combined with plant DNA to create a superior creature: “I want to see plants that can walk and men who can take root in the ground.” Among the students are a group of friends: vivacious redhead Bridget (Olga Anthony), Scandinavian knockout Hedi (Julie Ege), smart-mouthed pretty boy Tony (Scott Antony) and Tony’s blond girlfriend Lauren (Jill Haworth). Tony is openly contemptuous of Nolter’s theories, but the girls seem to find the Professor fascinating. Ain’t that the way it always is?
After class, the friends meet with Dr. Brian Redford, a scientist who’s both greatly interested in Nolter’s work and getting to know Hedi better. The group parts ways, and Bridget takes a shortcut home through a park…where she is surreptitiously stalked by a pair of midgets. Sensing their presence, Bridget starts to run…straight into the arms of a grotesque looking character in heavy coat and fedora hat. This is Mr. Lynch.
Lynch is portrayed by none other than Tom Baker, who the very next year would become beloved as the fourth version of Dr. Who. Strangely enough, Lynch looks like a distorted image of the Fourth Doctor, wearing much the same kind of hat and coat. But that’s where the similarities end. Where the Doctor is charming and eccentric, Lynch is a sadistic, self-loathing man whose features are heavily distorted in a fashion resembling John Merrick, the Elephant Man.
Lynch is co-owner of a local carnival and freak show, but ironically, he treats the freaks in his care with disgust. Baker was known for playing villainous characters before he landed the Dr. Who role and it’s safe to say that Lynch is the seediest and most degenerate of them all.
It turns out that Lynch is working with Prof. Nolter, who is kidnapping his own students to experiment on them. Why he would use them instead of total strangers is a mystery that’s never explained…unless he secretly despises them?
Nolter’s base of operations is a beautiful old mansion with a huge lab full of strange, mutated plants. He winds up feeding a whole rabbit to one of them! Lynch is working with Nolter because the Professor has promised to “make him normal”. Poor Bridget is Nolter’s latest guineapig and whatever treatment he uses on her fails. Lynch will take what’s left of her to his freak show and exhibit her. She’s probably not the first one of Nolter’s failures to meet this fate.
Lynch runs his exhibit in partnership with Mr. Burns (Michael Dunn), who was one of the midgets chasing Bridget through the park. Burns’ relationship with Lynch is very rocky as he feels he’s getting in over his head. He worries that the carnival will be shut down and the other freaks, whom he feels very protective of, will be out of a job. But the menacing Lynch is hard to reason with.
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Burns was the last part for Michael Dunn, who literally died as soon as his role in The Mutations was filmed. Despite being an extremely talented actor (and also an excellent singer), Dunn was saddled with a lot of “evil dwarf” parts, such as his role in Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (that crazy movie deserves its own article). Here, he tries to inject as much humanity and pathos into his role as possible, but one senses he was probably not thrilled with it. He was only 38 years old at the time of his death.
Meanwhile, our student friends are growing concerned about Bridget’s absence, Hedi in particular. But matters have not yet reached a critical point. To blow off some steam, the gang decides to visit the nearby carnival…the same one run by Burns and Lynch. At first, they indulge in usual hijinks like shooting games and tests of strength. Finally, after hearing barker Burns’ pitch, they buy tickets to the freak show.
Now we enter a somewhat uncomfortable portion of the movie. For we become voyeurs along with the fictional characters and the very real crowd who have paid to witness the grotesque.
First, we get the hirsute bearded lady…not an ordinary sight, but not terribly shocking. The shocking soon arrives in the form of Popeye and wow, this guy is something else. He has absolute control over his eyeballs, rolling them around independently and shooting them out of his skull. I kept thinking of old Warner Brothers cartoon characters when watching Popeye’s act. The Alligator Girl is next…an unfortunate victim of a skin disease that makes her flesh rough and reptilian. She tells us matter-of-factly that she has raised seven children despite her deformity…and in a final act, she removes a wig to reveal a bald head. Keep in mind these are all real people and not made-up actors.
We see a “Pretzel Boy” who was born with no bones in his legs…legs that hang like limp spaghetti from a shortened torso. There’s a young girl who has become a “Living Skeleton”…this one makes Lauren and Hedi cover their eyes, while even smart aleck Tony is taken aback. There’s a little “Animal Girl” with a furry face and coarse features. There might have been some makeup used on this one, I think.
But to me, the real shocker is the “Human Pincushion”…this cadaverous fellow sticks long sharp needles all the way through various parts of his body, including his torso. This guy made ME cover up my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at here! Yet each of these so-called freaks speak to us conversationally about their afflictions, making themselves as human as the rest of us.
The exhibition is lurid, but you can’t take your eyes off it. This is the devilish attraction of the freak show. To finish things off, Burns asks the bravest in the audience to look at a “special attraction” kept in a pit-like area. Our friends work up their nerve to see it; the girls cry out in horror at whatever lurks in the pit, which we don’t see. Something about it seems strangely familiar to Tony…
Lynch reports to Nolter the next day, telling him that their last experiment passed away in the night at the freak show. We realize that the “experiment” must have been Bridget…who was also whatever unspeakable thing was in the pit. Nolter demands that Lynch acquire another test subject and Lynch once again asks when he will be cured. Nolter advises patience, but it is clear Lynch’s patience is wearing dangerously thin. The same can be said for Burns, when Lynch meets him later. Burns has had enough of the criminal shenanigans the carnival is involved in and wants to get out of the situation. But Lynch menacingly tells him to stay the course.
Late the next night, Tony secretly returns to the carnival once it has shut down. He must look at the “thing” again and see if his hunch is right. It’s quite a spooky scene as he creeps around the darkened carnival, being followed by both Lynch and one of the midgets. And whatever one thinks of carnivals and freakshows, Cardiff really captured the atmosphere of one well.
Tony makes it to the pit where the “thing” is, and we get a look at its dead body: a weird, elongated goblin-like creature with blank white eyes and fish-like mouth. This is what’s left of Bridget! How Tony could recognize her is a mystery, but he won’t get an opportunity to reveal his knowledge, as Lynch subdues him and transports him to Nolter’s lab after an eerie chase through the “haunted tunnel”. Now he will replace Bridget as the mad doctor’s latest test subject! He is injected with what looks like the essence of a Venus Flytrap. One suspects the dour Nolter is probably getting secret enjoyment in shutting up the guy who made smart remarks during his lectures!
It’s pretty obvious that Nolter’s treatment has a disastrous effect on Tony. In a short amount of time, he is transformed into an absolute abomination combining aspects of man and plant. The make-up effects here are outrageously grotesque and unforgettable, as poor Tony quickly devolves. Despite the horror of his transformation, he manages to escape Nolter’s lab, which means he is now loose on the streets of London!
Lynch’s self-hatred climbs to new heights when he confronts the rest of the freaks. They are back at the carnival celebrating a birthday for one of the female dwarves, complete with dancing and birthday cake in a scene very reminiscent of the one in Freaks where the freaks celebrate the marriage of one of their own. This idyllic scene, which again shows the human side of these characters, is destroyed by the berserk Lynch, who smashes their dinner and calls them all “a bunch of freaks”! Now we see anger and resentment from these unfortunate characters that will soon boil over. Burns realizes something must be done about Lynch and soon…
The now monstrous Tony finds a place under a bridge to hide. He later kills a luckless tramp who stumbles onto his hiding place…there is obviously a more primitive side starting to arise in Tony. Yet he is still driven to contact Lauren, and he shows up at her apartment, coyly knocking at the door. When she answers, the lumbering monstrosity approaches her, inarticulately groaning and reaching out with hands turning into leaves. It drives poor Lauren mad and she screams her head off before collapsing. Poor Tony is forced to go on the run again after a policeman arrives to investigate.
Nolter tells Lynch that he needs yet another subject now that Tony has escaped. Lynch refuses to help at first, but Nolter tells him that his last treatment has actually worked…Tony is alive and healthful (ignoring the fact that he is an inhuman monstrosity). Lynch agrees and sets his sights on abducting yet another attractive girl…Hedi!
Matters rush to a horrifying conclusion as all our remaining players collide. The freaks are looking for justice against Lynch…Tony is looking for vengeance against the mad Prof. Nolter…and Redford is desperate to find the kidnapped Hedi (who gets snatched right out of the bathtub, a scene sure to get any red-blooded male perked up!). I won’t give away the conclusion, but I will say that everybody seems to get what they’re after. Tony’s final mutation is outlandishly bizarre and grotesque and must be seen to be believed. As for the final scene of the movie, remember, this is the ‘70s and few were the horror films that featured a happy ending!
The Mutations could be rightly called a piece of trash, but it remains a fascinating piece of trash, nonetheless. Even in the years of decline, Jack Cardiff was an effective and inventive director, coming up with some unforgettable scenes here. The acting was not Oscar quality, but it was more than good enough to do the job and nowhere near what you’d get in an Al Adamson or H.G. Lewis movie. Tom Baker created a uniquely disturbing character in Lynch, a man that hated everybody, even himself. Michael Dunn, on the verge of his own death, gave Burns as much pathos and humanity as he could. The only disappointment acting-wise is Donald Pleasance, who seems lethargic.
The film had elements of both old and new. It’s reworking of the plot from Freaks—indeed, the entire concept of sideshow freaks—harkens back to an earlier time. But the talk of cloning, gene splicing and genetic mutation hinted at a new age of scientific discovery…and the horrors that could come with it. Toss in some truly gruesome monsters, some sexy girls and a weirdly memorable soundtrack and you have a rather unique piece of early-‘70s horror cinema that’s worth a watch.
