A Brilliant Conflict

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Here is a film that will make your skin crawl. Richard Basehart plays Dr. Chaney, an eye surgeon who performs many eye transplants on his daughter so that she might once again see. The transfer from VHS to DVD is poor adding to the creepy, dreamy and eerie feel of the sets and scenes. It adds to the stomach turning queasy feel of the story. Injuries of the eyes always make people feel frightened so this really strikes a cord. Seeing the after effects of the transplant surgeries and watching the prep of the surgeries is truly unsettling. The make-up effects are OK and I believe there is some real footage being used at some point but what is more disturbing is the doctor's obsession and the story itself of which I don't want to give away here. Let me just say that the film is hard to watch and I doubt anyone will want to sit through it twice. It's hard to shake. It leaves greasy little snail tracks on your brain. I am a horror fan I can tell you I don't want to see it again. I'm glad the transfer to DVD isn't all that clear. More clarity would have made it harder to watch.

I was pretty impressed with this. Well the film has a lot to live up to, being a carbon copy of so many other films in the small horror sub-genre that might be known as "brilliant surgeon kidnaps victims and operates on them in an attempt to restore his disfigured daughter to her former glory". It's been done before, most notably in the beautiful "Les Yeux Sans Visage", but let's not forget "Mill of the Stone Women", "Corruption", "Faceless" and I'm sure I've missed a few.But there are two quite good differences here: in this plot all the daughter needs is a new pair of eyeballs, and secondly, none of the unwilling "donors" in this movie actually die after their surgery, they are collected, caged and left to go mad!. Which makes for some of the best parts of the story.There are weak spots, however. Richard Basehart is pretty flat as the twisted eye surgeon Dr Chaney (oh please...!) who has no thought but for restoring his daughter's sight. He plays the role on a single note, and give the character no sense at all of anything going beneath the surface. At times I wondered of he had been studying the William Shatner school of acting, as his mumbling and lack of impact got quite annoying after a while. Also - the impossibility of the eye transplants working is obvious very early on. Right at the start, Gloria Grahame (as the doctors assistant/partner) cries "But it's impossible, it would mean destroying the optic nerve" or somesuch argument. The doctor never manages to come back to her on that. And later on, in a scene that actually made me groan out loud, a colleague sees a successful eye transplant and gasps: "But how...?" Dr Chaney just smirks and says "The real question is...why?" No - the real question really IS "how"?!! OK those things aside, the movie does a good job. For all the poor victims, it's a gruesome fate. Being drugged and then waking up in a cage with both your eyeballs missing is a horrific idea and they all manage to portray the right level of hysteria. There's even a great close up of one victim's twitching empty eye sockets near the start. Shame that later on the heavy browed "eyeless" prosthetics make them look like a bit like they are wearing the "Scream" movie killer's mask!! But the plight of these blind, caged victims is what makes the movie. The fact that none of the actors could see through their eyeless make-up probably contributes to their believable portrayals of panic. In fact the character of the daughter almost disappears from the script in the second half of the story, so small is her importance to the tale.The tension is well maintained though, and things move pretty snappily -Dr Chaney seems to go through victims at an incredible rate. And if you have any fears about losing your eyesight, I think this film will definitely give you nightmares.

The plot of this one is really disturbing and scary. "Mansion of the Doomed" provides drama, horror, suspense, and most of all cheap gore effects that will surely please the lovers of the red!The drama is portrayed by the Doctor's situation. He victimizes innocent people in order to take off their eyeballs to later practice eye surgery on her daughter in order for her to recover her sight. Crudely, any father would do the impossible to help a daughter, that's for sure. The fact that this lunatic takes the eyeballs of the victims and later cages them in his mansion is the disturbing factor. With a plot like that you can expect a brutal and chilling exploitation movie. Well there are some gruesome and disturbing scenes involving negligent eye surgery and that's about it. There's no suspense, even false scares, and you can never say that the movie shocked you, it just disturbs the audience by showing violent scenes.There's not much to comment about this one, except that if you like the sub-genre you should check this one out. It's as cheesy as you can get but it's plot makes it eerie. The movie wasn't just done correctly.

I watch about 2-4 films a day and most of those are horror films. I found a cheap VHS of "Mansion of the Doomed" and bought it since it sounded interesting. This film is truly disturbing and gory, and there are precious few horror movies i can truly say have accomplished that task.The story involves a doctor and his young daughter (early 20's i guess), and the car accident which leaves her blind. He vows to restore her vision and will do anything to achieve that goal. People begin to disappear (including her fiance) and when they wake up in a jail-like cage they have only empty sockets where their eyes once were. The only problem is that his daughter's vision from the transplants is only temporary and degenerates back to blindness every time. With every transplant his daughter becomes more scarred and can now guess what her father has been doing. More and more people begin to disappear and his jail-like cage in his mansion is becoming crowded. The ending is predictable but is quite effective.If you are sensitive when it comes to your eyes, then this film will disturb you. Even hardcore fans of the horror genre will find it difficult not to be shocked at times. This film will leave you shocked and disturbed long after the credits roll.Apparently this was an early Charles Band production, he later formed Empire Pictures and Full Moon pictures. I am surprised I had never heard of this lost gem before. Hopefully someday it will get a worthy re-release.