What happens after a body dies? Does the brain die instantly like the rest of the body, or does it desperately reach out to expose its last thoughts? This is what scientist Boris Karloff is desperate to find out in this silly science fiction film where the brain in question is that of his beloved wife who is suddenly taken from him in a freak accident. Karloff's daughter is scared of the reclusive turn dad takes all of a sudden and is horrified by his sudden retirement from the university he works in and the sudden move he makes to a New England coastal town with local fake spiritualist Anne Revere. The community they move to are instantly suspicious of their odd behavior, and when their housekeeper doesn't come home from work one day, they storm the cliff side mansion to confront the owners.
Karloff tries to hold back from being hammy in his low-key performance, but it is obvious a variation of roles he had played many times before, most recently in several other films at Columbia ("The Man They Could Not Hang", "Before I Hang"). Anne Revere is another dark villainess in the shadow of Gale Sondergaard and Judith Anderson's recent turns as somberly dressed housekeepers in films such as "The Cat and the Canary" and "Rebecca". Her performance, however, is closer to that of Rafaela Ottiano's in "The Devil Doll", with a touch of Gloria Holden's vampire in "Dracula's Daughter".
The moody cliff side mansion is a memorable photographic shot, and the laboratory that Karloff and Revere live in is one that Edward D. Wood Jr. would envy. A Lon Chaney Jr. like monster, having gone from being somewhat normal to a dominated servant, comes off like Universal's later horror goon, Glenn Strange. Unlike some other genuine bad movies, "The Devil Commands" is actually pretty fun to watch, definitely worthy of a single watching by horror movie enthusiasts. But it has a been-there, done-that feeling about it, and a genuine lack of imagination in it script and execution that makes this a poor entry in the second era of sound horror films.
Karloff tries to hold back from being hammy in his low-key performance, but it is obvious a variation of roles he had played many times before, most recently in several other films at Columbia ("The Man They Could Not Hang", "Before I Hang"). Anne Revere is another dark villainess in the shadow of Gale Sondergaard and Judith Anderson's recent turns as somberly dressed housekeepers in films such as "The Cat and the Canary" and "Rebecca". Her performance, however, is closer to that of Rafaela Ottiano's in "The Devil Doll", with a touch of Gloria Holden's vampire in "Dracula's Daughter".
The moody cliff side mansion is a memorable photographic shot, and the laboratory that Karloff and Revere live in is one that Edward D. Wood Jr. would envy. A Lon Chaney Jr. like monster, having gone from being somewhat normal to a dominated servant, comes off like Universal's later horror goon, Glenn Strange. Unlike some other genuine bad movies, "The Devil Commands" is actually pretty fun to watch, definitely worthy of a single watching by horror movie enthusiasts. But it has a been-there, done-that feeling about it, and a genuine lack of imagination in it script and execution that makes this a poor entry in the second era of sound horror films.