Womaneater (1958)
** (out of 4)
Silly horror flick from Britain about a mad scientist (George Coulouris) who goes to the Amazon and brings back a tree that can give off a serum that can be used to bring the dead back to life. The only catch is that you've got to feed the tree young girls. This forgotten flick certainly isn't a good movie and sadly the end result doesn't live up to the nice title but there are enough interesting ideas here to make it worth sitting through at least once. It's a real shame that some of the Hollywood productions of the day didn't put more thought into their films. Sure, the idea of a tree that needs to be fed in order to bring the dead back to life is a silly idea but at least it shows a bit of imagination, which is something that was missing from countless other films from this era. I think the biggest problem is that there's really not much done with the idea. For the most part the tree stays down in the basement and we get to see it in action about three times. Nothing too special as we see the women enter the tree and that's pretty much it. The entire "tree" sub-genre never really took off and it's easy to see why simply because you can't do much with it. The film was certainly inspired by the sexuality from the Hammer horror films. Vera Day plays the dumb blonde here and I must admit that I was really amazed by her. Not her performance because it's pretty horrid but her breasts. Yes, I said it. There's a sequence here where her mechanic boyfriend just looks out them as she holds a light on them. The amazing thing in this sequence is seeing how her sweater, so tight to her body, actually splits her in two. I won't even try to explain it but you'll know the scene when it happens. These tight sweaters to show off cleavage where a big thing in this era and how it's used here is certainly the highlight of the movie. Coulouris is decent in his role but he doesn't bring too much life to the picture. The tree effects aren't anything overly special but there's a very good music score by Edwin Astley. WOMANEATER has been forgotten to time and that's understandable. There's certainly nothing ground breaking here and it's only recommended to those who must see everything the genre offered up during this era.