The Fear Chamber 2001 Horror Movie Review

Lurid but not scary, awful but not bad enough to be good, Fear Chamber is unredeemed even by a late career performance by Boris Karloff, in what has to be the worst and most embarrassing movie of his career. Karloff, who was in his eighties at the time, plays Dr. Carl Mandel, a scientist whose assistants go deep into the Earth’s core, where they discover some sort of magic rock (“pure crystallized intelligence,” they call it) that the doc believes may be “the source of… the ultimate secrets of the universe.” But there’s a catch: the rock subsists on hormones that can only be produced by humans in a state of extreme terror. Enter the “fear chamber,” in which beautiful young girls (all foreigners, so no one will miss ‘em) are scared witless (after they strip down to bra and panties, of course) by way of an elaborate charade involving a spooky dungeon filled with bubbling cauldrons, horrid creepy-crawlies, and such. So far, so bad; but when the rock starts seeking out its own victims and messing with the doc’s computers, things really go downhill fast. Not that there’s very far to go. Filmed in Mexico in 1968 (producer Luis Vergara made three other movies at the same time) but not released until ‘72, Fear Chamber boasts cheesy sets, laughable special effects, appalling acting, stilted dialogue, ham-fisted editing, poor cinematography… and those are its better points. DVD extras include commentary by writer-director Jack Hill, who’s got a lot to answer for. —Sam Graham