Review: The Curious Dr. Humpp (1969)
(aka La venganza del sexo)
Directed by: Emilio Vieyra
Starring: Ricardo Bauleo, Gloria Prat, Aldo Barbero
Written by: Emilio Vieyra
Music by: Víctor Buchino
Country: Argentina
Available on Blu-ray (AGFA/Something Weird)
IMDb
The Curious Dr. Humpp has sometimes been overstated as a rite of passage by casual reviewers or overenthusiastic fans, something to be experienced rather than watched. Personally, I would reserve that description more for films like Merhige’s Begotten or Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film. But after viewing The Curious Dr. Humpp, I can see categorizing it as something of a “checklist” film nonetheless.
The general premise is that a doctor, portrayed by Aldo Barbero, whose dead yet still angry eyes do most of the acting, is having young, amorous couples kidnapped to use in his sex-based experiments. His theory is that the key to immortality lies in the “blood forces of sex” he extracts from them at the heights of passion. Being careful to not get caught, he has created a monster henchman to perform the dirty job of coitus interruptus by seeking out sexually engaged people and secreting them back to his clinic-like lair. His captives are kept sedated until time to copulate, at which point they are given drugs to increase their arousal, thus increasing the potency of the doctor’s serum. After several disappearances, a young newspaper reporter decides to “get to the bottom of things” and infiltrates the doctor’s compound. After being easily caught, he quickly and far too easily turns the head nurse to his aid in order to stop the doctor’s experiments. This includes dealing with the doctor’s mentor, the sentient brain in a jar of another doctor whose original work he is continuing.
For the time it was made, I did consider momentarily that one of the abducted couples being two female lovers was rather forward-thinking, but it seems moreso used for shock and titillation rather than inclusivity. The sex scenes themselves are mostly as awkward as you might expect them to be, with mild boredom being aroused more than anything else — which is unfortunate, I suppose, since it seems to be the main drive of half the story. It is not so unusual that the character with the most pathos is the monster itself, a former experiment that languishes under the doctor’s unrelenting demands all while just wanting to find love of his own — even if it is only the physical kind. I will, however, give the filmmakers credit that the talking brain in a jar is not a Nazi doctor, although they do come close enough.
This movie has at its genesis something of the most desirable kind of mash-up ideology, taking disparate elements and making them work somehow — which it sort of does in its own way. Monster movie, art film, softcore adult film … it is as if Jean Rollin had made Last Year at Marienbad with a huge helping of Rob Zombie thrown in (it is in no way surprising that Zombie used some dialog from this movie in one of his songs). I was struck by a few shots in this movie, with some of its interesting camera work and moments of genuine surreal beauty. Unfortunately, this movie does suffer from the afflictions of the genres it’s mashing up, as well; acting that is either too stiff or spuriously overwrought, deeply flawed pacing, special effects that are neither special or really that effective. But if you are looking for it to get everything “right,” then you are missing the point of this movie. What you get is what you should expect when you go into watching it. It is an exercise in storytelling based on an outlandish idea, like many films we keep as secret pleasures or share stories about when we get together with like-minded friends. This is worth watching mostly for the knowing wink you can give others whom have also given it a chance.
Overall rating: 5 out of 10
