In the 1930s, Boris Karloff was initially with a relatively important studio (Universal) and was enjoying a lot of success. Later, he did some dandy films for Warner Brothers, but he also made some grade-Z films for poverty row studio, Monogram. All these films were fun to watch and often a bit silly, but the Monogram ones were known for their very low production values and silly plots. After THE APE (1940), Karloff was thrilled to get out of his contract with Monogram and ready to go on to better things. It SHOULD have been that way when he made THE DEVIL COMMANDS for Columbia. Sure, like Universal in the 1930s, Columbia was not the biggest of studios but it did have decent budgets and production values and I expected this to be a much better style of film than THE APE....but unfortunately, it seemed a lot like the exact same old style of film and nothing more. Like THE APE and the rather bland Mr. Wong films for Monogram, this one was nothing special.
It stars Karloff as a kindly scientist with the best of intentions that ultimately becomes a mad man--using science to create abominations. Considering how often he did this, the whole thing seems very, very derivative and stale. We've seen this all before and there is nothing that makes this film stand out from many others just like it. Also, the narration and the epilogue just seem heavy-handed and unnecessary.
Is it fun and worth a look (particularly to lovers of B-horror films), yes. But it could have been so much better.
It stars Karloff as a kindly scientist with the best of intentions that ultimately becomes a mad man--using science to create abominations. Considering how often he did this, the whole thing seems very, very derivative and stale. We've seen this all before and there is nothing that makes this film stand out from many others just like it. Also, the narration and the epilogue just seem heavy-handed and unnecessary.
Is it fun and worth a look (particularly to lovers of B-horror films), yes. But it could have been so much better.