Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

joconnor8 One of Charles Band's earlier produced movies. A must for a Full Moon/Charles Band fan. Nice to add to your DVD collection though the quality is pretty bad even though it says Digitally Mastered. If this was mastered, I'd hate to see what it was before they worked on it. But the story is a gem of a horror for a low budget film. Also notice that in the end credits Richard Band was an assistant producer. And the screenplay was by their father Albert Band. And fans know where this combination went to. Empire Pictures and Full Moon Pictures. The B-movies improved along with musical scores to form a legendary team for several great videos such as the Puppet Master series and Subspecies, Trancers series as well as the well known Re-animator and From Beyond Lovecraft classics. Being a great fan of Charles Band, it was worth buying for my collection and the cost was reasonably low to purchase. Someone needs to see about getting some of the Paramount/Full Moon pictures released as well. Some of Band's finest videos are not available due to past problems with them. A real shame!

Paul Andrews I watched this last night on a twenty plus year old VHS tape I brought of eBay, under it's UK title 'Massacre mansion'. We open with shots of Dr Leonard Chaney (Richard Basehart) walking through a hospital, he goes to a patient and inserts his thumbs into her eye sockets. As it turns out this is just a nightmare, according to the accompanying monologue by Basehart anyway. He goes on to talk about his daughter Nancy Chaney (Trish Stewart), we see scenes of her swimming in a pool with her boyfriend Dr Dan Bryan (Lance Henriksen) with Doc Chaney lovingly looking on. He also talks of an accident. While driving along a dog runs out in front of Doc Chaney's car, he swerves to miss it and he crashes the car. Nancy, who was a passenger, is blinded in the accident. Luckily Doc Chaney isn't an ordinary Doctor, no he happens to be an eye surgeon! Using his medical expertise and help from his assistant Katherine (Gloria Grahame) he sets out to restore Nancy's sight by an eye transplant. Unfortunately the eyes need to be fresh, which means he needs to kidnap people and take their eyes out. First up it's Nancy's boyfriend and one of Doc Chaney's fellow professionals Doc Bryan. The transplant works to start with, however Nancy soon loses her sight again. Doc Chaney needs to know what went wrong so he prepares another operation, again the eyes are rejected. After several more operations he is still no closer to permanently restoring Nancy's sight. To add to his worries his basement is rapidly filling up with his eyeless victims, who he wants to keep alive so when he has discovered the secret he can give them back their sight too. Produced by Charles and Albert Band (and not a killer toy in sight!), cinematography by Andrew Davis (who would later go on to direct films such as the fugitive and under siege), make up effects by Stan Winston (terminator, jurassic park etc.) and directed by Micheal Pataki, massacre mansion has quality both in front and behind the camera. However that doesn't make it a particularly good film. The central idea is good, Doc Chaney isn't portrayed as a monster, but as a loving father who becomes more and more desperate as the hole he's dug himself gets deeper by the minute. The victims aren't simply there to be used, the film shows them trapped and blinded trying to help and comfort each other, it tries to make them part of the film that you want to care about. There's no real gore in it, except the first transplant which is shown, the others cut away before Doc Chaney begins to operate, but various shots are shown on a black and white monitor that Doc Chaney looks at to help himself, it wouldn't surprise me if this was real eye surgery footage. Whats there is, is quite effective, and the effect of the victims having no eyes is also well done. My biggest problem with it is that it's all rather dull and forgettable, and a little bit slow. Not bad I suppose, just average.

Judexdot1 This does indeed borrow from Franju's "La Yeux Sans Visage" (Eyes Without A Face/Horror Chamber Of Dr. Faustus), but while that initiated a new sub-genre with it's facial transplants, (Jesus Franco started copying this with "Awful Dr. Orloff", and has continued through today with lots more, and a threatened "Orloff" remake),"Mansion Of The Doomed" stands alone as an "eyeball transplant" film. Yeah "Body Parts" and such toyed with the idea, but this goes straight for the "optic nerve", so to speak, with graphic depictions. it's hardly a splatter movie bloodbath, but it's pretty gruesome. The roomful of eyeless victims will hang with you. It will make you wish director Michael Pataki had done more. (He's probably best remembered for some sharp dialogue scenes on "Star Trek" (original series)) I doubt that this has seen a theatrical showing in many a year. unfortunately, the video has been out of print quite a while, and the source print had seen a lot of use. --Judexdot1--

Katatonia I watch about 2-4 films a day and most of those are horror films. I found a cheap VHS of "Mansion of the Doomed" and bought it since it sounded interesting. This film is truly disturbing and gory, and there are precious few horror movies i can truly say have accomplished that task.The story involves a doctor and his young daughter (early 20's i guess), and the car accident which leaves her blind. He vows to restore her vision and will do anything to achieve that goal. People begin to disappear (including her fiance) and when they wake up in a jail-like cage they have only empty sockets where their eyes once were. The only problem is that his daughter's vision from the transplants is only temporary and degenerates back to blindness every time. With every transplant his daughter becomes more scarred and can now guess what her father has been doing. More and more people begin to disappear and his jail-like cage in his mansion is becoming crowded. The ending is predictable but is quite effective.If you are sensitive when it comes to your eyes, then this film will disturb you. Even hardcore fans of the horror genre will find it difficult not to be shocked at times. This film will leave you shocked and disturbed long after the credits roll.Apparently this was an early Charles Band production, he later formed Empire Pictures and Full Moon pictures. I am surprised I had never heard of this lost gem before. Hopefully someday it will get a worthy re-release.