Tubi Thursday: Fear Chamber (1968/1971)

 Another look at one of the final Boris Karloff Films.

This is another one of the quartet he filmed his parts for in 1968, but the Film was finally released in 1971.

The Film opens oddly with two people walking around in what's supposed to be a deep, underground cave.  They're looking for...something.

Meanwhile, the Father- Karloff- of the lady down there is on the phone with her the whole time...somehow.

After this, we get a prolonged bit where a woman goes to bed- making sure we see her in her underwear- before strangers turn her room into, well, a Dungeon.

She's scared, chased around and scared some more before coming face to face with Karloff in robes.

What's going on?

Well, here's the silly truth- they found a strange rock and the only thing it feeds on his pineal gland juices from people who are very scared.

How they found that out is anyone's guess.
Why they agree to elaborate rituals to scare, take juices from and then release women is also a good question to ask.

While this is going on, one lady is scheming and willing to do anything to get the creature's secrets.

She mentions once that the property of it is 'like diamonds.'

Now he's obsessed with 'getting diamonds' and becoming 'king of the world.'

This Film will go on.

After a lady dies- in a shorter ceremony- Karloff nearly also dies.

In the aftermath, he gets his Daughter and her boyfriend to stop working on the stuff.

The other two keep it up.

We then randomly get a lecture an hour in from Karloff to camera about how they found the creature.

...um, thanks?

Things go poorly for the scheming duo as the dumb guy 'bonds' with the creature and tries to kill her.
She's fed to the creature, while our...Heroes, I guess, try to stop it.

They manage to freeze the creature- who we still barely see- as the lab nearly burns down.

The happy couple survives with grandpa.

The End.

A Film that is confusing, salacious and just kind of bizarre.

To summarize, Scientists find a living rock and start terrifying random ladies to feed it.
Sure- why not?!?

This is the good kind of ridiculous at times, with the prolonged scare sequence being notable.  Too bad there's only one Scene like it.

The creatures is never fully in frame and just kind of exists in random, scattered closeups.
We only see a limb in the last 10 minutes.

This is the kind of crazy that had potential, but just kind of disappoints.
I wanted to love it- if only for Karloff- but I can't.  
Just like I can't love this terrible AI created image used on Tubi.

I nearly didn't watch it because of this.

A Film that starts out crazy and then just kind of peters out.  Oh well, Karloff didn't have to ever see it!