Rating: NR
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: 09/16/2004
Sound: DD
Run Time: 70 min
Distributor/Studio: St. Clair Entertainment

Lt. Dick Chasen (Casey Adams) narrates the strange story of Charles "Butcher" Benton (Lon Chaney, Jr.), a condemned man who came back for revenge. In prison, Butcher refuses to reveal to his crooked lawyer Lowe (Ross Elliott) where he hid $600,000 from a bank robbery. Even though he's due to be executed, Butcher vows revenge on Lowe and his partners, Squeamy (Marvin Ellis) and Joe (Ken Terrell). Lowe visits stripper Eva (Marion Carr), to whom Butcher has sent a map of the spot in the Los Angeles sewer system where he hid the loot, but Lowe opens the letter first, and secretly takes the map. After the execution, Butcher's body is taken to San Francisco scientist Prof. Bradshaw (Robert Shayne) who's trying for a cure for cancer, but instead his experiments bring Butcher back to life. His cellular structure has been increased to the point where he's nearly indestructible, and he is incredibly strong. He kills the scientist and his assistant, and heads for Los Angeles. When stripper Eva turns out to be very different from the person he was expecting, Dick becomes attracted to her. Butcher, who can no longer speak, arrives and learns she doesn't have the map. Aware of Butcher's vow, he tries to inform Squeamy, but Butcher kills both Squeamy and Joe. The panic-stricken Lowe punches a cop and gets tossed in jail as a way of hiding from Butcher; when the cops threaten to release him, he talks and reveals the map. Butcher overhears Dick and the others planning to take care of him with flamethrowers, but just as he finds the loot, he's hit with a bazooka and blasted with the flamethrowers. Hideously burned, he leaves the sewers and climbs to the top of a big crane, which runs into high tension wires, and Butcher is disintegrated. And in the end, Dick and Eva get together.

~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Looking for all the world like an aged and rather dyspeptic Lennie right out of Of Mice and Men, dressed in an unattractive overcoat, Lon Chaney Jr. is not likely to frighten anyone at this late stage in the game. A mix of sci-fi theatrics, heist melodrama, and Joe Friday "just-the-facts-ma'am" blandness, The Indestructible Man is hardly the classic the video re-release artwork suggests. Incredibly cheap and attempting to mask a bad screenplay with tedious voice-over narration, Jack Pollexfen's little treatise does have its unintentionally humorous moments, however, such as Chaney's resurrected gangster single-handedly lifting the rear of a sedan to help a wayfarer change a tire while a curvaceous brunette looks on in (badly acted) horror; or stalking his prey through Los Angeles with both hands snugly kept in pockets to ward off that well known L.A. chill. But when all is said and done, two questions remain unanswered: Would a nice girl like Marian Carr really go out on no less than two dates with anyone looking as dissipated as even the pre-Indestructible Man Chaney? And why is it that mad scientists in these kind of movies always choose to bring back to life dead madmen or criminals rather than, say, professors of fine literature?

~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Be the first to review this product!