The Surgeon (1995)

Isabell is a sexy "Doctor"

but a stinky actress, anyway, a doctor she was seeing finds a cure for boneloss, muscle and tissue regenoration. He's a genius! But as we all know all genius leads to madness. So he's fired, then 4 years later turnes up at the hospital and starts killing everyone that was involved in getting him fired. So, so triller/drama. Ok for a rainey day. March 19, 2007

Stick out your tongue and say "Ho-hum"

From a director you've never heard of comes a totally derivative horror film starring a cast of mostly unknowns with a few prominent faces tossed out in cameos. Yep, it's time to review Carl Schenkel's (who?) 1995 film "The Surgeon." O.K., maybe I'm being a bit too harsh here. Schenkel apparently lensed the Christopher Lambert vehicle "Night Moves" and the early Denzel Washington picture "The Mighty Quinn," so he's not completely obscure. But, in the words of Janet Jackson, "What have you done for me lately?" The answer must inevitably be "not much" if "The Surgeon" is any indication. One great thing about exploring the highways and byways of the horror genre is the constant discovery of movies I have never heard about before. I spend a lot of time trying to follow the ins and outs of horror movies and I STILL come across stuff almost every day that has me scratching my head in bewilderment. Then it's time to track down copies to watch, a task made infinitely easier thanks to the advent of DVD. Before digital video discs arrived on the scene, scoping out the horror field was time consuming, expensive, and frustrating. Not anymore--even the most obscure stuff is available for rental as companies try to provide enough product for a hungry market.

Problem is, watching "The Surgeon" is likely to give the viewer a case of indigestion. Set in a hospital (duh), the movie introduces us to Dr. Theresa McCann (Isabel Glasser), Dr. Stein (Malcolm McDowell), Dr. Benjamin Hendricks (James Remar), Dr. Julian Matar (Sean Haberle), Dr. Ed Mittlesbay (Charles Dance), and a police lieutenant named McEllwaine (Peter Boyle). Who are all these people and what interest could they possibly hold for the dedicated horror viewer? Sorry, I haven't an answer to the last part of that question. I can tell you that Dr. Stein is an egomaniacal researcher working on some crackpot theory that would make kidney dialysis obsolete. Impressive, eh? Well, it is until a monkey he experiments on in front of a lecture hall full of physicians goes bonkers. The concerned McCann, obviously the heroine of this movie, confronts Stein about his questionable ethics and begins to interfere with his patients. One of these unfortunate wretches dies horribly, and McCann takes the rap when hospital administrator Mittlesbay steps into the picture. Now suspended from her duties as healer of the sick, McCann falls in with the brilliant but egotistical intern Hendricks to find out why Stein's abhorrent practices go unchecked.

The two return to the hospital in time to witness Stein's demise at the hands of Dr. Julian Matar, a crazed lunatic exiled from the hospital some time before for attempting to perform regeneration experiments on patients. Matar takes a whack at McCann at this point too, but the police show up and cart the loony off to jail. Whew! Nope, not yet. Matar escapes and returns to the hospital in order to dispatch McCann's patients with extreme prejudice. He's not doing it to be mean per se, but because he wants to collect their pituitary extract so he can keep his experiment running, an experiment that we soon discover comes straight out of some shady stuff going on in National Socialist Germany during World War II. I wonder if insurance covers the procedure? Anyway, the cops reenter the picture and work with McCann and Hendricks to capture the perverse Matar. Good luck! This guy is one clever customer who always stays one step ahead of the authorities. Too, whenever he gets hurt he just injects himself with some of his serum and rapidly returns to fighting speed. In the process of tormenting McCann and extracting his pituitary fluids, Matar finds time to torture a few people to death in extraordinarily nasty ways. Mittlesbay's demise alone is worth watching, but a few other people bite the bullet before the film grinds to a halt.

"The Surgeon" does have a few things going for it, namely some effective gore sequences involving a needle plunged through an eye, a mouth stitched shut, and a body hit with so many bullets that it makes the Sonny Corleone assassination in "The Godfather" look like a hangnail in comparison. A few of the performances aren't that bad--primarily those from McDowell, Boyle, and Remar--but only Remar hangs around long enough to elevate the film. Isabel Glasser is a pretty lady yet an odd choice to play the lead role. And the guy they found to fill the Matar role obviously went to the William Shatner School of Overacting. The biggest problems in "The Surgeon" are its lack of originality and its inability to stick with one theme. A mad scientist type going around using gland extract to make a regenerative drug? I must say that is hardly groundbreaking plot material for a medical thriller. Too, the movie veers wildly from mystery to romance to thriller to horror. Why so many divergent elements in a film clearly marketed as a straight horror flick? Pick a theme and run with it, already!

The DVD contains no extras, not even a trailer or an explanation from Boyle and McDowell describing why they took roles in the film. If you've ever spent time watching movies like "Coma," "Visiting Hours," and "Dr. Giggles," you'll probably want to spend an hour and a half with "The Surgeon." You know, on further reflection I think I will give the movie a solid three stars. It does throw around a lot of the red stuff, boasts a few prominent faces in cameo roles, and Glasser is quite attractive. The movie's lack of an original plot and failure to decide what it wants to be does hurt the effectiveness of the whole thing, however.
April 10, 2005

he's got a killer beside manner

This Canadian horror film from director Carl Schenkel uses elements of the Frankenstein story, even featuring a Dr Stein, with experimental procedures that remain unapproved because of their side effects and a pioneering doctor who has "genius beneath the madness". We also get a touch of The Phantom of the Opera with the doctor now haunting the morgue of the hospital he had practiced at, and of course continuing his work. Schenkel has some skill in creating suspense, also injecting some comic shocks, but by the time we are chasing the killer in the unused basement of the hospital (why do horror movie hospitals always have unused basements?) the mad/genius doctor's efforts to rejuvinate himself alas does not help to rejuvinate the audience. I am not educated enough to know how scientifically valid the doctor's theories are (that pituitary extract culture can be used for muscle fibre and bone regeneration), though I am morally aware enough to question his rationale of using terminal patients in the same way the Nazi's used death camp inmates. Schenkel opens with a lightning benefited Whatever Happened to Baby Jane black an white camp sequence, which introduces his taste for gore and sadism, and the camera's style of overview prefigures the killer's fondness for jumping onto his victims. But it also sets up false expectations - the use of a lollipop becomes a red herring, though perhaps this in itself allows us to accept Schenkel abandoning the plot of another doctor's experimental procedures, with a baboon, no less. The only time the opening campy tone is repeated is in the over-the-top touches of the performance of Sean Haberle as the doctor. The superhuman qualities of the cliched serial killer/slasher are reinforced by Haberle's use of the stolen pituitary gland extract, yet his continual need for rejuvination because of sustained injuries is a running gag, and his look to the camera at one point is hard to read. Otherwise we get the standard heavy-breathing on the soundtrack and schlock music score. There is a restaurant sequence with a walltank of upstaging whales, a grotesque sewing up of the mouth of an actor using an alien accent, a full frontal nude shot of James Remar in a pool, and a nifty strategy for overcoming the obstacle for finger print security. We also get a laugh line in a police interview with "You'll have to speak up. The tape doesn't record gestures". As the heroine, one's assessment of the performance of Isabel Glasser may be influenced by how one views doctors. Are they ordinary people who can act like clutzes or gifted heroes with a right to be arrogant? Glasser's big moment comes with a memory speech where her mascara tears ruin her perfect glazed makeup, but her deliverance remains stoic, as if the tears do not belong to her. Perhaps she obtains our empathy because the only other character with equal screen time is the killer, though she looks awfully silly when she runs, and I don't think I'd choose her as a consultant. May 7, 2001

Not much as far as horror

Of course "the Surgeon" is a low budget film but what is a horror movie without suspense? This film had it's share of gore and murder but it all came with a yawn. The main characters were underdeveloped so when they meet their end the veiwer could hardly care less. The story had possibilities but just didn't follow through. Some low budget films turn out to be some of the best in the horror genre but this is not one of them. The DVD has scene selection and that is all. That could be a blessing. I dont think anyone would care to hear a commentary track on how this 'gem' got made. December 31, 2000

A good film

I have bought this film in german, because im a german. it is a good film, but in germany it has not the name "the surgeon", it has the name "exquisite tenderness". The Director Carl Shenkel is a good director. when you like horror films, see this film. December 18, 1999

More reviews at Amazon.com ...