The Surgeon

Rating:
Summary: A good film
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A good film
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An exceptionally good direct-to-video Horror film
Review: I saw this film a couple of years ago on HBO and loved it. I very much enjoy direct-to-video horror films and The Surgeon did not disappoint. I definitely would want this film in my horror collection. An interesting double feature would be the horrifyingly good The Dentist. Both are among the best in direct-to-video horror.

Rating:
Summary: It was a good movie
Review: it wasn't as good as some of the other horror movies i have seen but still good

Rating:
Summary: Not much as far as horror
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Not much as far as horror
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: he's got a killer beside manner
Review: 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.