This film has a place in my personal history. When I was about 8 years old living in Tampa Bay, FL, Channel 13 WTCT had “Fright Theater” on Friday nights at 11:30 PM. Already interested in monster movies and such, I decided to brave the dark hours of the night and stay up to watch the show. The movie was “Curse of the Faceless Man,” and after the first 5 to 10 minutes, I was scared enough to run back to my room and hop into bed. I remember the scene of the Faceless Man’s hand crawling through the sand and my sister (10 years older than I) saying to me, “Jimmy, are you sure you want to
watch this?” Nope, I wasn’t ready yet.*
Fast forward 40 years when I was able to get the film on DVD and I was very surprised how much more of a “rampaging monster” movie this was. The “monster” is a lava-encrusted survivor of Pompeii who comes to life when a certain relic is in his presence. Richard Anderson—who would go on to star in “Forbidden Planet” and in the “6 Million Dollar Man”—is the hero in the flick.
I also suppose that the quality of the re-mastered DVD disc also swept away a lot of assumptions I had prior to seeing this film. It’s a very entertaining film and the climax of the Faceless Man burning and dissolving away in the beach surf is very memorable.
* It wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I had mustered the courage and the determination to watch movies on “Fright Theater” as well as early-morning sci-fi films on Saturday morning. It was those beginnings that I became an avid monster movie fan.
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