THE IMMORTALIZER (1989)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*


While I would never claim that THE IMMORTALIZER is a good film, I seem to be in the minority of viewers who found it at least a decent time-killer.

There's nothing remotely new about the pedestrian plot. Some knockabout college-kids are kidnapped by monstrous musclemen, who take the teens to a health resort out in the country. There the teens are to be used in body-swapping experiments by the ironically named Doctor Divine (Ron Ray) and his small staff of feral physicians. It seems the bad doctor came up with a serum that made body-swapping more viable for old people wanting young bodies, but the serum sometimes makes monsters, so it didn't get approval by the AMA-- hence, this unsanctioned operation. One teen escapes Divine and tries, without much success, to alert the law to this inhospitable hospital. There's a lot of running around, fighting, and backbiting, particularly when the aged Divine decides he might like to keep one of the young girls for himself. His nurse, though, has a thing going with both Divine and a younger doctor, so she wants the younger girl's body for herself.

Director Joel Bender, who started out as a film editor, keeps things more lively than the average no-name-cast DTV flick, and went on to slightly better things with 1993's MIDNIGHT KISS. The only principal actor with some "TVQ cred" is Melody Patterson (playing the nurse), best known to film-fans as "Wrangler Jane" from F TROOP and as the main character from the very underrated BLOOD AND LACE. (IMMORTALIZER was her last film before her passing in 2015.)