The Film (4/5)

Curse of the Faceless Man is  one of what seemed like hundreds of low budget B movie “quickies” that were made back in the 1950s. Fans of horror and science fiction movies from the fifties can never get enough of these kinds of films, be it campy or classic. Most of them aren’t award winning classics but they have that great charm only found in this era. There is something really fun and entertaining about watching black and white classic horror and science fiction movies during the fifties, where they were reaching their peak.

The “Faceless Man” - Quintillus Aurelius is basically a cross between a mummy and a golem, and is two thousand years old. The being is a stone man that moves around very similar to The Mummy.  In fact it would seem elements of The Mummy were used in Curse of the Faceless Man (the ancient lovers’ subplot similarity for example)! Quintillus is discovered in the ruins of Pompeii and gets taken to a museum where he is observed by archaeologists. Believing it to be long dead, to their chagrin it is very much alive attracted to one woman, Tina (Elaine Edwards) and a medallion. He does have a purpose to be with what he thinks is his lover from two thousand of years ago (Tina), and kills anyone who gets in his way, crushing their skulls.

Curse of the Faceless Man is a harmless sixty seven minutes and it’s more or less non-stop thrills as Quintillus approaches and attacks its adversaries. The music by Gerard Fried is really unforgettable, exploding with a rip roaring suspenseful tune. You would think every time the theme music hit, there would be some awesome climax.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

Curse of the Faceless Man debuts on blu ray courtesy of Kino Lorber and it’s way above average. Presented in widescreen 1:85:1 1080p, MPEG 4 AVC encode, the film’s image quality is pretty spectacular all things considered. Black levels are solid, the grey scale is perfectly fine, and grain is both present and balanced.  It’s a clean image overall, but there is a few speckles here and there. This is a great upgrade to those who own either the MGM MOD DVDr or the bootleg Cheezy Flicks distributed years ago.  Having owned both and now this blu ray, this is the definitive release for this film. The audio quality is the usual Kino DTS-HD Master Audio English 2.0 . The dialog is perfectly ‘sound’ however anything outside of that sounds like the movie was shot in an echo chamber, including footsteps, gun shots and even a woman closing her purse. It’s different but I don’t think it really detracts too much; it’s like a nice little effect when watching.

Extras (2.5/5)

An Audio commentary with Horror Cinema Historian Christ Alexander and trailers for The Monster That Challenged the World and Invisible Invaders

Overall (4/5)

Curse of the Faceless may not be for everyone, but those that do enjoy classic horror quickies like this movie will find it to be a fun entertaining movie. The movie is so short that you will have time to watch another one just like this! The video quality is excellent, the audio even with the echoing sound effects is serviceable and a couple of great supplements make this release a mighty fine package