Nicholas Musaraca's excellent cinematography contributes a number of fine effects, and there's a strange and witty aside on the invention of movies.

While the film has a tendency to wander into unadulterated Hollywoodisms in spots, it is a generally straight-forward and imaginative estimate of a two-century-old sociological theme.

Robson's notably unpoetic direction doesn't help, either; yet few Hollywood films ever had such ambition.

Attempts to balance horror with social conscience in a way that doesn't always work, but Lee and Karloff make for excellent foils, and it's thrilling to watch the two of them go toe to toe in a kind of proto-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.