Boring

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Watching this film you will easily be reminded of the Universal classic mummy films on Kharis (which starred Tom Tyler & Lon Chaney as the mummy Kharis). But instead of being a mummy this is a man made of stone that was found at the ancient site of Pompeii. It is very much like the Universal Kharis series.I like this film - it's not nearly as good as the mummy series but it is a fun horror film like any of the Kharis films. It's just one of those movies you can really turn off your thinking cap and just kick back and enjoy the craziness on screen.6.5/10

Indeed, the title character of this patently ridiculous schlock feature does not have a face. Incased in stone, he was a slave named Quintillus Aurelius in the days of ancient Rome, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and caused the destruction of the city of Pompeii. He's discovered in modern times by archaeologists, and goes about crushing the skulls of people unlucky enough to merely be in his way. What he really wants to do is reunite with the long ago noblewoman he loved, who's conveniently been reincarnated as the movies' leading lady, Tina Enright (Elaine Edwards).There's nothing particularly special here, but undemanding fans of low budget genre fare could find enough to keep them interested. It's cheaply made like so many other movies of its kind, and devotes too much of its time to exposition. There's also some pretty silly but endearing narration, which was spoken by the great and prolific character actor of the period, Morris Ankrum. The characters are entertaining (bravo to Felix Locher as Dr. Emanuel; he really looks like he's having fun reeling off that exposition). Edwards is a hell of a screamer, and both she and Adele Mara are definitely pretty ladies. Luis Van Rooten as Dr. Carlo Fiorillo and Jan Arvan as the requisite police inspector are solid. Richard Anderson is a jut jawed, decent enough hero as Dr. Paul Mallon, but man, oh man, is Paul a stubborn dummy. He remains hard headed and skeptical for too long.In the end, this is an okay update of Mummy type stories, if not too memorable overall. Writer Jerome Bixby, producer Robert E. Kent, and director Edward L. Cahn truly hit paydirt with a subsequent joint effort, "It! The Terror from Beyond Space", the movie that many people regard as the principal inspiration for "Alien".Six out of 10.

Curse of the Faceless Man (1958) * 1/2 (out of 4) When the ruins of Pompeli are searched, a stone man is recovered. He's taken to a museum where he apparently attacks a woman, which puts her into a state of shock where it seems she has dreams to where she might have some connection to the man. According to the film, this stone man is caught somewhere between life and death and I'm sure the majority of the viewers are going to know that feeling because there's very little to enjoy here. I say there's very little to enjoy but thankfully the film is bad enough to where you can enjoy bits and pieces of it but this only applies to those who enjoy bad movies and can get some entertainment out of them. There are a lot of questionable things in this film but the biggest one to me is a scene early on where a doctor reads us something about the stone man while the image on screen is just the letter that is being read to us. This entire scene struck me as poorly made because if they're going to show us the letter the entire time then what's the point of having it read to us? Since it is being read to us then why not have the camera on one of the characters to try and get a reaction shot? The dialogue in this film is bad enough to turn anyone to stone as the majority of the running time it has either this doctor or that doctor explaining that everything they're saying is true yet the viewer will be wondering where the proof is. There's no question that this is made like a mummy film but the only exception is that instead of bandages our man is made out of stone. The ending, which I won't ruin, is the exact same as one of the Universal Mummy films from the 40s (I won't give the title just to avoid spoiling the ending). Another major problem is the performances, which range from poor to downright bad. The majority of the lines are bad enough and the poor delivery certainly doesn't help them any. At just 67-minutes the film isn't too long but one just wishes that there was more energy in it. The bad dialogue and bad acting adds a few laughs but there's still no doubt that this is a poorly made film that doesn't have enough life to keep it going.

(There are Spoilers) Found in the ruins of ancient Pompeii is this mummified man with a box of jewelry buried next to him. It's soon discovered by the eminent historian Dr. Emenuel,Felix Locher, of ancient Roman Greek and Egyptian times that the body is that of a Roman slave and gladiator named Quintillus Aurellus, Bob Bryant. Aurellus was killed, along with thousands of fellow Romans, when Mt. Vesuvious blew its top in 79 AD and destroyed the city of Pompeii!After spending some 2,000 years in limbo the ancient Roman slave/warrior Aurellus came to life, with the help of a modern x-ray machine, looking for his long lost love a daughter of a Roman aristocrat Lucila Lucia. As we'll later find out Lucila has been reincarnated and is now American artist Tina Enright, Elaine Edwards, who's fiancée Dr. Paul Mellon, Richard Anderson, is involved in the archaeological expedition that dug up the long dead and buried Quintillus Aurellus!The faceless man, Quintillus Aurellus, suddenly comes to life and cause havoc all over the Italian city of Naples, the sister city to ancient Pompeii, in looking for his lost love the now pretty American artist Tina Enright. Tina does have an inkling to just who this stone man, or mummy, is in a number of dreams she has of him. This causes her to paint a portrait of the stone man without actually knowing who he is and what she has to do with him!The stone, or faceless, man himself is so slow and uncoordinated that it's miracle that he could catch up with, as well as kill, anyone in the movie. Yet he's responsible for at least a dozen attacks that results in some two, a truck driver and museum security guard, deaths!Finally getting what he wanted, his his long love Tina/Lucla, the stone man ends going up the river, or Mediterranean Sea. This has to do with the stone man miscalculating the time that he's living in: 1958 AD not 79 AD. That cause him to self -destruct by not realizing that his escape plan, with Tina, was the wrong path for him to take! Since the long inactive Mt. Vesuvious is no longer a danger to him and the woman, together with the population of Naples, he's so insanely in love with!Nothing that out of the ordinary for a 1950's horror movie if that's what "The Curse of the Faceless Man" is supposed to be. What's really good about the movie "the Curse of the Faceless Man" is its opening and closing soundtrack together with the stock footage of exploding volcanoes that are supposed to show Mt. Vesuvious' 79 AD eruption! There's also actor Filex Locher as ancient historian Dr. Emenuel who that same year-1958-will achieve motion picture immortality in him staring as the daffy and overzealous Dr. Carter Morton in that all time bad movie classic "Frankenstein's Daughter".