Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Dr. Renault's Secret


(1942)*1/2

Dr. Forbes is a young American doctor who travels to France in order to visit his fiancée in a remote villa where her scientist father conducts research. Once arriving he meets Noel, Dr. Renault’s creepy assistant who is a little slow in the head, like Down Syndrome slow. A few more weird characters are introduced and before you know it bodies begin to pile up. Before it’s all over we learn Dr. Renault’s terrible secret. I’m keeping the description sort and sweet because it’s not worth going into any additional detail.

Dr. Renault’s Secret is not much of a secret at all and I called it 10 minutes in. This is essentially a quick and dirty who-dun-it that is no more difficult to figure out than the word jumble on the back of a box of Frosted Flakes (e.g., otyn). I normally enjoy these old Universal pictures but this one was just too stupid and boring even with its short running time. This is about as low budget as you can get and the red herrings are too obvious to make this even remotely interesting. Boo!

1 comment:

Octopunk said...

The old ones are fun, even the bad old ones -- except for sometimes when you realize they could waste screen time just as badly in the forties.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...