This movie, also called The Double Garden (what the hell that means, I have no idea), was actually directed by Kenneth Crane, who is also responsible for the minor 50’s giant bug cult classic stock-footage extravaganza Monster from Green Hell. The real surprise, to me at least, is that it was apparently a little-known script by a fella name of Ed Wood. It makes sense to me. The guy could crank out an entire novel in a day or two, and he was certainly prolific enough that not all of his projects would get the same relatively high profile as Plan 9 or Bride of the Monster. While it could easily pass for an Eddie Romero original (it fits his M.O. of killer plant men and mad scientists, and the monster suit looks like something that would appear in one of his flicks), upon closer scrutiny, this flick is clearly more cheaply made, and of course it’s missing John Ashley. Man, if I mention him again people are going to start thinking I’m gay for him. Trust me, I don’t go for puffy and oily.

Dr. Bragan is a NASA scientist, a workaholic who drives himself so hard that when his newest rocket launches, a possible calculation error means the rocket could have gone flying off into some random corner of space and plowed up a giant alien’s ass. Concerned of a possible giant-alien-ass-retaliatory strike, Bragan’s buddy Paul (James Yagi, the English-speaking Japanese guy inserted into the domestic cut of Godzilla vs. King Kong – you’ll recognize his voice right away) convinces him to take a vacation to Japan, where Paul’s cousin Noroko will show Bragan a good time. Five dolla…ah you get the idea.

When Bragan arrives, we are “treated” to a series of comedic bits where Noroko takes him to the resort her father failed to keep open. At first lulled by the scenic countryside, Bragan asks why the resort failed. Then the landslide hits, followed by the eruption of a live volcano nearby, and then the crazy gardener almost drops a pile of roofing tiles on their heads.

Once things settle down, Bragan starts work combining the genes of a venus flytrap he brought with him from the states (why he did this, I have no idea, but this more than anything dates the flick because you’d never get to carry a carnivorous plant onto a plane in this post-911 world [doesn’t that phrase make you want to stab someone in the eyes?] because it might be a terrorist) with a species of carnivorous plant living in the ocean off the coast of Japan, which I get the feeling Wood just made up because I’m relatively certain there’s no such thing. You’re probably wondering why a NASA rocket scientist is playing Frankengardener at this point, right? Well, back in the day Bragan went to college to be a botanist, but then the war came and they needed mathematicians, so he became a mathematician and this is really fucking boring isn’t it? Who cares what the hell he went to college for or why he works for NASA? Just get to the goddamn monster!

And so we do. His creature turns out to be a six-foot hybrid of Gumby and a lumpy, melted Teletubby with a really gay (and by this, of course I mean it’s very, very happy) flower Shakespeare collar and hands that look like what would happen if the CEO of a company that manufactures baseball gloves said, “Hey, we should make our gloves look like swollen, red vaginas full of tendrils!” At first, Bragan can’t get the thing to come to life, and is understandably shaken up that he created a six-foot flesh-eating plant man that won’t even try to eat him. So what does he do? Why, what any good mad scientist would do, of course! He takes a syringe and steals blood directly from Noroko’s heart while she’s sleeping. She wakes up at one point, but doesn’t really seem to mind that this creepy gaijin has a syringe stabbed into her heart and is stealing her blood. She gives him a sort of, “What the hell are you…ah never mind, I’m tired and it’s late. Enjoy my blood” look and goes back to sleep.

The goofy-ass monster makes a few half-hearted attempts to eat some lab animals before killing the gardener. It starts farting sleeping gas from its forehead to knock out Noroko and Bragan, before going on a brief and ill-advised walk in the country which ends with Bragan stumbling around the volcano carrying a goat and yelling, “Insectivorus!” (that’s the monster’s made-up scientific name) before the thing tackles him and they both fall into the lava and die. I guess he should have heeded Noroko when she begged him, “Puh-reese, Dr. Bragan, let it go!” Because she’s Japanese.

Say what you want about Ed Wood’s (lack of an) ear for dialogue, I like this thing. Hearing a washed up old actor scream, “What kind of idiot would build a rocket base on the coast of Florida!?” as a tropical storm threatens to destroy his latest project, and then go on to embarrass himself even further by giving life to the Triffids’ retarded cousin from Alabama and chase it around carrying a goat before hugging it briefly and falling into a river of stock footage lava to die gives me a strange pleasure. I’m sure the has-beens who make these things for one last booze check before their liver gives out are cringing at the thought of anyone seeing them like this, but I rather enjoyed it, and I mean that in an honest way. This movie, for all its ridiculous flaws, made-up science that wouldn’t fool a preschooler, lame foam-rubber melty-face vagina monster (who, it should be noted, is also covered with spikes that make him look like an escapee from a black metal refugee camp), unfunny comedy, and overuse of stock footage, is to this Norse Doom the nectar of the gods. Monsters, mad scientists, thunder and lightning. This stuff is the meat & potatoes of the cinemasochist’s diet, and Revenge of Dr. X is a hearty meal indeed. Devour and enjoy.

Moral of the Story: NASA scientists, take heed. If you ever develop an unhealthy love for venus flytraps, and for some reason start thinking that they were the true source of human evolution (no, really, that’s his excuse), I beg you, puh-reese, don’t try to make a hybrid monster out of one. There’s a river of lava with your name on it.

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