My review was written in August 1990 after watching the movie on RCA/Columbia video cassette.
Gore is the goal of this 1988 sci-fi/horror production bowing domestically in video stores.
Success of Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" was bound to inspire imitations, of which "The Immortalizer" is an idiotic example. Ron Ray is a mad doctor running a clinic where people routinely trade in their bodies for beautiful, young ones -latter obtained in the usual Burke and Hare fashion.
Four teens are doped and shanghaied in an alley by two monsters sporting poor makeup effects (courtesy of John Naulin) and taken to the clinic. One of them escapes, leaving Bekki Armstrong conscious (but pretending to be doped) to suffer innumerable indignities not uncommon to starlets appearing in exploitation films.
Although director Joel Bender gets some overacting here, nothing reaches the campy, enjoyable levels of "Re-Animator". Experimental failures are kept locked up as cannibalistic geeks, a poor taste subplot which wastes (beneath monster makeup) Raye Hollitt, the bodybuilder who had a memorable tryst with John Ritter in Blake Edwards' "Skin Deep".
Armstrong is an alluring heroine who deserves better assignments, but the rest of the cast is unimpressive. Script overworks its "boy who cried wolf" premise, as no matter what happens the sheriff (Bo Byers) doesn't believe it and refuses to intercede. Yucky gore during the brain transplant operations is a turnoff.
