There are bad movies, there are lazy movies, and then there are movies that actively test the bounds of human patience by forcing you to watch an unkempt man stare at a cave computer for twenty minutes before a frame of actual plot occurs. Welcome to The Lucifer Complex—a cinematic car wreck that somehow makes They Saved Hitler’s Brain look like a Kurosawa movie. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when an unsold 1970s TV pilot gets violently Frankenstein-ed together with cheap stock footage, an island hermit and a desperate Robert Vaughn, you found it.
The film kicks off on a tropical island where a survivor of some vague 1980s apocalypse (William Lanning) hangs out with a mainframe computer, a few snakes and archive footage. For nearly twenty agonizing minutes—which feels more like three weeks—our host mopes around, sorts laserdiscs and forces us to sit through black-and-white World War I clips, fake Woodstock footage and random television specials.
This is more padded than a sophomore cheerleader’s bra.
Once the movie finally decides to start, the quality drops dramatically (if that was even possible) as we transition into a spy thriller starring Robert Vaughn as secret agent Glen Manning, who gets to fight a clone of Der Führer. The plot shamelessly — blatantly, brazenly, boldly, unabashedly, unashamedly, pick your word — rips off The Boys from Brazil. I mean, it rips off everything but the quality, the dramatic tension, the memorable acting, all of the things that movies do.
Vanguard of the free world, Vaughn spends his time chatting up belly dancers in a scene that is still playing right now, getting knocked unconscious (repeatedly), and waking up in a prison camp run by Aldo Ray, who sleepwalks through his role with the enthusiasm of a man waiting for his check to clear. I love you, Aldo, but this is not your best work. Keenan Wynn also shows up to cash a quick paycheck, looking just as bewildered to be there as we are. To its minor credit, the final third of the movie abandons the dreary spy pacing and leans hard into glorious, unadulterated nonsense. Once Vaughn discovers the neo-Nazi base hidden away in the woods, the film gives us a Nazi eagle with literal laser eyes, a Sherman tank, a trio of machine-gun-wielding women in hospital gowns, the aforementioned Hitler who can kill people when he points at them, and two Robert Vaughns for all the ladies — and fellows — who wanted a menage a Napoleon Solo. Then it all ends off-screen, and we wonder if the world ended because of this or if it just ended.
A movie where Nazis clone world leaders, have superpowers and a statue that shoots lasers and it’s still boring? Who do we blame? How about director one, Kenneth Hartford, who also made Monstroid, Hell Squad and Daughter of the Sun God? Or could it be director two, David L. Hewitt, who helmed The Wizard of Mars, Gallery of Horror, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party and The Mighty Gorga? It all makes more sense now, doesn’t it?
Filmed in 1976 but never released to theaters, this went directly to TV in 1978. This is a film where the lone survivor, the last man on Earth, lives on an isolated island yet has access to electricity. How? Why? A mystery, and not one worth solving!
You can watch this on Tubi.
