The Thing with Two Heads

The Thing with Two Heads could aspire to become a quirky cult flick, but it is strongly plagued by its absence of humour. Many descriptions of the film filed it under the genre of comedy, but in reality, it turns out to be quite the opposite. For the most part, it looks like it is meant as a serious science-fiction drama that contains only about two deliberately lighter scenes. And if you laugh at other times (namely, when Roosevelt Grier is seen running around with an artificial head on his shoulder), that was not what the creators intended. This mood inconsistency does the film a lot of harm, because the action is so sparse and stupid that the viewer soon loses interest and feels somewhat exhausted. Looking at Ray Milland and Roosevelt Grier’s gloomy and sweaty faces, it seems they had to endure a really painful shooting! The racism theme is only lightly touched upon for some reason, and there’s not much to expect from that side. Then, there’s that ridiculously excessive car chase. Maybe American International Pictures’ bosses wanted to add at least one action scene, and came up with that completely pointless and incredibly long and absurd police pursuit somewhere on a local meadow. After an hour and a half, one concludes that the plot didn’t go anywhere and that the characters didn’t evolve at all. Not mentioning the final slap in the face when you hear the gospel chant ‘Oh Happy Day’ – whaaat?! (26/12/2018)