Who better than THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP to undertake the quest to "dominate sex" as seen on AGFA's new Blu-ray of this Something Weird "sexy shocker" favorite.

Ten people have vanished in nearly as many days, and the only witnesses report the culprit to be a "monster" leaving police inspector Benedict (Héctor Biuchet, THE NAKED BEAST) baffled despite reporter George (Ricardo Bauleo, SENSUAL JUNGLE) pointing out the similarities between the recent disappearances and a thirty-year-old case in Italy involving a mad doctor creating automatons and experimenting with human sexual behavior. Indeed, Dr. Humpp (Aldo Barbero) is using the copulating bodies of virile men and latent nymphomaniacs to create secretions that help him extend his own life, having his automatons dispose of the bodies of subjects who can no longer perform. His assistant (Susana Beltrán, BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS) believes his experiments are cruel and offers up her body for his use, but Humpp spurns her and continues to take council from the talking brain of his mentor. When he sends one of his creatures to obtain needed drugs from a pharmacy, it attracts attention ("The monster just came in for a prescription," says a soon-to-be-killed pharmacist to the police over the phone), and George follows the creature back to Humpp's country estate and is captured and mated with nymphomaniac Rachel (Gloria Prat, THE DEADLY ORGAN). Although Humpp's nurse falls for George and agrees to help him escape, a love triangle erupts between George, Rachel, and one of the automatons who courts her with flowers and a lute. As the police scramble to find Humpp's lair, George endeavors to free himself, Rachel, and the other experimental subjects (who are too busy screwing to even raise the alarm to Humpp's automaton's when George escapes his cell).

AGFA's liner notes opine that "this is what might have happened if Mario Bava collaborated with Doris Wishman after an acid binge" but THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP feels more like someone trying to remake Jess Franco's THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF from memory with added sex, from the abductions to the Morpho-like automotons, and the climax in which the monster turns on his master and carries off his lady love with the police in pursuit. A prolific Argentinian filmmaker, jobbing director Emilio Vieyra directed a handful of horror films in the late sixties amidst a number of melodramas and crime films that distinguished him in later years as a cult figure; however, only this and THE DEADLY ORGAN were exported to the United States (the latter reissued on a double bill as FEAST OF FLESH with NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES), with Mondo Macabro exposing British and American viewers to BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS during the early part of the DVD era. The film features wonderful monochromatic noir-ish photography and some fine bare flesh, but the viewer cannot take the plot seriously in spite of the somber performances what with a talking brain, automatons in immobile monster masks and ugly sweaters, and dialogue like "Sex dominates the world! And now, I dominate sex!" or “Crazy or not, anyone needing drugs doesn't send a monster to the drugstore.” The sex scenes themselves are rather tame and much of the nudity reveals the sexploitation genre's origins in burlesque shows – including a lengthy striptease by Prat before she is abducted – salacious for 1967 Argentina but nothing special in 1970 when it was released theatrically; that is, until distributor Jerald Intrator recut the film and inserted roughly seventeen minutes of softcore sex scenes, adding a quartet of sex-crazed hippies and a nymphomaniac (played by east coast porn star Kim Pope, INTRUSION), attempting to blend the material with the original with some attempts at artful framing and recycling shots from the original for reverse angles (Intrator would also shoot nudity and extremely gory inserts for his release of what would become NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES). While the difference in textures between the artful original photography and the more "clinical" new footage never came close to matching, the added scenes and shots provided titillation and the very editorial practice itself is part of what makes a film called THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP an entertaining piece of sexploitation.

Released in both "cold" and "hot" versions by distributor Jerald Intrator, THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP disappeared from circulation and was just a title and ad material until the American internegative of the hot version was discovered by Frank Henenlotter (BRAIN DAMAGE) and Something Weird Video's Mike Vraney in a vault of abandoned Movielab materials and it became volume four in the Something Weird's "Frank Henenlotter's Sexy Shockers" (which included THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, ROOM OF CHAINS, and PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE among others). When Something Weird and Image Entertainment struck a DVD deal, THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP appeared on DVD in 2000, and among its extras was the animated Argentinian title sequence LA VENGANZA DEL SEXO which was available since Vraney and Henenlotter had also discovered a 35mm fine grain lab print of the Argentinian original among the Movielab holdings. The hot version has been given a 2K restoration by American Genre Film Archive, and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is lustrous and spotless with deep blacks and creamy whites, all the more exposing the difference in textures in the original and Intrator footage, making the use of paler, "smoother" body doubles in a couple sex scenes. The clarity of the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track makes the dubbed dialogue all the more hilarious while also battering the brain with the jangly musical additions to the original score. Optional English SDH subtitles are available via your remote's subtitle button.

The film is accompanied by a brand new commentary by Henenlotter who recalls not being interested in seeing the film theatrically based on the unimaginative artwork, not realizing it featured talking brains and monster abductors, the Movielab visit by himself and Vraney and ho they arranged to walk off with a wealth of material deemed as "shit" by the vault custodian, as well as receiving Vieyra and producer Orestes Trucco – who also plays the barman in the film – who repeatedly questioned him as to how he got the elements for the film and why Movielab did not contact him personally, even threatening his life (all the while with Vieyra sitting there embarrassed). He provides some humorous commentary about the film itself and Intrator's additions, as well as suggesting that perhaps Dr. Humpp does not seem to actually "enjoy" sex because the affliction he is treating might be venereal in nature.