Private James Reese (Christopher Walken) is stationed in West Germany. He crashes a party at his girlfriend’s apartment and gets into a fight. Reese is a known hothead and had just gotten out of the stockade for another altercation. In the fight Reese breaks his arm and is arrested by the Military Police for assault.
Reese ends up diagnosed as schizophrenic, as well as sociopathic, and is whisked off to a large facility that looks more like an estate than a hospital. In charge of the place is Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland). The facility is owned by the Army and is under the jurisdiction of The Major (Ralph Meeker). The hospital is used to research the effects of schizophrenia on G. I.’s in an attempt to find a cure. The only patients in the facility are Reese, Sergeant Boford Miles (Ronny Cox), and a man with a bandaged head who appears to be in pain named Lt. Rhodes. Miles has terminal cancer and also suffers from anger issues and is prone to bursts of rage.
After being at the institute for a while Reese learns that Dr. Frederick has been experimenting on lab animals to try to map out the pain and pleasure areas of the brain. Dr. Frederick’s experiments include inserting electrical wires in certain centers of the brain to try to reduce violent impulses. In the natural course of his experiments Dr. Frederick is at the point in his research where he is ready to incorporate humans in his experiments.
Rhodes dies from the surgery to his brain leaving Miles and Reese. Frederick is a little disheartened at the outcome but The Major is adamant that they try again. Miles rapes a nurse’s aide, Anna Kraus (Bette Henritze). Frederick convinces him that the surgery will help him deal with his bouts of anger. Surgery is performed and electrodes are planted in his brain. He is given a device that actives the electrodes when he pushes a button. The results reduce Miles to that of someone addicted to the sensation. He refuses food, only spending his time continuously pushing the button.
Seeing Miles in that condition enrages Reese who destroys the implants resulting in Miles’ death. Now Reese is the only patient left.
“The Mind Snatchers” AKA “The Happiness Cage” AKA “The Demon Within” was released in 1972 and was directed by Bernard Girard. It is an American science fiction movie. The film was based on the stage Play “The Happiness Cage” by Dennis J. Reardon.
The film is reminiscent of films such as “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” 1975 and “A Clockwork Orange” 1971. It’s a rather slow film but still intense at times. It is more of a drama than science fiction.
Walken did a really good job, especially considered he had one arm in a cast for a good portion of the film. It is touted as his first real major performance in a film. Cox is also great as the mentally unbalanced Boford Miles. The cast is rather small and a lot of the film is more talk than action and at times a bit slow. Character development is prominent. It wasn’t really my kind of movie but, for the most part, the slow pace is worth it just to watch the performances of Walken and Cox. Honestly, it’s a great movie underappreciated by me.