Aliens from outer space want to invade Earth. They come from a planet that is going into a deep freeze due to no longer having a sun. Their planet is called Ummo. They are led by an alien who calls himself Dr. Odo Warnoff (Michael Rennie). Two of his minions have taken over the dead bodies of humans. They are Maleva Kerstein (Karin Dor) and Dr. Kerian (Angel del Pozo).
Their plan is to resurrect monsters that they can clone to create an army of monsters to use against earthlings. They believe that they can use the fears and superstitions of humans against them. Their first conquest is acquiring the skeleton of a vampire called Count Mialhoff (Manuel de Blas). The vampire is part of a circus freak show. In order to resurrect the vampire they pull a stake out of where the skeleton’s heart would be.
Their next resurrection is the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy). They steal his body from his crypt and do an operation on him to remove a silver bullet that is lodged in his chest. Their third monster is the mummy Tao-Tet (Gene Reyes). For him they take a quick trip to Egypt. He is brought back to life using a magical golden cross. Once Tao-Tet is restored the aliens go on to their final acquisition. Dr. Farancksalan’s Monster.
In the meantime there is a trail of bodies that litter wherever these aliens go. At the circus they have killed a fortune teller and kidnapped a young circus worker. They brainwashed her into doing whatever they want. When the werewolf gets away from them there are a few bodies that he was responsible for as well.
When some gelatin type stuff is found where the vampire use to be kept is analyzed by the police laboratory they are unable to figure out what it is. Assigned to the case is Inspector Tobermann (Craig Hill). Whether he had an epiphany or is just a good detective is up for grabs but he hones in on fictional monsters coming to life. He deduces that they are the culprits for the murders.
Lots of problems arise for the aliens when human feeling and emotion starts to seep into them due to using human bodies as a shell for their Earth activities.
“Assignment: Terror”, AKA “Los Monstruos de Terror”, AKA “Monsters of Terror”, AKA “Dracula vs Frankenstein”, AKA “Reincarnator” was released in 1970 and was directed by Hugo Fregonese and Tulio Demicheli. This Spanish-German-Italian monster food fight is, well, strange.
I’m not sure why they gave all of Universal’s monsters aliases. There may have been some concern about who owns the rights to classic monster names. You still know who the monsters are, they just don’t look that much like they’re suppose to. The only really believable monster in the whole thing is of course Paul Naschy as the werewolf.
If you see the “Dracula vs Frankenstein” version of the film you will be missing some nine or ten minutes of movie and you will also be misled since Dracula and Frankenstein never even meet let alone fight. The “Assignment Terror” version is more complete but there are still spots that I think could have used better editing.
The movie itself was OK. I think they tried to put to many monsters into this monster salad. I didn’t find it as entertaining as a lot of fans did. But then my tastes go more to fifties big bugs. It’s a mess of monsters, cloning, aliens, possession and 70’s pop music.