At first sight a rather obscure entry in Christopher Walkens filmography, this 1972 picture turns out to be something like a hidden gem. It deals with a topic familiar from many films, but here it is treated with great seriousness. Christopher Walken plays a young American soldier stationed in Germany. He's basically a cynical, non-conformist and, natural combination, intelligent loner, and usually the army doesn't like people like that. So he is brought in a mental hospital disguised under the outer looks of a German castle for "cure" of his "mental problems". Problem is, the treatment of the patients (there are no more than three of them) is very "special"... The low budget forced the film into realism. It looks as it would if real life prevented such a horrific scenery. In the mid of this confrontation between individuality and it's destruction, the actor do their jobs very well (Ronny Cox has his first feature film role here - probably the one that brought him into "Deliverance"). A surprisingly good, yet provocative tale - on the other side about morality, on the other a praise of non-conformism.
Review of The Mind Snatchers
