Scientist Dr. Paul Steiner (a fine performance by Bryant Haliday) decides to use himself as a test subject for his matter transmission experiments. Things go horribly awry after Steiner gets transformed into a grotesquely disfigured monster who can kill people with his lethal electrified touch.

Directors Ian Curtis and John Croydon have issues with keeping the familiar, but still enjoyable and engrossing story moving along (the pace is much too slow at times, especially in the rather laborious opening third),but still do manage to maintain an admirable serious tone throughout and deliver a few effectively creepy moments. This film further benefits from depicting Steiner as a fairly pitiable tragic figure instead of merely presenting him simply as a total monster. Moreover, the sound acting by the capable cast keeps it watchable: Mary Peach as the feisty Dr. Patricia Hill, Ronald Allen as Steiner's loyal colleague Dr. Chris Mitchel, Norman Wooland as meddlesome jerk Dr. L.G. Blanchard, Derek Farr as the hard-nosed Inspector Davis, and foxy blonde Tracey Crisp as perky secretary Sheila Anderson. The make-up for Steiner is suitably hideous. The robust score by Kenneth V. Jones hits the rousing spot. While this movie could have used more punch and does drag in spots, it overall measures up as an acceptable little diversion.

It's a delightful but typical and overused cliché in horror movies that brilliant and obsessive scientists suddenly go bonkers and ruthlessly use themselves as guinea pigs with grotesque and catastrophic consequences. It's what makes this kind of movies entertaining, of course, but it's not exactly plausible. These brilliant men (or women) of science risk their lives even though they are practically certain the outcome will be irreversible and most likely fatal? Anyways, I'm always eager to watch a good old- fashioned "science gone wrong" horror flick; especially when it was made in Great Britain during the most flourishing decade for the genre (1960 – 1970). "The Projected Man" understandably became somewhat forgotten in between all the popular and high-grossing "Frankenstein" and "Quatermass" movies produced by the legendary Hammer Studios, but it's still a worthwhile effort with a decent screenplay, reasonable amounts of suspense and good gruesome make-up effects for its time. Doctor Steiner is a smart man, working on a hi-tech device that – during the first stage – vaporizes objects and then transforms them into pure energy that is kept is a cell, and then projected back into its original forms by a super-powerful laser. Don't ask me how it works, because I didn't understand one iota of all the technical details (and there are far too many overlong and purely technical monologues, by the way) but it's somewhat comparable to the "Tele-Pods" that previously featured in "The Fly". And here as well, the device works perfectly well with lifeless objects, but when Steiner attempts to project living tissue, the test animals die instantly and give off incredibly heavy electric shocks. Meanwhile, the director of the research facility wants the experiments to fail and even sabotages crucial demonstrations. I didn't quite capture why he – Dr. Blanchard – must terminate this genius scientific breakthrough, but at least he succeeds in driving Dr. Steiner to madness. He uses the unstable device on himself and re-emerges with a half-demolished face, a burning pair of hands capable of inflicting sudden death through electrocution and a lust for murdering everyone who gets in his way. I know it has a bad reputation, but I quite enjoyed "The Projected Man". Admittedly you require a fair share of patience and tolerance regarding stupid plot twists, dire love stories and tedious sequences set in cheap laboratory settings full of blinking lights and annoying buzzers. But when Steiner eventually goes on his rampage, it turns into a fun and unscrupulous midnight movie that I warmly recommend.

"The Projected Man" is a film with a low overall score and this isn't surprising since it was featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000"...a show that makes fun of old films. Many of the films featured on the show have been god-awful. And, since the films were lampooned on the show, folks incorrectly assume they're all schlock...which isn't really fair to the folks who made the movies. With "The Projected Man", you've got a dandy sci-fi film that IS worth seeing without all the "MST3000" sarcastic remarks.

The film is about Professor Steiner's research on transporting items from one location to another through matter transmission--much like the "Star Trek" transporter system (which also debuted in 1966). They have no problem making inanimate objects disappear and reappear but it's not so easy with living creatures. What the professor and his team don't know is that some folks are deliberately trying to sabotage their work. Ultimately, Steiner does something VERY dumb-- -he uses the system on himself. There's an accident and he ends up being part man part monster...and he's determined to pay back the folks who sabotaged his work.

While this is not a brilliant film, it's much more intelligent and thought out than you might suspect. It's NOT just a crappy monster film but is enjoyable and has a bit of depth to it. Worth seeing.