text: The title alone (along with the poster) is enough to give away "The Projected Man" as an obvious rip-off of "The Fly". And Bryant Haliday, while much better than the typical IMDb review would have you think, is nobody's idea of an acceptable stand-in for Vincent Price. Although, come to think of it, who would be, unless Micheal Gough was available?? Still, if you are in the mood to watch a British "Hammer" style movie with a science fiction theme about a teleportation experiment gone horribly wrong...well, you still might want to give "The Projected Man" a pass and rummage around in the 'remaindered' bin at your local Wal-Mart for another teleporter-accident movie. Because this one just isn't all that good.<br /><br />Haliday caught a lot of good natured ribbing from the MST3K crew for his part in this movie and in "Devil Doll", but he is actually the best thing in TPM. Maybe he can't carry the movie, but he gets practically no help here from the screenplay. The script bogs down any forward momentum the plot may have in a mire of nonsense about funding and university politics and a guy named Lembach and some sinister cabal who want the teleportation machine to fail so they can steal its secrets...or something. So all the dramatic sequences in the first half of movie involve either phone calls or unconvincing special effects with transparent espresso machines and teleporting rats. Then when poor Haliday gets mutilated by his machine, he has to spend the last part of the film wearing a diaper over half his face and rubber cement over the rest while he electrocutes various Londoners who chance across his path. Tom Cruise and Eric Roberts using bullhorns couldn't have made this screenplay work. <br /><br />Meanwhile all the other actors diligently try to inject life and interest into their roles for this turgid little project, but the screenplay just swallows their efforts whole. The corrupt project administrator frets and fumes and hisses into the phone to his blackmailers, all the while failing to notice that he looks like a werewolf outfitted in a tweed suit and a Tattersall vest. Haliday's research assistant and ex-girlfriend have the least convincing romance in the history of British horror cinema. His secretary is forced to parade around in her "smalls". None of it really works or gels into a real movie. And it all just kind of stops dead, leaving the viewer going, "Eh? excuse me, wasn't there supposed to be an ENDING here??"<br /><br />Still, for all its problems, I can easily name a dozen horror movies from the same period that were as bad or worse, and so could anyone else who follows movies (or who has ever browsed the IMDb "Bottom 100"). I wouldn't actually pay money to own "Projected Man", but if it were included in some compilation along with a dozen other movies in a DVD collection, I'd probably feel OK about having it. It's a harmless diversion, perfect for a horror movie film festival, to watched with friends while consuming many beers and snacks on a Saturday evening.