Venus Flytrap (filmed 1966, released 1970) is an American horror film shot partly in Japan. The plot features a mad scientist who uses thunder and lightning to turn carnivorous plants into man-eating creatures. It is known variously as Body of the Prey, and The Revenge of Doctor X (American video box title). Although the film is based on a 1950s screenplay by Ed Wood, he remained uncredited. The film was directed, scripted and produced by Norman Earl Thomson, a pulp fiction writer known for his “Kill Me In” series of paperback novels, published under his pen name Earl Norman. The film is often credited to film editor Kenneth Crane, who had directed the famed 1961 Japanese horror film, The Manster. The American video release erroneously features the major credits for 1969 Philippines production The Mad Doctor of Blood Island.

Plot
Dr. Bragan (James Craig) is a workaholic rocket scientist at NASA working on a mission to outer space. The stress of the mission causes him to have a mental breakdown, so his assistant, Dr. Paul Nakamura (Yagi), suggests he takes a vacation in Japan at his abandoned luxury resort to recuperate. Dr. Bragan accepts his offer and flies to Japan.

In Japan, Dr. Bragan stays at the defunct hotel of Nakamura with Dr. Noriko Hanamura (Kami), the lovely daughter of his coworker who takes on the role of his assistant. Bragan begins a bizarre experiment in botany in the hotel’s secluded greenhouse to prove his theory that humans evolved from plants. With a potted Venus flytrap he brought from America, the scientist grafts it to a Japanese carnivorous oceanic plant to create a hybrid creature that becomes humanoid and requires the blood of mammals to flourish. But Bragan is just as obsessive and moody as he was in America, and his behavior causes Noroko to suspect he is going mad, especially when he secretly takes a victim’s “heart blood” to feed it. When his creation, “Sectovorus” uproots and begins moving around on its own, it becomes dangerous and it’s not long before the creature begins seeking human victims from a nearby village. The villagers riot and Dr. Bragan must decide between protecting his creation or killing it in order to save mankind. He opts to lure it into a nearby volcano.

Cast
James Craig as Dr. Bragan
Tota Kondo as Customs officer
Lawrence O’Neill as American at airport
Al Ricketts as Gas station owner
Atsuko Rome as Noriko Hanamura (billed as Ako Kami)
Edward M. Shannon as Dr. Shannon
John Stanley as Dr. Stanley
James Yagi as Dr. Paul Nakamura