HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958)

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958)

Tagline: Blood-Curdling! See - A Man Turned into a Monster Before Your Very Eyes!

(Horror, Sci-Fi, Creepy) [PG-13]

Note – This movie wasn’t given an MPAA rating, but if it was it might get a PG-13 or a PG. 

A Hollywood murder is OK on the screen but not at the studio.

In this one, a make-up artist named Pete Dumond gets fired from American International Studios after working with them for decades. He is really good at creating on-screen monsters and decides his revenge will be to get revenge on the movie executives that let him go using a chemical formula that gives him mind control over a couple of actors wearing his TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN and TEENAGE WEREWOLF designs. 

First off the premise of this movie sounded pretty goofy to me. It’s a movie about a studio by a studio that actually had to be filmed at a different studio because the studio making it didn’t actually have a studio. Yeah, you read that right. This movie is about a make-up artist fired from American International Studios. That is a real studio, but they don’t have a studio, they only rented small lots, so they had to film it at ZIV Studios. On top of that, they are trying to make you fear monsters from their movies, only we see the actors playing those monsters getting their make-up and prosthetics put on. How the heck is that going to work?

Well, it does. At first, this is a fairly interesting revenge story, but in the final act things get bat-stuff crazy and this thing ends up being pretty freakin haunting and dark. I guess it was also pretty cheap because the studio already had a bunch of props from their other movies. We actually see Paul Blaisdell’s designs from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, and THE SHE-CREATURE. 

Acting-wise I guess they wanted Bella Lugosi for this movie, but he died before it came out so they went with Robert H. Harris who is sufficiently creepy in this himself. Harris was in over 129 movies and TV productions but wasn’t in any other sci-fi or horror flicks from the 50s or 60’s that I can see. His performance is what makes this movie so terrifying at least concept-wise. Gary Conway reprised his role as the TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN for this film but never really did another horror movie after that. Gary Clarke plays the TEENAGE WEREWOLF and like Conway, does a pretty decent job. Clarke was also in MISSILE TO THE MOON. Born in 1933 Clarke is still acting as of the writing of this review. This is also another Morris Ankrum film. He plays Police Capt. Hancock in this and was in a bunch of 1950’s sci-fi stuff including THE GIANT CLAW, EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, and more. 

Pacing and score-wise this movie are okay throughout, but the final act puts it over the top I would think for horror fans. For me personally, it was a bit much from a mental horror standpoint and I really don’t see myself watching it again. I do however still want to check out TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN at some point. I do have a review for I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF already written. 

This movie gets a 3 out of 7. I tend to go for goofy horror a lot more and this one is a bit dialog-heavy, but I can see some horror fans who like 50’s stuff really liking this one. Especially if you are a big American International Pictures movie buff.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF SUNSET PRODUCTIONS (III) AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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