Rent Three Monster Tales of Sci-fi Terror (1958)

on two of the films... - Three Monster Tales of Sci-fi Terror review by Steve

MAN-MADE MONSTER

This low budget Universal sci-fi/horror clearly borrows from Frankenstein a decade earlier. Yet also feels at least ten years ahead of its time; more like a drive-in feature from the ’50s. It features Lon Chaney jr’s debut in the genre as an oddball idiot who can survive huge amounts of electricity without obvious harm…

Only to run into Lionel Atwill playing a mad scientist intent on creating a prototype for a super-race by plugging him into the mains. Future generations would adapt this idea with atomic and then computer technology. But this is the ’40s and Chaney spends the second half of the film glowing like the Ready-Brek kid.

Despite the B picture resources, this effect is really quite impressive. And surely the stuff about the army of automatons is intended to reflect the Nazis? As usual, Atwill is the standout, just edging out Corky the dog, who is way ahead of the rest in noticing something is going badly awry.

It’s a cheap shocker obviously directed with an eye on the clock. The support cast is mundane, aside from Corky. But some care has gone into the action set pieces and it builds to an exciting climax as the electrical man goes berserk. It’s entertaining, and you will learn plenty about ‘electrobiology’. 

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS

Standard sci-fi/horror for the '50s drive-in crowd, elevated by a superior production from Universal studios, rather than shoddy trash from poverty row. There’s a competent crew led by genre legend Jack Arnold. And a fair cast which gets the balance between seriousness and sendup just about right. But the crazy plot is the same sort of hokum.

Arthur Franz plays a hot biology professor who gets contaminated by a prehistoric fish and periodically transforms into an angry, homicidal caveman. For complicated reasons involving atomic radiation. The dialogue works hard to convince us this might actually happen. But it’s dumbed down Jekyll and Hyde.

And the Prof wakes up at the centre of a zone of destruction, wondering what just happened… Being low budget campus sci-fi, there are teenage hunks (Troy Donahue) and babes (Nancy Walters). But they are relatively well behaved, not wild for kicks. Most of the mayhem happens to the grownups.

We don’t get to see the monster until the climax, which is a good thing, as it’s a terrible rubber mask. The days of Jack Pierce rising at dawn to paste yak hair onto the star are long gone. Sadly. The effects are prehistoric. Of course this is all completely idiotic, yet surprisingly fun. And not because it’s bad. This is decent nonsense.