How to Make a Monster (1958)
 | Directed By: Herbert L. Strock |
| Written By: Herman Cohen & Aben Kandel | |
| Starring: Robert H. Harris, Paul Brinegar, Gary Conway, Gary Clarke ... | |
| Running Time: 73 min | |
| Release Date: 01/07/1958 | |
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A clever, self-referential sequel to "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" and "I Was A Teenage Frankenstein", written and produced by the same team. The story is that American International film studios (who produced the previous two movies, and this one) decide to stop making monster movies and switch to musicals. After being fired from his job, the film studio makeup wizard applies "a special fixing agent" to his teenage actor's monster makeup that turns them into real monsters, which he uses for the purposes of revenge ...
It could be argued that American International Pictures revived the werewolf in the late 50's with "I Was A Teenage Werewolf". It was released at a time when television was becoming common in the home, which meant that fewer people went out to the movie theatres. Those that did were largely of a teenage audience, something that AIP clearly understood, and the success of their movie ensured a revival of the whole genre.
In this clever, self-referential sequel (of sorts), American International Studios are closing down production of horror movies in order to make more musicals, which sounds fairly true to life in what may have been happening in some studios at the time. Anyway, this means that famed makeup artist Pete Dumond, possibly based on Jack Pierce, will be out of a job because he specialises only in monsters. He isn't too happy about all this, so he decides to take revenge on the new owners of the studio by turning his "Teenage Werewolf" and "Teenage Frankenstein" actors into real monsters using a mind control makeup paste thingy. It all takes place during the filming of a "Teenage Werewolf meets the Teenage Frankenstein" movie.
This is a pretty neat idea, and the script explores it very well. There's some great cheesey dialogue, a wonderful lead performance from Robert H. Harris as the makeup artist, and from Paul Brinegar as his nervous assistant. The two 'teenage' stars, who were actually in their early twenties when this film was made, play their roles with that all-American wide-eyed innocence that actually works pretty well in parts such as this.
AIP were famed for producing their horror movies on low budgets, often less than a hundred thousand while at the time major studios generally set their budgets in the millions. This movie doesn't really look that cheap, the sets look perfectly fine especially the final set in the makeup artist's house where the big finale takes place. This also features a dramatic shift into color so that you can appreciate his mask collection even more, which is pretty neat.
"How To Make A Monster" is a very entertaining film, which I'd recommend to anyone who likes these cheesey old horror movies. You won't be disappointed.
When you're making a film about a fictional legendary makeup artist, you'd better make sure the makeup is pretty damn good. And, well, it's not bad (see top photo). It's not exactly of Jack Pierce standard, but quite impressive for the budget and damn sight better than the dodgy frankenstein makeup they came up with (see second photo down). It was a pretty neat idea to combine the teenage werewolf and the teenage frankenstein series that AIP had produced, and the choice was most likely inspired by the fact that Universal studios had done the same thing with their monsters in the previous decade. These were basically remakes of those old classics, aimed at the teenage audience. The werewolf is portrayed by Gary Clarke, whose character is called Larry Drake. This is peculiar, because the werewolf in "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" was actually played by Michael Landon, and his character was called Tony Rivers. In fact, Landon's name actually appears on a poster in the film (see third photo down). Presumably they couldn't get Landon back as he was rising to stardom in various westerns, including his famous role in "Bonanza". The teenage frankenstein, however, is played by the same guy who played him in the previous film -- Gary Conway, although his character is called Tony Mantell. The transformation scenes here are actually the makeup scenes, as no actual physical transforming takes place. When under the spell of the makeup artist, he behaves just like the teenage werewolf he portrays, snarling and clawing and biting ... although how he can bite anyone with those silly plastic fangs in his mouth, who knows. It's interesting that you actually get a little look at how the makeup effects are created, although not that much. I guess they figured the more the viewers know about the makeup, the less convincing it is. Unfortunately the teenage werewolf doesn't get a huge amount of screen time, but then, it's not that long a film. We get to see him in the makeup just a couple of times, once on set and once when he is forced to commit a murder (see bottom photo). In this scene there's a strange little frothing-at-the-mouth effect, which I've seen done before, but not to this extent. It's like some kind of crazy waterfall! Or not. |
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