It's weird how none of these early "Wolf Man" knock-offs use either 'wolf' or 'werewolf' in the title. Maybe they were scared of getting sued, as if Universal now owned the rights to werewolf folklore or something. Having said that, "The Undying Monster" is a great title in itself.

I knew I'd probably enjoy this movie right from the melodramatic opening titles and foreboding narrative. Our story begins in the Hammond estate, where a butler is extremely nervous about the foggy night and keeps going on to his mistress about an old family legend regarding a monster ... "When the stars are bright, on a frosty night, beware thy bane, in the rocky lane" ... you know, if I had a butler who spouted poetry that bad, I'd fire him on the spot. The lady of the house is of course skeptical and doesn't believe in the legend of the monster who preys on the Hammond family, but she is soon proved wrong when they hear a howl followed by a scream and wander out into the mist to find her brother and his female companion unconscious after having been attacked. Thankfully they survive, and an investigation begins into what caused the attack, natural or supernatural, which leads to a discovery that explains the truth behind the old Hammond mystery ...

There's some wonderfully bad dialogue here, especially from the rural supporting cast ("It's tha monshta, killin' mishter oliver most loike!"). The upper-class Hammond twits also provide their share of unintentional comedy, seemingly not very bothered by the fact that a monster is out to kill them, but rather appearing to view it all as a jolly bit of fun. This is exactly the kind of movie that the MST3K team would have a lot of fun with. If you don't enjoy bad movies, though, you'll probably just find this supernatural investigation a bit dull for the most part, despite its short length. It does noteably feature a young John Howard as Mr Hammond, who would later find fame starring in the popular sixties TV show "Branded" alongside Chuck Connors (Janos Skorzeny from the "Werewolf" TV show). Okay, I'm done playing Six Degrees of Lycanthropy now.

There aren't very many of these early werewolf B-movies, so we've got to take what we've got I suppose. They serve as a nice companion to the more A-list quality of the Wolf Man saga, and this one is quite interesting to fans of the genre.

The Wolf Aside from the howling that precedes the initial attack, it takes an awful long time for the werewolf to show up in this movie. I was beginning to wonder if it was a werewolf movie after all, as every character seemed to be convinced that it was the ghost of Hammond ancestor who had sold their soul to the devil. In fact, the first mention of wolves only comes about fifteen minutes from the end, after a strand of hair recovered from the scene is found to be identical to a wolf hair. Even then a werewolf isn't suspected. For some reason, this particular werewolf infects its victims with cobra venom. Odd. The makeup is pretty much standard for the time, the old "hairy man" approach. We don't get to see a whole lot of the creature. After the werewolf is discovered and killed, the movie ends with a brief discussion of lycanthropy and the history of werewolves.

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