Friday, April 22, 2016

Movie review - "The Mad Monster" (1942) ** (re-viewing)

PRC seems to have splashed out a little more than usual for this werewolf movie - or maybe it was just better designed and shot. The production values seem relatively high, as George Zucco tries to breed a race of killer werewolves to help win the war (good on you, George!). He does experiments in the basement on Glenn Strange, who when non-werewolf-y, runs around imitating Lon Chaney Jnr in Of Mice and Men - but when the serum hits he turns into a werewolf.

Like so many of these low budget horror films this starts off with a bang, but then slows down, and struggles to sustain interest whenever the action switches to the inexperienced supporting players. Part of the reason why the Universal horror films held up so well was the quality of the support cast and subplots - these struggled on poverty row.

At 77 minutes it feels long. They should have ditched the support cast and focused more on Zucco and his patriotic monsters - that's a genuinely different aspect not really developed. It does have one other shocking aspect - the monster kills a kid. Not bad, but eventually disappointing after a strong beginning.

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