The Mad Monster

In medieval times, a man had to make a pact with the living Devil if he wanted to change into a beast. Alternately, upon death, a werewolf may be changed INTO a vampire. And, one supposes, garners a whole new set of personal issues.

The Mad Monster is an entertaining entry in the "Poverty Row" series of pictures churned out by Hollywood in the late Thirties and early Forties, films starring such forgotten screen stars as Bela Lugosi, who did his fair share before sinking into the quagmire surrounding shit auteur Ed Wood and his sub, sub-par "productions" (such as the infamous Plan Nine From Outer Space).

The Poverty Row pictures, as bad as they were, were still technically proficient films, created with a level of competence that Ed Wood just didn't possess. Be that as it may, Lugosi is, however, NOT in The Mad Monster, although he could have easily played the werewolf part, as he could have the mad doctor. That distinction goes to George Zucco, as "Dr. Lorenzo," his mentally-impaired assistant Petro, played by Glenn Strange, is the werewolf in question.

In short, the mad doctor uses a secret "wolf-serum" to transform the very mentally slow Petro into a weird, bearded, quasi-wolfman that looks as if he simply hasn't shaved, had a haircut, or an orthodontists visit in a long, long, time.

Zucco (Kenneth Anger claims, in Hollywood Babylon, that he died in an asylum, fearing the "Great God Cthulhu"(!) was going to come for him) bristling with success and drunk with power, and raving, imagines a weird scene wherein his former scientific colleagues are seated around a table. They all scoffed at him then; now, he imagines, they simply want to stop him from creating a super army to fight the Nazis. Or something like that.

"You realize, of course, that this country is at war. That our armed forces are locked in combat with a savage horde that fights with fanatical fury. Well that fanatical fury will avail them of nothing when I place my new serum at the disposal of the war department. Just picture gentlemen: An army of wolf men. Fearless! Raging! Every man a snarling animal! My serum will make it possible to unloose millions of such animal men. Men are governed by one collective thought: the animal lust to kill, without regard for personal safety. Such an army will be invincible gentlemen!" --Dr. Lorenzo

Petro is let loose and proceeds to kill a little village girl. The villagers are terrified, one, "finding religion," (at least according to his neighbor) because he thought the Devil had been loosed on Earth. Zucco begins to use Petro to exact revenge on his former scientific colleagues, arranging that he should be with them when he is in his wolf form.

A snooping reporter (is there any other kind), played by Johnny Downs, comes calling at Lorenzo's lab and is put off at first by his daughter, played by Anne Nagel. They begin to have a hotsy-totsy thing together, which complicates matters no end.

More killings ensue, with Petro less and less able to control when the change will come over him. The final climax is as fiery as expected, and, not to give away the ending, but, it steals a note from Frankenstein.

On the whole, the film is very enjoyable. Faces and bodies are intensely lit from beneath, to give the traditional "spook show" effect; the film utilizes shadow very effectively for atmosphere. Zucco is appropriately crazy as the mad Dr. Lorenzo, his dream of a werewolf army echoed later in such films (a hundred miles above) such fare as The Mad Monster, such as An American Werewolf in London (1981). THAT particular film featured a dream sequence with Nazi werewolves (shades of the old urban legends surrounding super-secret Nazi "Werewolf Orders" and occultism), but Lorenzo seems as if, besides being a man who will pervert science to enact brutal, homicidal revenge, curiously patriotic.

The performances of Nagel and Downs are adequate for such a period piece. Only Strange seems strange. His "Lenny" from Grapes of Wrath impersonation seems a bit forced, and, as a werewolf, he doesn't skulk around, crouching like a beast, like some third-rung Lon Chaney. No. Instead, he simply walks around upright, as if not a lot has changed. But this is a small quibble; hardly worth howling about.

Yuk, yuk.

The Mad Monster can be viewed on YouTube.