Monster on the Campus

I've always enjoyed this film that turned out to be Jack Arnolds last horror film and I really do not understand why some people think this is awful. There are some flicks that you don't have to take seriously and all you have to do is sit back and have fun watching. Sure, its silly but most 50's sci-fi is. Why is this worse than others? The music that is used is from other Arnold films most notably "Tarantula" and I'm sure Universal used the same score for countless other movies. A lot of Arnold regulars pop up like Whit Bissell, Phil Harvey, Ross Elliott, Richard Cutting and of course Mr. Ziffel, Hank Patterson! Eddie Parker plays the monster here in make-up, not Arthur Franz and Parker was also in "Tarantula" in two roles. Both as lab assistance who die of that deforming disease. Troy Donahue in one of his early roles is Jimmy and he's especially wooden. But Arnold knows exactly how to tell a story no matter how silly and the scene with the giant dragonfly is fun, so is the whole movie.

Although this film reportedly wasn't one of director Jack Arnold's favorites, I personally have enjoyed it very much through many viewings. The story is a Jekyll-Hyde variation, but it offers real suspense and some genuine scares from a director that knows how. The only (minor) disappointment is the creature's makeup (not seen 'til near the end), which unfortunately is revealed to us in a brightly-lit room; makeups like this are more effective when glimpsed fleetingly in the dark. That small quibble aside, this film offers lots of scary fun for those in the mood. (The same can be said of Arnold's earlier films for the same studio, "It Came From Outer Space" (1953) and "Tarantula" (1955).

Ah yes! The good old days when Sci-Fi was simple. All you needed was a little radiation and most anything was possible. This movie was one of the last 50's Sci-Fi movies from Universal coming out in 1959-same year I did. Audiences then were not as sophisticated as they are now and quicker to give a movie the benefit of the doubt. This was the day of the Drive-In movie. Anyone my age or older should enjoy the simplicity of this film and the nostalgic quality of it. Good solid performances by Arthur Franz and especially Joanna Moore (whom would later become notable as one of Andy Taylor's girlfriends on TV). Plenty of the good old character actors from Universal's other Sci-Fi films give it a familiar feel. This movie doesn't ask you to think too much; when I was a kid watching Shock Theatre on a Saturday afternoon I didn't want to. Sure, the make-up could have been much better but from a distance the monster is quite scary.You don't have to look close to find a few blunders: lace-up shoe or loafer? You'll hear music from practically all of Universal's Sci-Fi and horrors movies: Tarantula, Frankenstein, the Mummy movies.This movie is probably not very entertaining to the younger generations of viewers other than finding it quite campy. How far we've come as an audience. But this movie tries hard and with its budget I've got to give it credit. It holds a warm spot in my heart and a solid place in my video library.

A college professor obtains an ancient life-form whose fluids soon turn deadly.

Looks like Universal just couldn't give up their werewolf franchise. So they reworked it, replacing full moons with prehistoric "coelacanth" fluid. Seems the stuff turns modern creatures into vicious prehistoric counterparts. So a sophisticated modern guy like Prof. Blake (Franz) turns into a hairy, monstrous hominid, and Hollywood 1958 scares drive-in kids the way necking teens hoped.

You gotta give actor Franz credit. He treats the drive-in material like it was Ben Hur. There's not a hint of camp in the sometimes campy material. But then it's got not only studio backing, but ace sci-fi director Jack Arnold ( e.g. The Incredible Shrinking Man {1957}) at the helm. So the camera never falters even when the cardboard monsters do. (Please, couldn't they have re-worked that awful dragonfly.) Thus, the results suggest eye-level Hollywood professionalism at its most challenged. All in all, it looks like the studio was aiming for respectable sci-fi on the order of Arnold's previous It Came From Outer Space (1953). In my view, Universal only half succeeds, no thanks to the generally poor special effects. Anyway, give actor Franz a combat Oscar for pressing on fearlessly under adverse circumstances. And give director Arnold a Lifetime Achievement Award for excelling in a genre generally bypassed by snooty media critics.

(If memory serves, the coelacanth talked about in the movie was a "missing link" first discovered in the 1930's. Its fish-like body crucially contained fleshy fins, indicating it could move about on land, thus confirming scientific hypothesis that life evolved from the sea.)

Made in 1958, here is a general reworking of all the came before. It's Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde married to any werewolf movie. Yet, it never entirely verges into camp or silliness. The performances are strong, even from the dog. The music, though borrowed from other movies like 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' and 'Tarantula', is used effectively giving the action a boost where needed.

The special effects were nothing special. The transformation from man to beast and back again were smoother than 'The Wolfman', but the resulting creature was almost too obviously a rubber mask. Closeups do kill the effect somewhat so they filmed him at a distance which pulled the visuals back into plausibility. Much of it works well.

But why was this made? As noted, there's nothing new. It is played as a very straight forward no nonsense monster movie. It has its moments of real horror but it also doesn't even try push boundaries. If you had to judge it against all other of this genre, it's a C+.

A good solid movie for a rainy day and popcorn.