The Mad Monster
| The Mad Monster | |
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Reissue one-sheet poster (Madison Pictures Inc.) for "The Mad Monster."
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| Directed by | Sam Newfield |
| Produced by | Sigmund Neufeld |
| Written by | Fred Myton |
| Starring |
Johnny Downs George Zucco Anne Nagel Reginald Barlow |
| Music by | David Chudnow |
| Cinematography | Jack Greenhalgh |
| Edited by | Holbrook N. Todd |
| Distributed by | Producers Releasing Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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77 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Mad Monster is an American horror film produced and distributed in 1942 by "Poverty Row" studio Producers Releasing Corporation, directed by Sam Newfield, written by Fred Myton, and starring George Zucco, Glenn Strange, Johnny Downs and Anne Nagel. The plot involves a mad scientist who has been discredited by his peers. He attempts to kill them off after he develops a secret formula that transforms his gardener into a murderous wolfman.
The story begins on a fog-bound moonlight night in a swamp; a wolf howls. The scene shifts to the nearby laboratory of Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco), who draws blood from a caged wolf. Secured to a table is Dr. Cameron's simpleminded but strong gardener, Petro (Glenn Strange), who is to be the doctor's subject in an experiment. Cameron injects a serum made from a wolf's blood into the cooperative Petro, who loses consciousness, grows fur and fangs and awakens after he has turned into a wolfman.
Cameron then turns to an empty table and visualizes his former colleagues sitting there—four professors who ridiculed his theory that transfusions of wolf blood could be used to give a human being wolf-like traits. He recalls how the scientific community, the press and the public joined in a resounding chorus of ridicule, which cost him his position at the university.
Addressing the spectral professors, Cameron declares, "Right now, we're at war. At war with an enemy that produces a horde that strikes with a ferocious fanaticism". Cameron proposes giving wolfman traits to the army to help with the war. When the professors scoff, Cameron says that his proposal doesn't really matter; he is now going to have his wolfman kill his former colleagues. He then administers an antidote to Petro that transforms him back into a human; Petro remembers nothing.
The following night, Cameron turns Petro into a wolf and sends him to the swamp. Before the night is over Petro has entered a nearby home and killed a little girl. When Cameron hears of the child's fate, he knows his formula works. He turns to his real priority, which is destroying the scientists who ruined his career. The rest of the film involves Cameron setting up elaborate scenarios in which Petro is alone with each scientist when he becomes a wolf. However, the more he does this, the more Petro's transformations into a wolfman become unpredictable.
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Wikipedia