How to make a monster movie on the cheap: have the majority of the action take place on a film studio backlot to save on location fees; use make-up and props already designed and created for earlier films; save the colour footage (as advertised on the film posters) for the final two reels.
Yes, How To Make A Monster is a real cheap effort from American International Pictures, and something of a disappointment for this particular fan of creature features since the film's monsters aren't 'real', but rather the creations of movie make-up genius Pete Dumond (Robert H. Harris), who uses a special ingredient in his make-up to enable him to control the actors, sending them to kill the studio's new bosses after they give him the sack.
Aimed at a teen audience, the youths who unwittingly become Dumond's murderous puppets are a pair of hunks (Tony Mantell and Larry Drake), and the film also features a rock 'n' roll musical interlude, AIP regular John Ashley performing 'You've Got to Have Ee-Ooo' in the company of several sexy young ladies. The film's proto-meta concept, the murder scenes and the musical stuff is all fairly entertaining nonsense, but far too much of the film's running time is taken up by dull police procedural, as L. A.'s finest try to figure out who is bumping off the studio execs.
5/10.
N. B. Fans of 50s sci-fi/horror will have fun spotting several notable B-movie monster masks in Dumond's collection (from It Conquered The World, The She-Creature and Invasion of The Saucer Men).
Yes, How To Make A Monster is a real cheap effort from American International Pictures, and something of a disappointment for this particular fan of creature features since the film's monsters aren't 'real', but rather the creations of movie make-up genius Pete Dumond (Robert H. Harris), who uses a special ingredient in his make-up to enable him to control the actors, sending them to kill the studio's new bosses after they give him the sack.
Aimed at a teen audience, the youths who unwittingly become Dumond's murderous puppets are a pair of hunks (Tony Mantell and Larry Drake), and the film also features a rock 'n' roll musical interlude, AIP regular John Ashley performing 'You've Got to Have Ee-Ooo' in the company of several sexy young ladies. The film's proto-meta concept, the murder scenes and the musical stuff is all fairly entertaining nonsense, but far too much of the film's running time is taken up by dull police procedural, as L. A.'s finest try to figure out who is bumping off the studio execs.
5/10.
N. B. Fans of 50s sci-fi/horror will have fun spotting several notable B-movie monster masks in Dumond's collection (from It Conquered The World, The She-Creature and Invasion of The Saucer Men).