2
(nothing direct)
7
(mild violence, frightening moments)
4
(might be worth seeing if you like old horror)
Dr. Cameron is a man with a mission, a mad scientist man with a twisted mission. He is creating a werewolf using SCIENCE! Those other scientists laughed at him, ridiculed him, ostracized him, but he’ll show them. Yes, he will. When he sets his Mad Monster after them they’ll find out all too late what can be done by injecting wolf’s blood into a human. But when the police start a murder investigation what’s a mad scientist to do?
George Zucco turns in another pretty good mad scientist performance in "The Mad Monster." I particularly like him when he’s having conversations with imaginary critics. He starts with the idea of giving the military an edge using wolf-like soldiers but clearly crosses the line into insanity, and that’s even before he starts plotting werewolf murder!
Glenn Strange gives a decent performance as the dim-witted test subject/werewolf. He manages to be convincingly innocent in one form and fierce in the other. I enjoyed seeing him as the innocent guy put into the hands of Dr. Cameron’s unsuspecting victims only to change into the monstrous harbinger of their doom. I'm not that familiar with most of Glenn’s work, but so far this has been the only role in which I've thought he was any good. There are some other decent portrayals as well, but no one that I recognized or that stand out as much as the two leads.
The story has a little originality: a scientist creating and controlling (somewhat) a werewolf rather than a monster just roaming the land in search of some random prey (not that there aren’t some moments of that in here, too). Dr. Cameron decides on a victim and engineers a situation to get his monster close enough to the unsuspecting target to do the deed. It’s a way to take the monster attacks out of the forest and put them into non-traditional places like an office.
The wolf costume is pretty silly. Not that any of the wolf costumes from the black-and-white era are all that great, but that doesn’t excuse a goofy looking getup. Strange’s performance helps, but a better look would have gone a long way to giving the part a boost.
Morality
This is perhaps a little more violent than the average black-and-white movie, but that's still very tame compared to more contemporary standards. There is no strong language, sex, or nudity.
Spirituality
The crux of this movie is the desire for revenge coming from a person who feels that the ends justify the means. The Bible tells us that it really doesn't matter how smart we are, how generous we are, or what we can do for the world, if we don't have love in us we don't amount to anything. Scientists can do some amazing things and propose any number of medical benefits for humanity, but if they are doing it without love in their hearts then their contributions walk the line of personal vendettas rather than anything truly beneficial.
Final Thoughts
I was entertained by this movie when I wasn't annoyed with the video quality (due to its age), but it's not anything I recommend highly unless you particularly enjoy black-and-white werewolf movies.
Buying Guide
"The Mad Monster," like so many of these old public domain movies, has a maddening number of releases to sort.
While there is little to distinguish one release from another, there are a couple that stand out if just barely. Retromedia's Drive-In Theater version offers a few extras, and the Alpha release lists a longer run time than the others. There are any number of other stand-alone releases and even more multi-movie packs with various numbers of other films.
Nearly all of the details for all of the releases list the same specs (I'll provide more details in the next section). None mention being remastered and few list any extras.
The exception is Retromedia's Drive-In Theater which offers an interview with Glenn Strange and a feature listed only as “The Black Raven.”
The Alpha release gives a run time of 90 minutes (vs. the 77 minute run of all the others). However, at least one review suggests that this is not right, and I have not found any talk of an actual 90 minute cut, so this very well could be just a mistake in the listing.
Final Recommendation:
While I can't promise that any other release is going to be any better, the Horror Classics 50 pack version I have is hard to watch. It wouldn't take much for one of those other versions to have a superior video quality even if it still isn't all that great. While I've been pleased overall with the big budget pack it's not a good choice if you're looking specifically for this movie. Retromedia's release might be worth it for the couple of extras it offers if you can find it at a reasonable asking price.
I got my copy in a 50 pack of “Horror Classics.”
Video
1.33:
There is no widescreen version. The picture is messed up in several spots and the whole thing tends to skip a lot not to mention that it is very washed out with the typical trash and lines. It's bad enough to hurt my enjoyment of the movie substantially.
Audio
2.0 mono:
The audio is fine for the most part aside from the low quality that most of the old unrestored movies have, but it does become hard to make out in a few spots.
Packaging
This particular disc is housed in a cardboard sleeve contained in a Velcro-fastened box (repackaged in plastic more recently). You can read about the set as a whole in great detail in the Horror Classics (50 pack) guide.
Extras
There are none.