Monster on the Campus – 1958 – United States
I was just telling someone about this movie, and here is the summary I came up with: “A scientist cuts his hand on an irradiated coelacanth and turns into a homicidal Neanderthal.” That is a pretty good outline of what Monster on the Campus is all about. Basically, the blood from a mutant coelacanth (prehistoric fish) causes anyone who absorbs it to revert to an earlier evolutionary stage. A dog becomes a wolf. A dragonfly becomes a really big dragonfly (which looks pretty cool).
Monster on the Campus is a bit like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde or a werewolf story. The scientist protagonist is also the villain as he temporarily becomes a Neanderthal and kills people. In the end, he commits suicide. It is fairly obvious what is going to happen, so watching the movie feels like waiting for the plot to catch up with you. The story could be sort of tragic if only the scientist weren’t so condescending and annoying. His first line of the movie is: “A female in the perfect state—defenseless and silent.” It’s meant to be a joke, but it didn’t endear me to the character.
Nothing about Monster on the Campus is really special, but the dragonfly I mentioned earlier is a pretty cool-looking puppet. The Neanderthal transformation sequences also look sort of good. But maybe my expectations were just low because transformation scenes in cheap werewolf movies always look so damn awful.
The title of this movie would sound better if it was “Monster on Campus” instead of Monster on the Campus. Just saying.
Rating: 4/10 Shrunken Heads
Video Vodou 