How to Make a Monster

Poster tagline: IT WILL SCARE THE LIVING HELL OUT OF YOU!! SEE THE GHASTLY GHOULS IN FLAMING COLOR!!! Well, alas. The poster and the advertising promised a lot, but the entertainment was scarce. And yet the script is not completely futile (of course, by the B-movie standards of the time). Basically, the point is that chief makeup artist and creator of monster masks Pete Drummond (werewolves are his main specialty) gets fired by the new heads of the American International film studio, on the grounds that his work is no longer needed because the public demands comedy and humor, so the studio will focus only on musicals. Drummond is not willing to accept this and with the help of a special ointment he temporarily subdues (one might say "hypnotises") two young aspiring actors who, disguised as a werewolf (a very nice mask, by the way) and the Frankenstein monster, do his will and murder the studio executives. The premise is decent, but even three murders can't banish the static boredom that completely lacks even a guilty-pleasure element. Perhaps the only thing worth mentioning is the fact that it has a regular musical singing number and also that the last 10 minutes were filmed in colour. But the reason why they wasted Technicolor escapes me a bit (aside from the red flames of the final fire). (14/03/2012)