Monster on the Campus

Monster on the Campus (1958)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining Universal Sci-Fi about a college scientist who turns into a monster after his blood is mixed with that of a prehistoric fish. I've been wanting to see this for quite some time but never got around to buying the VHS since it was released just as I was jumping on the DVD format. The wait was certainly worth it even though the film isn't really anything other than your typical Jekyll and Hyde story. The film goes by at a very quick pace and the monster looks great, although it's a shame we only get to see him twice. I was somewhat shocked at the rather violent third death scene. The film also contains one of the dumbest girlfriends in sci-fi history.

Ah yes! The good old days when Sci-Fi was simple. All you needed was a little radiation and most anything was possible. This movie was one of the last 50's Sci-Fi movies from Universal coming out in 1959-same year I did. Audiences then were not as sophisticated as they are now and quicker to give a movie the benefit of the doubt. This was the day of the Drive-In movie. Anyone my age or older should enjoy the simplicity of this film and the nostalgic quality of it. Good solid performances by Arthur Franz and especially Joanna Moore (whom would later become notable as one of Andy Taylor's girlfriends on TV). Plenty of the good old character actors from Universal's other Sci-Fi films give it a familiar feel. This movie doesn't ask you to think too much; when I was a kid watching Shock Theatre on a Saturday afternoon I didn't want to. Sure, the make-up could have been much better but from a distance the monster is quite scary.You don't have to look close to find a few blunders: lace-up shoe or loafer? You'll hear music from practically all of Universal's Sci-Fi and horrors movies: Tarantula, Frankenstein, the Mummy movies.This movie is probably not very entertaining to the younger generations of viewers other than finding it quite campy. How far we've come as an audience. But this movie tries hard and with its budget I've got to give it credit. It holds a warm spot in my heart and a solid place in my video library.

I've always enjoyed this film that turned out to be Jack Arnolds last horror film and I really do not understand why some people think this is awful. There are some flicks that you don't have to take seriously and all you have to do is sit back and have fun watching. Sure, its silly but most 50's sci-fi is. Why is this worse than others? The music that is used is from other Arnold films most notably "Tarantula" and I'm sure Universal used the same score for countless other movies. A lot of Arnold regulars pop up like Whit Bissell, Phil Harvey, Ross Elliott, Richard Cutting and of course Mr. Ziffel, Hank Patterson! Eddie Parker plays the monster here in make-up, not Arthur Franz and Parker was also in "Tarantula" in two roles. Both as lab assistance who die of that deforming disease. Troy Donahue in one of his early roles is Jimmy and he's especially wooden. But Arnold knows exactly how to tell a story no matter how silly and the scene with the giant dragonfly is fun, so is the whole movie.

Here is another movie offered in the recently-released Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection that, like the others, offers a good DVD transfer. This story isn't quite up to a few of the others, but it's still interesting which is the main thing. A boring sci-fi film would be inexcusable.

This one is almost laughable in spots because it does have a Grade-B feel to it. The main actor, Arthur Franz, sounds like a wooden in spots and is a bit too serious. The rest of the cast, except for wooden-voiced pretty boy Troy Donahue, is fine.

The story is totally ludicrous and a feeble, shameless attempt to promote evolution. Only a leftist loony would believe this stuff. It's presented so

I wish they had at least put in more tension in the earlier "monster" scenes. What the monster looked like was totally left up the viewer's imagination, until the final dramatic scene when he was "exposed." That was cool; a kind of wolf-man look. Earlier, the super-sized dragonfly was so poorly done it was funny.

It's decent, nothing notable but a okay part of the five-movie Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection DVD that was released in the fall of 2006. I've seen three of these so far and have been impressed with the transfer on these discs.

The blood of a primitive fish exposed to gamma rays causes a benign research professor (Arthur Franz) to regress to an ape-like, bloodthirsty prehistoric hominid.

I cannot believe how daft Professor Blake is. He does not realize that all the evidence points to one man for the murders, and he even knows how, but fails to recognize it. I am also sort of surprised how light this film is given the subject matter -- a deranged killer is loose on campus and no one seems too terribly upset.

I liked the idea of the de-evolution blood. Even if it made a dog wear fake teeth. And even if the professor's name is Donald Blake, which means that he was also the Norse god Thor...