Monster on the Campus

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.

A previous commentator writes that: "The story is totally ludicrous and a feeble, shameless attempt to promote evolution. Only a leftist loony would believe this stuff."

Just to set the record straight, the concept of "evolution" promoted by the film is a gross distortion of actual evolutionary theory, suggesting as it does that evolution involves some sort of mystical forces and that certain so-called "living fossils" contain some sort of substance which somehow counteracts these forces. None of this actually makes in any sense, however, in terms of the actual science.

To sum up, evolutionary theory is perfectly valid science, and there's nothing particularly shameful about promoting it as science, contrary to what the above poster might think. OTOH, the movie's conception of what evolution actually means is just plain silly.

If you're a 50's "B" movie fan like I am, this is a gem. I saw this film back when i was a kid, something like 1962 or so, and it hasn't been on T.V. in years. I have a VHS copy of it but would love to find it on DVD sometime in the future. When a caveman throws a hatchet and it hits a cop square in the face, it leaves an impression on you when you're 10 years old. Of course, by today's standards, it looks kinda hokey, but you have to keep in mind that movies like this one "pioneered" this type of movie. I wouldn't trade a 50's "B" flick for all the new garbage in the world. Like, what could measure up to movies such as the transparency of "The Amazing Colossal Man" and "War Of The Colossal Beast?" Ah yes, those were the days. Back when sci-fi movies didn't have to be VULGAR to be entertaining. The special effects didn't even have to be good - we STILL loved it! I sure wish the Time Tunnel was a reality - I'd go back there in a new york second!

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...