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 "A genuine classic of cheap and sleazy 50's teenage horror." A descendant of
Dr.
Frankenstein builds a creature and "uses drugs to turn a girl into a
buck-toothed hormonally freaked-out monster." They note the creature "haunts"
swimming pools and BBQs. They also tout the ending as a "gory acid-in-the-face
climax." This phrase is used though I have no idea what it means: "a deranged
cardboard focus of over oversexed obsessive-compulsive fascination." The
write-up quoted is from an edition Something Weird Video released in the early
1990s. 1958, 85 minutes, VHS
I would try to be smart and say that they should have called this movie, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, but a movie with that title had already been released a year earlier in 1957.
You see, this is an "updating" of the Frankenstein mythos to (then) present
day attitudes. What this means is that you've got long-in-the-tooth actors
playing people in their late teens and monsters running around in bathing
suits. Johnny and Trudy are a couple of cool cats who are in love and are
going to be married once Johnny gets that promotion to assistant manager (dare
to dream Johnny!). The snafu (other than her husband-to-be's limited goals in
life and his Frankie Avalon hair) is that she keeps having nightmares that
she's a monster that prowls the city streets in a blue negligee. The movie's
in black and white, so I'll have to take Trudy's word for it that it was blue.
This monster is basically a stuntman in a nightie with this stupid looking mask
consisting of bugged-out eyes, nasty teeth, and a skin condition that would
make Edward James Olmos blanch. The movie doesn't dilly-dally and gives us
the monster right out of the gate. Of course the only person to see the
monster is Trudy's sometime-friend, Susan, a platinum blonde who when she
walks, we
are obligated to say one of two things: "Shake it, but don't break it" or "do
fries come with that shake?" Some of you may also be inclined to say, "back
that thang up" but I'm a little more refined than that (brief digression - has
anyone seen the ad on TV for the CD compilation called Monster Booty? Is there
anyone who's seen that ad that hasn't immediately called the toll-free
number?). The next morning, Trudy's kindly uncle, the local mad scientist
(he's actually more crabby than mad) wakes her up and she complains that she's
really tired and had this awful dream. She meets Johnny, Susan and Susan's
boyfriend for tennis, but doesn't really feel like playing. I don't suppose it
had anything to do with the fact that your "boyfriend" was wearing a white
shirt with the collar pulled up around his neck like he was a refugee from a
movie called I Was A Teenage Nancy Boy.  Mysteriously, the night before, all she remembers doing is having a nice glass
of punch with her father's assistant Oliver. Oh, that would be Mr. Oliver
Frank to you. I think you can see where this is going. I'd have to say that
this doesn't rank quite as high on the stupid alias scale as say Alucard and
Mark E. DeSade, but you'd think a guy with brains enough to create life could
do a little better at disguising his heritage than Oliver Frank. That said,
Oliver Frank is one of the best Frankensteins (Oops! I guess I let the cat out
of the bag!) I've seen. First, he's one of these good-looking cool dudes with
a perfectly greased hairdo and always is dressed in a nice coat and tie.
Second, he's pretty much into the uncle's face the whole time they're working
together. The uncle has some experiment he's working on, which I never really
caught on to what it was and Oliver Frank is always telling the old geezer that
he's going to fail and he doesn't know why they continue to waste time on the
old fart's research. To old fart's credit, he hollers back that Mr. Frank can
quit whenever he wants to. Frank, though, needs the job, because once the old
timer is in bed (at about 5:00 p.m. - after a nice dinner at Bishop's Buffet at
4:00 p.m.) he and his assistant begin work on their own little research
project. It's pretty sweet that Frank has an assistant, what with him not even
having his own lab. In a struck of luck, the gardener also happens to be a
good hand stealing body parts and rolling hospital gurneys in and out of secret
passageways. Now don't misunderstand me, this is a Frankenstein movie, so when
the good doc needs brains or a nervous system or something, the assistant mucks
it all up
and only gets part of what's necessary. Oliver is outraged that the gardener
has only brought him a chunk of gooey innards and not the whole thing (I
couldn't identify what the gardener brought, but I think it either belongs in
the chest or at the base of the brain).  Those of you who are hoping for a coherent story are probably wondering what
all this has to do with Trudy turning into an ugly (U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no
alibi, UGLY!) she-freak. I was wondering this as well, so I got real close to
my television, squinted hard at the screen and tried to use telepathy to make
Oliver Frank explain what one experiment had to do with the other. It wasn't
really clear and he mumbled it quickly, but I think he said something about
preserving cells or something and he might have been talking about the uncle's
experiment. For awhile Oliver completely forgets about turning Trudy into Ms.
Hyde, but he eventually gets back on track and Trudy goes on a little rampage
that consists of standing around in a bathing suit and getting shot at by cops,
before Frank shows up and hauls her away. Another thing that showed what a
hipster this Oliver Frank was, was how he tried to pretty much molest Trudy in
her own home! She's kind of sweating this whole "I think I'm turning into a
monster thing" and he tries to get all up in her monster drawers, rubbing her
shoulders and trying to kiss her and pawing at her like he was the star of I Was A Teenage Horndog. She's not having any of that (she may be monster, but she's still a lady)
and threatens to tattle to her uncle if he does it like, umm, six more times.
She's so upset that she announces she's going for a swim. I find that most
women after an attempted sexual assault, work off the stress by slipping into a
bathing suit and going for a dip while their attacker lounges at poolside.
Frankie, always the opportunist, asks Trudy for a truce and shows his
newly-discovered honorable intentions by having them toast something or other
with his special Hi-C Monster Punch. This is when she goes on her
bathing-suited rampage throughout the sleepy town of Brighton. Later she's
talking to Susan about things and declares that she is the monster. Susan, who
was the first one to see the monster, has the same reaction we all would to
this news. She is outraged that Trudy is jealous of her and trying to steal
the spotlight from her, claiming to be the monster in an attempt to one-up her
yet again. First Trudy steals her man, Johnny, then she tries to take credit
for the banner headline in the newspaper that screams, WOMAN MONSTER MENACES
CITY (please, no jokes about Rudy's estranged wife).  To show how insanely stupid Suzie is, she decides that she's going to get back
at
Trudy for stealing her boyfriend and becoming a monster, by putting the moves
on Oliver Frank. Ollie knows a a good (and cheap and tawdry) thing when he
sees it shake its moneymaker and they plan to hook up on a street corner at
eight o'clock that evening. That night, they're "parking" as the young people
put it, but Oliver keeps wanting to show her that "it's alive! It's alive!"
Suzie tells him that she may be a tease who meets older men on street corners,
but she's not that kind of girl. That's when Frank gets this strange look in
his eyes. In a camera shot normally reserved for awful Bela Lugosi movies, we
see a close-up of Frank's face, covered in darkness, except for his eyes, which
are kind wide and staring, like he's trying to hypnotize Suzie's dress clean
off of her. She sees that he's got what you could only call, "backseat eyes"
and she runs away after telling him that no one knew she went out with him.
Thinking on his feet, Oliver sees a way to get the rest of the body parts he
needs to finish his creature, hops in his convertible and runs her hard-working
behind over! If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself,
my grandpappy said. He also said he had to "wet" whenever he needed to take a
leak, so take it for what its worth. Frank gets back and futzes around with
the creature. Eventually he gets things on line and the creature is able to
walk around. It's an ugly thing with its head bandaged and a messed up face.
It's also wearing one of the ugliest outfits I've ever seen on a monster. It
looks like one of those vinyl sweat suits (with racing stripes) that wrestlers
will wear to cut weight in a hurry. The monster somehow escapes and kills a
person at a warehouse, then comes back home for some reason. Frank figures
that was a close one and gets the creature all settled down again. Meanwhile
Trudy decides that the best way to handle her own monster problem as well as
the recent disappearance of sometime-friend Suzie is to hold a big party in her
backyard complete with BBQ and Page Cavanaugh and his nerd band. You may have recalled that Suzie had a boyfriend when she wasn't trying to hook
up with mad scientists who try to play God. His name is Don and he's played by
Harold Lloyd, Jr. in such a fashion that surely embarrassed Harold Lloyd, Sr.
See, his girlfriend is missing, so he's hanging out at the party, playing
around with a Halloween mask and pulling pranks on a very humorless Trudy. He's
also so bummed out that Trudy and Johnny convince him to join Page Cavanaugh
and his Geek Trio for a couple of numbers. What follows is some of the
foulest singing and music since the infamous "Rock Candy" number from Daddy-O (if you've seen it, you remember it). This party goes on for awhile and we
see Johnny and Trudy making shishkabobs, but what about Ollie, the monster, and
the senile uncle? Okay, it seems that the uncle has been breaking into the lab
he used to work at to steal some chemical he needs (but not that Oliver needs)
and eventually after being robbed twice by a 95 year old man, the police catch
on and show up at the door to ask questions. Just prior to this, Oliver
announced to the old man he was going to kill him and then proceeded to
strangle him. They both hear the cops knock at the door, so Oliver stops
strangling him and they go talk to the cops. Oliver pretty much squeals on the
old timer for taking a five-finger discount on the chemicals, but ask the cops
to go easy on him because he's old and infirm. Finally, the uncle gets around
to saying that "oh yeah, well he tried to kill me before you came over,
officer!" The cops haul the old man away. The old man dies off screen at the
hospital, the cops snoop around for the monster, the monster kills the gardener
and a cop, Johnny throws acid in Oliver's face, the monster catches his sweat
suit on fire from a Bunsen burner and everyone lives happily ever after (except
Suzie, Oliver, the cop, the gardener, the uncle, the guy at the warehouse, and
the monster). A monumental effort in the annals of scuzzy teenage horror. So
many moments that have to be seen to be believed. Oliver Frank gives you
memorable lines such as, "from now on I decide what's evil!" and "she treated
me like a monster, so I'm going to make her into a monster." It's really the
way he chews the scenery with his slimy "player/mad doctor" gimmick that will
keep you amused for most of the movie. If you're there for the "Monster Booty"
your interest will wane once Oliver scuffs his bumper with Suzie. Otherwise,
there's enough idiotic mayhem to get you by. I'm sure
something could be said about the how the movie represents those awkward years
as we make the transition from teenager to adult. The fear of transforming
into something we don't understand, as well as dealing with awakening sexuality
as a monster that is inside of us just waiting to go on a
hormone-induced rampage. I suppose you could try and make the case that this
movie is an important commentary on the repression of youth in late 50's
suburban America. I prefer instead, to think of it as one of four movies that
Johnny
(John Ashley) made in 1958 before hitting the big time in the 60's in numerous
movies with words like "beach" and "bikini" in the title.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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