Film Masters have gone and bundled up a monstrous mess of Drive-In sci-fi flicks from years past and put them on Blu-ray for all of us lovers of the cinematic bizarre to slap our putrid peepers upon!
So let’s begin our joltin’ journey into the Monster Mayhem Collection with the first feature (of which there are four present over two discs), 1958’s Frankenstein’s Daughter…
Sleazy suburban mad scientist Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) is only all too ready to continue the work of his grandfather, Dr. Frankenstein… well, in his spare time anyway… most of the time he works with his colleague, Prof. Carter Morton (Felix Locher) who is working on a formula that could end all disease.
Of course ol’ Ollie has other plans for it, and begins slipping doses of it to Morton’s teenage daughter, Trudy (Sandra Knight) which turns her into a monster in a swimsuit that runs amok in the P.M. while continuing to work on his corpse creation with the help of his assistant, the creepy gardener Elsu (Wolfe Barzell).
Will residential L.A. survive such terrors?!!
Coming from Director Richard E. Cunha (She Demons, Missile to the Moon)… along with screenwriter H.E. Barrie… Frankenstein’s Daughter is a low budget, Hollywood independent creature feature that delivers the ghoulish goods!
Part of what makes this fright flick a wicked winner is the sinister, smarmy performance of Donald Murphy who commands the screen as Frankenstein’s grandson; all steely glances, lecherous attitude and evil intent.
Also appreciated are the early splashes of gore present here and there in the narrative as well as the creature make-ups that are a tad crude but ultimately incredibly entertaining and at times downright effective… even with some sort of behind-the-scenes mix-up resulting in the supposedly female beast (Harry Wilson) looking like later-period Lon Chaney Jr. lurching around!
Special features for Frankenstein’s Daughter include an highly informative commentary from Horror Film Historian/Pro-level wise-ass Tom Weaver (and friends) and an archival interview with Cunha.
Also from 1958 (and Richard Cunha) comes Giant From the Unknown…
A small town in rural California is plagued by livestock mutilations and even a murder!
The local native population has a hunch it’s an ancient curse… but what our heroes, Geologist Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer), Dr. Frederick Cleveland (Morris Ankrum) and his daughter Janet (Sally Fraser) find to be the cause of the trouble is even more outlandish; a giant conquistador (Buddy Baer) awakened by lightning from a state of suspended animation with a real ax to grind… literally!
Giant From the Unknown is a tight, fast moving supernatural shocker that holds up wonderfully as an example of late ‘50s drive-in cinema/late night TV horror show entertainment!
The basics are familiar enough; scientists band together to combat a terror unleashed upon the “modern world”… but the titular beast here is both pretty damn unique, and Baer certainly has the size and palpable sense of menace as the conquistador and that is only enhanced by the make-up provided by legendary Universal fright flick mainstay Jack P. Pierce (1931’s Frankenstein)!
Giant From the Unknown is accompanied by another solid Weaver and friends commentary as well as commentary from Actor Gary Crutcher.
Disc Two kicks off with Monster From Green Hell from 1957…
As is the way, some scientist-types blast helpless living creatures… in this case wasps… into space to test the effects of such travel on biological organisms.
Well, that rocket makes it to space, but crashes in deepest, darkest Africa where… and you’ll never believe this (that’s sarcasm cats n’ creeps) but folks begin dying from huge amounts of wasp venom.
The culprit behind the attacks is an unreasonably-sized insect mutated by good ol’ cosmic radiation which is bad news for the locals and the scientists charged with bringing the monstrous mutation’s rampage to an end!
Stock footage absolutely abounds in this creature feature (most of it sourced from the 1939 biopic Stanley and Livingstone), but what it lacks in newly-lensed African locales it makes up for in imaginative creature designs (and execution).
To be fair, Director/Editor Kenneth G. Crane certainly does an admirable job of trying to blend this footage into the narrative at hand… but as is often the case, these sequences end up amounting to padding, but admittedly no one came into a picture like this expecting the highest of production values and deft storytelling.
Rather, what we Monster-kids flock to fright flicks like this is for the ghoulish goods of seeing a beast on an absolute tear… and to that end the titular menace of Monster From Green Hell is a real gem utilized through the usage of full scale props and stop-motion animation… and while it’s presence is mostly kept to later in the features spartan hour and nine minute runtime, we do get an early full on look at the wasp to whet our arcane appetites for the mayhem to come!
Special features for Monster From Green Hell include a highly informative (and listenable) audio commentary courtesy of legendary Saga of the Swamp Thing artist Steven Bissette (though he fumbles some info regarding Metallica’s cover of the Misfits classic from Earth A.D.)
Last up we have The Brain From Planet Arous (1957)…
A giant brain with bedroom eyes arrives from parts unknown and immediately possesses the body of scientist Steve March (John Agar).
Turns out that that brain, Gor by name, is an intergalactic villain hellbent on conquering Earth with his vast mental powers, but there is a glimmer of hope for mankind… a second brain creature makes the scene, possesses a dog, and gets down to attempting to save the Earth!
The Brain From Planet Arous is the perfect example of Drive-In cinematic madness that permeated the pop culture zeitgeist of the ‘50s… a plot ripped straight from a comic book, Agar eating up the scenery in his villainous role, and an absolutely bonkers creature to menace us for seventy-minutes!
And what a beast Gor is; a transparent giant brain with eyes, a sonorous voice, and a real wild hair up his ass (does he even have an ass?) to make Earth his own personal playground… and once he inhabits our scientist pal he gets an effective set of shiny contact lenses as a visual cue he’s gotten all close and cuddly with our intergalactic cerebellum!
As with the other fine fright flicks in this cosmic collection, The Brain From Planet Arous is accompanied by an in-depth commentary (from a returning Tom Weaver joined by colleagues and stars of the film via pre-recorded interviews) that takes us through the film’s production.
While that is the long and short of what’s contained on the discs in the Monster Mayhem Collection, the package also includes a booklet with writing on the films provided by Weaver.
An absolute wicked winner of retro creature feature ghoulish goodness, the Monster Mayhem Collection is pure joy for Monster-kids everywhere!
