The Mad Monster (1942)

Producer's Releasing Corporation (PRC) was a poverty row studio even cheaper than Monogram, its films shot on schedules of less than a week on recycled sets.  In contrast to Monogram, it produced surprisingly few horror films, (preferring to concentrate on B-westerns and crime dramas), with several of those it did make seemingly patterned after its first and most celebrated title in this genre, The Devil Bat (1940).  This is certainly the case with The Mad Monster (1942), which substituted George Zucco for Bela Lugosi as the mad scientist seeking revenge on former colleagues.  Instead of employing giant vampire bats that could home in on the scent of the special shaving lotion that Lugosi gave his victims, Zucco injects his gardener, (played by future Frankenstein's monster Glenn Strange), with his wolf blood serum, turning him into a faux werewolf that dispatches Zucco's enemies.  For Zucco is another of those scientists turned mad by the ridicule heaped upon his theories, (namely that injecting people with wolf's blood will give them wolf-like attributes), by his colleagues.  So they have to die.  You might be wondering why anyone would want to give people wolf-like attributes, but while Zucco is clearly certifiable, his motives are entirely pure: he's simply trying to aid the war effort by creating an army of wolf-like super soldiers.

Shot in five days, The Mad Monster creaks along, showing its low budget and threadbare production values at every turn.  Director Sam Newfield, (who directed a large proportion of PRC's output), does his best to disguise the cheap sets by wreathing the exteriors in fog and the interiors in shadow.  What it does have is an enjoyable central performance from Zucco.  A prolific character actor in horror films, Zucco was a far subtler performer than Lugosi - his character's is quietly mad, his rantings sounding like reasonable arguments if only they weren't so barmy.  The film is an entertaining enough seventy minutes or so, springing absolutely no surprises, but moving at a reasonable pace so as not to outstay its welcome.  That said, back in 1945, when it was finally submitted for a UK release, (horror films having been banned in Britain during the war), it found itself being banned by the BBFC.  It finally secured a UK release in 1951, but even then it had be accompanied by a disclaimer explaining that blood transfusions wouldn't turn you into a wolf man.  (Well, obviously - unless it was wolf blood you were transfused with).  Clearly, the BBFC saw something deeply disturbing in what, to everyone else, is simply a quietly barmy cheap programmer.