Monster on the Campus

Those effects still [laughs] impress the hell out of me, because I'm thinking, "Man, how did filmmakers come up with the know-how to make this stuff come across the way it's supposed to? It looks so good." Even now, 86 years later, something like that, just still so impressive to see.

Up next, from 1958, Monster on the Campus.

In this film, paleontology professor Donald Blake acquires a newly discovered coelacanth specimen whose blood was exposed to gamma rays.

An accidental exposure to this blood causes living creatures, including a dog, a dragonfly, even the good Dr. Blake himself, to temporarily devolve into a primitive state.

It's a lot of fun, and part of the fun is the very obvious mask that the creature is wearing.

You definitely won't confuse the monster with the iconic makeup that Jack Pierce did for Lon Chaney in The Wolf Man, not at all.

The makeup for Monster on the Campus was done, however, by Bud Westmore of the famous Westmore family that included five generations of makeup artists.

So it makes me wonder, I mean, for a guy that's worked on everything from Man of a Thousand Faces, Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and The Munsters TV show, I'm gonna have to say that maybe the budget hampered his efforts in Monster on the Campus.

I see.

Monster on the Campus.

It's a 1958 American black and white science fiction horror film from Universal-International.

Produced by George Gershenson and directed by the famous Jack Arnold.

I could drink this to the point where I would end up in the gutter.

So, dangerous stuff.

And on that note, why don't we take a quick break? I need to refill this glass, and when we come back, we're going to talk about 1958's Monster on the Campus.

Cheers!