THE WEREWOLF (1956)

 

(Director: Fred F. Sears. Screenwriters: Robert E. Kent and James B. Gordon.)

Storyline

An amnesiac stranger shows up in Mountaincrest, a small town. Not long after his arrival, a notorious thug is killed, seemingly by a wild animal. While the townsfolk put together a search party for the creature, the doctors whose experiments created the beast head to Mountaincrest.

 

Review

WEREWOLF is an entertaining, straightforward lycanthropic work, typically Fifties in what it shows (e.g., no gore; the violence is PG-rated by today’s standards). The hour-and-nineteen-minute film wastes no time in setting up and delivering its monster-on-the-loose goods, with taut dialogue, cut-to-it scenes, solid acting, and well-written characters who are sympathetic to Duncan Marsh, a stranger saddled with amnesia and synthetic shapeshifting.

Adding to the fun of this flick is its convincing lycanthropic makeup, created by Clay Campbell, who originally used it in THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1943; director: Lew Landers)─Campbell was not credited for his work on RETURN and WEREWOLF, and used the same (or similar) makeup in other films.

Good film, WEREWOLF─worth watching, possibly worth owning if you’re into well-made Fifties monster movies.