PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) was the undisputed king of keeping things fast and cheap. Their film, The Mad Monster, asks a very simple question: What if we won World War II by injecting our soldiers with wolf blood?
Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco) is a scientist with a grudge. After the academic community, the press and his own university colleagues laugh him out of the room for suggesting that wolf-blood transfusions could create a super-soldier, Cameron decides to prove them wrong in the most reasonable way possible: by turning his simple-minded gardener, Petro (Glenn Strange), into a bloodthirsty werewolf. With Petro strapped to the table, Cameron injects the serum, watches his innocent helper grow fangs and fur and then immediately hatches a revenge plot. Joined by his spectral visions of the four professors who ruined his career, Cameron sends Petro out into the misty swamps to murder them one by one.
Naturally, things get complicated. Cameron’s daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel) is dating Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs), a sharp-nosed reporter who starts putting the pieces together after a local child is mauled. To make matters worse, the more Petro transforms, the more unpredictable and uncontrollable he gets. It all culminates in a chaotic, storm-drenched climax where a bolt of lightning sets the lab ablaze, forcing Petro to turn on his master before the burning house collapses on both of them.
Directed by PRC workhorse Sam Newfield, The Mad Monster went into production in March 1942. While legend often claimed it was knocked out in a breakneck five days, trade reports from the time confirm it actually took a full two weeks at Chadwick Studios. Upon its release in May 1942, reaction was split right down the middle—or rather, split between PRC optimism and critical reality, The Hollywood Reporter surprisingly dubbed it a “thriller-diller,” praising Newfield’s suspenseful direction and noting that Glenn Strange gave a “top grade presence to the bewildered monster,” while Variety called it a “childish, almost naïve attempt to inject horror.” And in the UK, The British Board of Film Censors was so shocked (or baffled) by the blood-transfusion angle that the film was outright banned in the UK until 1952—and even then, it required a disclaimer about actual blood transfusions before it could be shown!
Joe Dante listed it among his 50 worst horror films of all time in a 1962 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. You can see that list here.
You can watch this on YouTube.
