Horrorfest 2017 Presents: The Manster (1959, George P. Breakston, Kenneth G. Crane)

The Manster is a weird late 1950s movie that seems to be a later, more modernized take on the kind of mad scientist monster movies that Universal Studios popularized in the 1930s and 1940s, and which Hammer Studios built off of around the 1950s. This one isn’t as good as any of those although certain aspects of the movie are entertaining. I mean the finale literally involves a man fighting himself, or a monster version of himself, and the experiments scenes are quite freaky for a 1950s movie. The Japan setting is also really neat and used to good effect, as the scientist responsible for transforming a journalist into an ugly beast is also Japanese. The movie only has a limited number of killings due to being an older movie, plus due to the limited budget, of course.

Larry (Peter Dyneley) is an American journalist who ends up interviewing Dr. Robert Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura), who’s laboratory is located on top of a volcano, which is very Bond villain to say the least. The doctor and his assistant, Tara (Terri Zimmern) use this opportunity to experiment upon poor Larry and turn him into a creature with two heads! Things get out of hand quickly in this goofy and pretty dumb movie that at least has a decent conclusion. This is another horror movie that if they remade it no one would mind, and one would be best to skip this and watch a Hammer Studios movie instead. I also don’t remember if I watched this on a streaming service or not.