Review number: #001
Movie Title: TERROR IS A MAN
Also Known as: BLOOD CREATURE (Reissue Title)
Year: 1959
Black and White
Cast: Richard Derr, Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Oscar Keesee.
Director: Gerardo de Leon
Run Time: 89 minutes
A long time ago in a much simpler time one could enjoy the luxury of viewing a movie from the comfort of their car and enjoy a ridiculous monster movie with a half baked plotline. Now days Drive-in Movie theatres only exist in the minds of former patrons or in the history books and B-grade monster movies from the 1950’s exist in the public domain on cheap bargain bin DVD’s or in brilliant set boxes, in their entirety on YouTube or on the Internet Archives were they can be legally downloaded or being broadcast on some local regional T.V station as a Midnight movie in their graveyard slots. These Atom Age monster movies where mainly shot on shoestring budgets, on Black & White film, had lurid plots, some poor bloke in a Halloween costumes, and stared no-name actors and were distributed by some cheap low budget studio and sold to some drive-in or cheap cinema as “Family Entertainment”. The 1959 movie TERROR IS A MAN or BLOOD CREATURE is one of those Atom- aged B-Grade wonders which was filmed in the exotic Philippines and today makes a group of Cult Movie hounds smile when they see it.
Hello dear reader I am The Movie Ghoul one quirky Cult Cinema Hound who can’t get enough of tearing to some largely forgotten Cult movie from yester year. So with the help of this BlogSpot account it’s my intention with this blog to expose the wild, wild, wild world of cult cinema and criticises what I find to be just plain weird, odd, wonderful, and downright horrific with this small but broad genre of film. And with this very first blog review, I the Movie Ghoul will tear into the 1959 movie TERROR IS A MAN or also known by its reissue title BLOOD CREATURE, in this mildly and dry humoured review so read on dear reader first to look at is this films plotline.
The Plotline (or lack of one): Ok since this is a B-grade monster movie from the 1950’s expect the cliché “There a monster on the loose” story crossed with an ethical story ripped off from H.G Welles story The Island of Dr Moreau.
The story involves a Rugged, Butch, Handsome and All American Sailor William Fitzgerald who is found to be unconscious in a lifeboat on a small Island by Dr Girard and his assistant Walter who save him and take him back to the doctor’s home. When William comes to he discovers the local village abandoned and the only people on the Island to be Dr Girard, William, The servants a local brother and sister and the love starved and sexy blonde-in-need wife of Dr Girard, Mrs Francis Girard. So what is the hero of this story, William to do with the lonely Francis? That right start a love affair with her, talk about going above and beyond the call of duty dear reader to satisfy a married woman’s needs.
Anyway the whole reason why the doctor is ignoring his wife and why there are no locals left in the village is because the doctor has made a Panther Man through evolutionary experiments and surgery on a panther to create the purrr-fect man....0_o..... Um why is that exactly? And also why that is even needed in the first place? In a chat with William, the doctor reviles these experiments will help advance the Human species and the panther is nothing more than a lab rat. Am I the only one that thinks dear reader that it would have made much more sense if the doctor just used a member of the Ape family instead of a member from the Cat family? Never mind the doctor continues to play God with his panther-man while he could stop William from stealing his wife by just playing with his....... (You know where I’m going with this).
Then one dark and stormy night with Thunder and Lighting the horror unfold (Chough! cliché). The drunken assistant, Walter (um chough, B-movie cliché) angers the panther man and tries to kill it which makes the Panther Man escape and goes on a rampage (Chough, chough! b-movie cliché). The monster then kills Walter and the young servant woman and kidnaps Francis, you know she is the damsel in distress (Again chough, chough! b-movie cliché) and it’s up to William to kill it when Dr Girard gets killed by his creation, hang on its up to the hero to save the day and the damsel? (Again chough, chough, F$%K it you know where I’m going with this).
So the plotlines quite generic but so is two out of three the next section The Acting, Direction and Cinema-photography.
The Acting, Direction and Cinema-photography: The acting is quite standard, every actor and actress gives a typical performance for their typical characters archetype, nothing to write home about or whine about. Same goes for the direction again nothing to write home about or whine about. But the cinema-photography is defiantly something write about, wow some shots had a near Film-Noir look to them in shadow and tone, too bad it’s in a monster movie.
The Monster: Yes I’m even going to criticises the look of the monster, just take a look at this still and you’ll get a good idea of where I’m going to go.
What can I say how is this scary when the monster looks like it’s got a ruddy beard.
The Weirdest /Oddest/ Craziest and downright strange moments with this film
There are only two odd things I found with this film and they are.....
The Bell Ring in the middle of an operation scene: Before and after one operation scene a loud school bell ring is heard to tell the squeamish audience members to shut their eyes or look away. It’s understandable why the bell is there in the first place but it’s so odd by today’s standards. And come on its only an incision shown for 6 seconds , heck if the audience couldn’t deal with that how would of those people reacted to Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece PSYCHO [1960] realised the following year or how would of those people react to the worlds first gore film BLOOD FEAST [1963] (from Herschel Gordon Lewis and David. F. Friedman who I will mention more in later blogs) made and realised four years later I wonder.
The Title TERROR IS A MAN: Am I the only one who finds this title to be well odd and corny? Come on what sounds scarier or more appealing TERROR IS A MAN or its later reissue title BLOOD CREATURE? All I can say it seems this films distributor had my exact same thoughts on this one.
Overall Recommendation: It’s a generic B-grade monster movie with nothing else going for it. The good news is it’s not a bad movie (which may have made this movie well funny) but it’s no Oscar worthy film, in fact it’s a bit dull but ok. Recommend only to hard core cult cinema hounds alone and fans of Atom Age films. The rating is below with this ghost.......
Note: This is a public domain film so it’s on cheap bargain bin DVD’s or in brilliant set boxes or in its entirety on to view on YouTube or on the Internet Archives were it can be downloaded for free.
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