Touches You

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Herbert L. Strock once again directs a horror thriller for AIP, but this time with a twist: This story is about AIS studio make-up artist Pete Dumond(inspired by real-life Universal make-up artist Jack Pierce?) who turns homicidal after new owners fire him, intending to phase out horror pictures altogether! Enraged, he uses a combination of hypnosis and his own chemical compound to transform actors Gary Conway(Teenage Frankenstein) and Gary Clarke(Teenage Werewolf, in place of Michael Landon)into real monsters, who kill all those who would put Pete out of work. Local police are of course baffled. Despite a clever premise, this is otherwise uninspired, being just another standard revenge picture, leading to a silly and abrupt finale. Still, it is amusing to think of the unfinished "Teenage Werewolf Vs. Teenage Frankenstein" picture being made in the film!

It can never be said that American International Pictures doesn't have a sense of humor. The studio that gave us such classics as I Was A Teenage Frankenstein and I Was A Teenage Werewolf joins the two teen monsters in a cute satire of the genre.A new day is dawning at American International, the new studio heads want no more monster pictures that were the bread and butter of its existence and paid a nice living for makeup artist Robert H. Harris. They want lighter fare for the public and give poor Harris the old heave ho.But Harris isn't taking it lying down. A new makeup base applied to the skull allows Harris to control those he applies it on and he takes his two teen stars from Teenage Frankenstein and Werewolf and starts sending them on a murder spree and bringing back trophies.Gary Clarke and Gary Conway were Harris's two subjects and they and Harris went along with the fun. A whole lot of familiar character actors get involved.It's American Internation so don't expect any high production values. But it actually isn't too bad.How To Make A Monster is made up in fact with tongue firmly in cheek.

How To Make a Monster is the third of the movies from American International to feature teenage monsters and follows I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and I Was a Teenage Werewolf.A movie maker, Pete Dumond is fired when new people take over the studio where he works, American International. Instead of horror pictures, the new owners specialise in musicals and comedies. Pete gets revenge on the new owners by murdering them using his movie monsters, the werewolf, Frankenstein monster and also himself dressing up as a caveman. Victims include a security guard. He then takes his assistant and the two boys he uses for the monsters back to his place and after killing his assistant, he accidentally sets fire to his home but the boys manage to escape the inferno just as coppers arrive.We get to see heads from various other monsters from AIP movies in Pete's home, including the carrot monster from It Conquered the World.The cast includes Robert H Harris, Paul Brinegar, Gary Clarke, Gary Conway (Land of the Giants) reprising his monster role from I Was A Teenage Frankenstein and sci-fi regulars Morris Ankrum (Invaders From Mars, Earth vs the Flying Saucers) and Robert Shayne (The Giant Claw, Teenage Caveman).This movie is a must for all 50's sci-fi/horror buffs. Great fun.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

It could be argued that American International Pictures revived the werewolf in the late 50's with "I Was A Teenage Werewolf". It was released at a time when television was becoming common in the home, which meant that fewer people went out to the movie theatres. Those that did were largely of a teenage audience, something that AIP clearly understood, and the success of their movie ensured a revival of the whole genre.In this clever, self-referential sequel (of sorts), American International Studios are closing down production of horror movies in order to make more musicals, which sounds fairly true to life in what may have been happening in some studios at the time. Anyway, this means that famed makeup artist Pete Dumond, possibly based on Jack Pierce, will be out of a job because he specialises only in monsters. He isn't too happy about all this, so he decides to take revenge on the new owners of the studio by turning his "Teenage Werewolf" and "Teenage Frankenstein" actors into real monsters using a mind control makeup paste thingy. It all takes place during the filming of a "Teenage Werewolf meets the Teenage Frankenstein" movie.This is a pretty neat idea, and the script explores it very well. There's some great cheesy dialogue, a wonderful lead performance from Robert H. Harris as the makeup artist, and from Paul Brinegar as his nervous assistant. The two 'teenage' stars, who were actually in their early twenties when this film was made, play their roles with that all-American wide-eyed innocence that actually works pretty well in parts such as this.AIP were famed for producing their horror movies on low budgets, often less than a hundred thousand while at the time major studios generally set their budgets in the millions. This movie doesn't really look that cheap, the sets look perfectly fine especially the final set in the makeup artist's house where the big finale takes place. This also features a dramatic shift into color so that you can appreciate his mask collection even more, which is pretty neat."How To Make A Monster" is a very entertaining film, which I'd recommend to anyone who likes these cheesy old horror movies. You won't be disappointed.