The Werewolf (1956)

 

Two scientists come across an auto accident and find an unconscious man in the wreck. They take him back to their lab and inject him with a serum they have been working with. Unfortunately, the serum has the effect of turning the man into a murderous werewolf.

The Werewolf is a 1956 American horror science fiction film directed by Fred F. Sears and starring Don Megowan and Joyce Holden.

Set in contemporary times (i.e. the 1950s), the storyline follows an amnesiac man who, after being injected with "irradiated wolf serum" by unscrupulous doctors, transforms into a werewolf when under emotional stress. The film "marks precisely the point in which horror, which had been a dormant genre in the early '50s, began to take over from science fiction", and is the first of only three werewolf films made in the US during that decade, preceding Daughter of Dr. Jekyll and I Was a Teenage Werewolf (both 1957). The Werewolf was released theatrically in the US as the bottom half of a double feature with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). 

It happens before your horrified eyes!

This little B picture from 1956 grows on you, with repeated viewings. Steven Ritch is superb as the tormented Duncan Marsh, nice guy family man turned into a monster by two unscrupulous scientists. There's something strangely believable and compelling about his plight, as he tries to make sense of his confused memories, while being pursued by a posse, and wondering who he can trust. The supporting players are all fine in sympathetic roles, especially Joyce Holden as the nurse who does her best to help the lost and terrified Marsh. Eleanore Tanin is also very good as Marsh's wife, and Don Megowan plays a macho but caring lawman, who realizes the fugitive is a human being, as well as a monster.

Scientists turn men into beasts!

Good little werewolf movie, packs a bit of an emotional wallop thanks to Ritch's unfortunate situation and it's effects on his family and the paranoid, afraid community of Mountaincrest. The mountainous setting is rich with atmosphere and it's a breath of fresh air from the usual movie lot sets. This film uses dissolves when Ritch turns from human to werewolf and vice versa from the same make-up man behind "The Return of the Vampire."

I must still point out that there is a PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE-like moment late in the film where it goes from pitch black outside to daytime and back again due to lousy editing. It's pretty silly and very noticeable.  I'm not sure what possessed them to release it like that but it looks stupid as shit. 

Shit starts to get emotional.  I'm not crying, you're crying.

Trivia:

When first released, this movie played as the bottom half of a double bill with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

The werewolf in this film was the screen's first science-fictional, non-supernatural lycanthrope. While possessed of incredible strength and ferocity, he could be killed by ordinary bullets ( don't need silver bullets ) and didn't require a full moon to cause transformation.

This isn't the first time Clay Campbell created a werewolf makeup. He used the same techniques to create the monster for an earlier film, The Return of the Vampire (1943).

Director Fred F. Sears also served as the narrator in the opening sequence.

Probably to save time and/or money, shots of the werewolf fleeing the posse near the climax, were shot "day-for-night" while the posse shots were filmed during real nighttime.