(1956)
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Starring Don Megowan, Joyce Holden, Harry Lauter, Ken Christy, S. John Launer, George Lynn, Steven Ritch, Larry J. Blake, James Gavin, George Cisar

This was another one of those delightful little flicks from producer Sam Katzman, who gave us other titles like The Giant Claw (1957) and Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), amongst many others, since in his career, he produced well over 200 pictures. Usually, his horror films about a monster to do battle with, but with this one, we get something a little different.

In the small mountainous town of . . . Mountaincrest, a man wanders into a bar from the cold wintery night, seeming very troubled and disoriented. He doesn’t remember who he is or where he is at. After leaving the bar, one of the locals that seen him with money in the bar tries to mug him. A fight ensues, with the stranger turning into something monstrous, brutally killing the man. A woman sees the scuffle and screams as the beast comes out of the alley, before running off into the night.

When the police arrive, they can’t believe that a man could have done the damaged to the victim, because it looks like something an animal would have done, bite marks and all. When the sheriff and deputy head off into the mountains in search of the culprit, the deputy comes back with this arm torn up. The next day, the manhunt continues. But when the man shows up at the doctor’s office in need of help, what they think is this ‘monster’ changes, even though it is hard to convince everyone else.

What I really liked about this film is that it is very different from what we had become used to when it comes to werewolf films. Because it was made in the ‘50s, and science fiction elements were still playing a huge role in these kind of exploitation films, they had to throw in some of those elements, as how this poor man was injected with an experimental atomic animal solution that is causing this terrible change. There’s no talk of full moons, or any supernatural elements at all. Everyone still had a hard time swallowing the idea, but not much is discussed about legends or any of what we normally get.

But one thing that is still the same is the tormented character of the man who is turning into the beast without any of his control. Actor Steven Ritch plays the title character and does an exceptional job of trying to figure out what is happening to him. All he remembers is a car crash and seeing a couple of doctors, after which he doesn’t remember much else. When he realizes what he is becoming, the torment increases even more. This is not your typical monster but one that has lost control of his body and hates to think what is happening to him.

The towering Don Megowan plays Sheriff Jack Haines, and while he doesn’t have much to do here, he definitely makes a presence if only his size. While Megowan didn’t play in a ton of creature features, he has had a few notable “appearances”, even though you don’t see too much of him! In 1958, when Hammer Films was trying to break into television, they did a pilot called Tales of Frankenstein, with Anton Diffring as the scientist and Megowan playing the creature.  The same year he was battling this werewolf, he also played the land-dwelling creature in The Creature Walks Among Us, mostly hired for his size. Years later, he would appear in another werewolf in, Scream of the Wolf, a Dan Curtis TV movie, alongside Peter Graves and Clint Walker.

Director Sears who, like his producer Katzman, cranked out film after film in his short directorial career, churning out on average of 10 films a year! But even though he was quick, and the budgets were small, he was still able to create some fun and entertaining pictures. In this one, he really makes use of shadows, showing the audience what he wants, while hiding what he doesn’t want them to see. Within a couple of years of The Werewolf, he also directed for Katzman, Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956), The Night the World Exploded (1957), and of course, a personal favorite, The Giant Claw (1957).