Monster on the Campus (1958)

Thanks for the memories!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Memorable, crazy movie

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I really don't know what to make of this film - it's an odd but kinda okay to watch. The movie isn't quite as fun as I expected it be but it wasn't all that bad either. Just a so-so film I guess.What got to me was when Prof. Donald Blake first got his hand in the prehistoric fish's mouth, the hand was bleeding badly and he didn't dress the wound, instead he wanted to move the fish tank and his hand slipped into the dirty fish water then he started sucking on the wound with the dirty fish water. WTF? Not what I would expect from a professor at all. But it was funny.The creature the professor became is kinda cheesy looking but that's what made it fun. The story is average. There is one scene which surprised me a bit - when the forest ranger got it with the axe - that was unexpected! Overall, it's not bad - just not one of the better Universal sci-fi horror films I seen.5/10

A college professor obtains an ancient life-form whose fluids soon turn deadly.Looks like Universal just couldn't give up their werewolf franchise. So they reworked it, replacing full moons with prehistoric "coelacanth" fluid. Seems the stuff turns modern creatures into vicious prehistoric counterparts. So a sophisticated modern guy like Prof. Blake (Franz) turns into a hairy, monstrous hominid, and Hollywood 1958 scares drive-in kids the way necking teens hoped.You gotta give actor Franz credit. He treats the drive-in material like it was Ben Hur. There's not a hint of camp in the sometimes campy material. But then it's got not only studio backing, but ace sci-fi director Jack Arnold ( e.g. The Incredible Shrinking Man {1957}) at the helm. So the camera never falters even when the cardboard monsters do. (Please, couldn't they have re-worked that awful dragonfly.) Thus, the results suggest eye-level Hollywood professionalism at its most challenged. All in all, it looks like the studio was aiming for respectable sci-fi on the order of Arnold's previous It Came From Outer Space (1953). In my view, Universal only half succeeds, no thanks to the generally poor special effects. Anyway, give actor Franz a combat Oscar for pressing on fearlessly under adverse circumstances. And give director Arnold a Lifetime Achievement Award for excelling in a genre generally bypassed by snooty media critics.(If memory serves, the coelacanth talked about in the movie was a "missing link" first discovered in the 1930's. Its fish-like body crucially contained fleshy fins, indicating it could move about on land, thus confirming scientific hypothesis that life evolved from the sea.)

Monster on the Campus starts as biology teacher professor Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) takes shipment of a crate containing a preserved prehistoric coelacanth from Madagascar to study, while moving the fish Blake cuts his hand on one of it's sharp teeth & then plunges his hand into the muddy, blood stained water the specimen had been preserved in. Blake undergoes a transformation into a prehistoric man whom he has no control over, in this state Blake kills a woman & the police become involved. Blake returns to his normal state but soon realises that he is the killer & decides to prove his theories at an isolated cabin in the mountains but his worried fiancé Sylvia (Nancy Lockwood) turns up unexpectedly...Directed by Jack Arnold this silly 50's monster film doesn't have a whole going for it, sure it's relatively short as it clock's in at just under 77 minutes but I can't say I was particularly impressed with it. The main problem with Monster on the Campus is the basic plot which fails to convince & is hard to take seriously, even if we are to accept that blood from a dead fish can cause massive evolutionary regression in a matter of minutes it's harder to believe some of the coincidence's & daft happenings that mean Blake is infected a couple of times with the blood. Are we to believe a scientist would cut his hand on an ancient dead fish (he wasn't even wearing glove's) & then plunge his hand into dirty water while the wound is still open & not be concerned at all? Blake doesn't even have a medical kit in his laboratory. The sequence of events in which he becomes infected for the second time involving a Mosquito & a pipe is ridiculous. The character's are all really dumb & passive, the police are idiots & let Blake wander off on his own at the end while Sylvia is nothing more than your standard woman in peril that these films have to have. Blake is a pretty poor scientist too, instead of testing his theory on another Dog or Cat or something in a laboratory under controlled conditions with which he could prove his outlandish idea to other's he decides to infect himself again, remember the last two times he became the monster he killed people so what was he expecting the outcome of the experiment to be? Blake also knows the only reason he becomes the monster is when he is infected by the fish blood so why not just take more care not to be exposed to it? That way he will never turn into the monster again & live the rest of his life happily with Sylvia & maybe have a couple of kids with her, right?Monster on the Campus looks alright, it's all a bit bland & dull looking but I doubt the makers had much money to work with. The monster isn't seen until nearly the hour mark & when he does first make an appearance you can clearly see the mask doesn't join the actor's neck & looks pretty fake. Anytime there is a close-up on the monster it's pretty poor but the medium shots don't look too bad & what's with the big shoulder's? Not much ion the way of action or incident but a Ranger does get an axe in the face at the end & there's a minor car crash. There is also a giant Mosquito that looks like it's made of card.Partly filmed at Occidental College in Los Angeles & I wouldn't be surprised to discover the climax was shot at the infamous & much used Bronson Canyon. The acting is fairly wooden, no-one is going to win any awards.Monster on the Campus is a pretty forgettable black and white 50's monster film with a silly plot that goes too long without showing the monster & has one of the stupidest scientists in cinematic history who makes one bizarre illogical decision after another. There are better monster films out there.

This slightly lesser-known Jack Arnold sci-fi/horror film is really a treat to watch, again and again. Arthur Franz plays a college professor whose blood is accidentally contaminated by the blood of a coelacanth. The accident periodically transforms Franz into a primitive, rampaging beast, who simply wants to kill...and kill. The coelacanth also has interesting effects on an ordinary dragonfly and a formerly docile German Shepherd.Good and very original story, tons of action, and some good acting really lift this movie. The always under-appreciated Franz is very good, with fine support from student Troy Donahue and skeptical doctor Whit Bissell. The monster suit and makeup are a little shaky, but the film really benefits from Arnold's sure direction. Pretty brutal hatchet attack toward the end, though.Best exchange: Professor (Franz): "Jimmy, did you know your dog was a throwback?" Jimmy (Donahue): "Throwback? He's a German Shepherd!"