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Teenage Monster

Entry updated 12 April 2018. Tagged: Film.

Film (1957; released 1958; vt Meteor Monster; vt Monster on the Hill). Marquette Productions Ltd/Howco International Pictures. Produced and directed by Jacques Marquette. Written by Ray Buffum. Cast includes Gloria Castillo, Anne Gwynne, Stephen Parker, Gilbert Perkins and Stuart Wade. 65 minutes. Black and white.

In the late 1800s, a meteor crashes to Earth near a small southwestern US town; young Charles Cannon (Parker) and his father investigate. Radiation from the meteorite kills his father, but causes Charles to become a Mutant. Ten years later, he is a tall, hairy, psychotic Monster (Perkins) whom his mother Ruth (Gwynne) keeps in the basement to hide him from the law. Charles sneaks out from time to time, killing livestock and the occasional person. Greedy waitress Kathy North (Castillo) learns of this and begins to blackmail Ruth, who has been well off since her husband's death. Kathy also uses Charles to kill various people she dislikes, including her boyfriend after he steals money from her. Finally she orders him to kill her new boyfriend, the Sheriff (Wade); he rebels, knocks Kathy out and throws her to her death from a cliff before finally being shot dead by the Sheriff.

A poor film combining the sf, western, and then-popular teenage genres, Teenage Monster is often unintentionally hilarious. Veteran stuntman Perkins, who had played both the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolfman in the 1940s, rarely appeared on screen without heavy makeup. Castillo is enjoyable as the villainous Kathy. [GSt]

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