|
|
|
Monster
On The Campus
Classic Sci-Fi
Ultimate Collection
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
4
|
|
 |
|
8 |
|
10
= Highest Rating |
|
Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
•
One of the films in the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate
Collection
• DVD Rating is for entire set |
Professor
Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) is a biology teacher at Dunsfield
University. Having convinced the dean of the school to fund the
purchase of a rare coelacanth fish, he is thrilled the day it
arrives. But as the slowly melting specimen is being unloaded
from the delivery truck by student assistant Jimmy (Troy Donahue)
and Dr. Blake, Jimmy's German Shepard drinks some of the melt
water. Within minutes the dog has turned feral and tries to attack
Blake' fiancée Madeline (Joanna Moore). They capture the enraged
animal and lock it up, fearful that it might have rabies.
Examining the animal Blake notices it has enlarged
teeth and seems to be part wolf. But by the next day the dog is
its normal docile self and the big teeth are gone.
Still pondering this, the professor accidentally
cuts himself when moving the coelacanth and gets some of the melt
water in the wound. Suddenly woozy he asks to be driven home by
his friend Molly (Helen Westcott), a lady who has been trying
unsuccessfully to win Blake's heart for years. Soon after helping
him stumble into his home she is attacked by some beast in his
living room. When her mauled body is found hanging in a tree behind
the house near an unconscious Dr. Blake, the cops start to wonder.
Bloody elongated fingerprints at the scene
are definitely not the prof's so they eliminate him as a suspect.
Since the violence happened in his home the police conclude that
he is in danger from the attacker, and a 24-hour watch is placed
on him.
A few days later Jimmy and Blake notice a dragonfly
land on the decaying coelacanth. They are stunned when, only moments
later, a monstrously large insect similar to a dragonfly attacks
them. At the sight of this creature many times the size of any
modern insect, the doctor begins to suspect the terrible truth.
But obviously the slow turning wheels are just now grinding into
gear and it takes another accidental 'Hulk-out' before he's sure
of what's occurring. Transforming into a hideous evolutionary
throwback, Blake trashes his lab, runs out into the night and
kills the cop working surveillance on the campus. Ape-like footprints
found around the dead body make the police sure they are after
a freak; Blake is convinced that any living thing in contact with
the fish plasma will devolve into a raging beast.
After failing to sway the police or his own
academic colleagues to his theory he decides to produce proof
by getting a picture of the transformation. To do this he sets
himself up in a cabin well off the beaten track and like so many
movie men of science, he tests his wild theory on himself by injecting
the fish juice into his own veins. Even though he tries to make
sure no one is harmed this time, his not-so-carefully laid plan
backfires and another corpse is added to the tally. Wracked by
guilt, Dr. Blake decides he has to answer for these deaths and
sets the scene for the police so that they'll have to believe
him.
Proof
that not even Jack Arnold could hit one out of the park every
time, Monster
On The Campus is easily
the least of his genre credits. That doesn't mean it's a completely
bad movie, but after the heights reached by Creature
From The Black Lagoon, Tarantula
and The Incredible Shrinking Man
this has to look like a step down. But while never reaching the
level of those movies, MOTC still
holds real pleasures. Yeah, it's a little silly, the monster makeup
leaves a lot to be desired, and Dr. Blake is incredibly
slow to figure out the obvious. But it's a fun film with a game
cast, some nice character interplay and a brevity that helps it
slide past some nagging questions.
The
film's main mistake was probably the giant dragonfly, which looks
terrible — the DVD's wonderfully clean print reveals every trick
used to bring it to 'life'. Or maybe it's the hysterical fact
that the doctor's second transformation is AGAIN accidental, and
still causes me to say out loud on each viewing, "Watch
out, Doc! You're smoking coelacanth!"
But
even this absurdity isn't too much for a die hard '50s monster
film fan like me. Over the years I've returned to this flawed
little mess repeatedly just to soak up the 1950s atmosphere and
straightfaced nuttiness. I even get a chuckle or two out of the
police detective's attempts to shoehorn normal ideas about the
crime into the scenario. And the movie boasts some effectively
eerie shots, including the sight of Molly's body hanging from
a tree by its hair.
Of course, as an old Marvel comics fan I also
get a laugh out of Dr. Don Blake being The Mighty Thor's alter
ego, so clearly I'm pretty easy to please.
|
|
|
Monster
On The Campus
arrived on DVD as part of the five-film, 3-disc Classic Sci-fi
Ultimate Collection from Universal. A Best Buy "exclusive" upon
its initial release (Sept. 2006), the set was made available at
Amazon on January 2, 2007. Even though MOTC
is easily the worst film of the collection it has for some strange
reason been afforded its own DVD while Tarantula,
The Mole People,
Monolith Monsters and even The
Incredible Shrinking Man are squeezed two to a disc.
Any rational film nut would have put Shrinking
Man in the stand-alone position (and interviewed Richard
Matheson while they were at it), but at this price I'll take what
I can get. The film is presented fullscreen, looking and sounding
great. The only extra is the theatrical trailer.
1/19/07 |
| UPDATE
After a year of being OOP — fetching $100+ on eBay — Universal is
re-releasing this set on May 13, 2008, in a nicely priced combo
package with the five-film Classic Sci-Fi
Ultimate Collection, Vol. 2 (for a total of 10 movies on
6 DVDs). |
|
