Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

LeonLouisRicci Aside from one Glaring Flaw, this is an Underrated Horror Film that came Early in the 1950's Cycle. Robert Shayne gives a Thoughtful, Intense, and Realistic Performance.There are some Unsettling Visuals like the Deaf and Dumb Maid's Photographs, the Creepy and very Well Done Makeup for the Titular Monster, and the Murder Mutilations are done with Verve.Along with Shayne as the Mad Scientist, Beverly Garland Proves why She is a Scream Queen of Note. The Central "Skeptical Scientist" is by Richard Crane, and makes for a rather Stiff, but Acceptable Turn.There is an Atmosphere of Dread as the Tale Unfolds, mostly because of Shayne's Descent into Madness and the Brutal Murders of the Townies.The Aforementioned "Glaring Flaw" is Obvious. The Sabre Tooth Tiger. Much is made of this "Can't be Real" Beast, but when Shown Prowling for Prey the Fangs are Missing, but otherwise Close-Ups Reveal Huge Foot Long Teeth.It is a Distraction that is Intolerable and Unfitting this Underrated B-Movie that Otherwise makes its Low-Budget Scientific and Philosophical Points with Stylish Flourishes and Entertains for its 78 Minutes.

bkoganbing While Superman was on hiatus Robert Shayne who played Inspector Henderson got roped into doing this combination ripoff from Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde and The Invisible Man. Shayne's out doing some nasty experiments on cats among other things including himself. He's developed a serum that has the subjects revert to the primeval. Little house cats turn into sabre tooth tigers and pretty lame ones at that. And Shayne when he injects himself goes all Hyde.What was Shayne thinking when he signed on for this? Or players like Richard Crane, Beverly Garland, William Fawcett and others. Shayne overacts outrageously to cover up how bad this is.The SPCA should have gone after this film for cruelty to animals as well as the critics. One stinkerooney with an ending totally ripped off from Claude Rains and The Invisible Man.

rixrex A most interesting and weakly executed Sci-Fi diversion, where we have a somewhat unbalanced scientist proposing a theory that brain size is indicative of intelligence. A theory laughed at by fellow scientists in this film, but now recognized as accurate.Of course, in the film, the scientist promotes as fact that brain size of the neanderthal is perhaps even larger than modern man, when it was not. That's the flaw here, but still we get to see him revert himself back to a neanderthal with violent tendencies, probably also pretty far-fetched. I'd expect a neanderthal in today's world to be more bewildered and frightened than overtly violent for no reason.Also of notable fun is the "reversion" of house cats to sabre-tooth tigers. Pretty unlikely as they're not really evolutionarily that closely related in any line. But still fun and in one case, ironically deadly.This is mild low-budget 1950s science fiction, short enough to not be tedious, although the excessively prose dialog is annoying. It's almost like writing in a period stage-drama style of the 1900s, and applying it to a 50s B-movie.While merely okay, this film could have been so much better in the hands of Jack Arnold and the sci-fi effects wizards at 1950s Universal-International. Oh, wait, I just remembered they did it as Monster on the Campus.

Michael_Elliott Neanderthal Man, The (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Poor horror film about a mad scientist (Robert Shayne) trying to bring man back to the stone age. He turns his pet kitten into a saber-toothed tiger, he then injects himself with his magical serum and turns into the title character. This film only runs 78-minutes but it felt like three hours considering not too much ever happens. The neanderthal man looks silly but the makeup is certainly memorable. The only problem is that he's not on screen enough. Some of the close ups of the tiger gets a few laughs since you can tell it's just a toy. It's also interesting that most horror films from this period try to play the scientist in a sympathetic view point but that's not the case here. The scientist here has got to be the biggest jerk ever to grace a horror film.