FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

poe-48833 THE UNDYING MONSTER was one of those movies I'd been wanting to see for quite some time; I'd read good things about it, but it never seemed to turn up anywhere. Finally, I found it... Like far, far too many Monster movies, THE UNDYING MONSTER spends far, far too much time TALKING about rather than SHOWING the Monster- and, when it is at (long, long) last finally revealed, it's pretty much just a man in blackface. What the F---...??? All that talk and all that speculation and all we get in the end is a glimpse of a guy in BLACKFACE??? I was tempted to rate this one even lower than I have, but most of the movie IS well crafted- which makes it rare among Fright Films of the period (unfortunately). A big disappointment for THIS viewer.

snicewanger After the success of "The Wolfman" at the end of 1941 for Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox decided to produce a werewolf film based on a 1936 Jessie Douglas Kerruish horror novel that they had an option on. Director John Brahm was another of those Teutonic film makers who had fled Nazi Germany for Hollywood in the early 1930's and was then currently in the Fox stable of directors. Brahm had gained a reputation for making tight, atmospheric thrillers in the film noir and horror genders. The screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Michael Jacoby had set the action on the Yorkshire coastline in the North Yorkshire Moors. The major problem for the casting was that just about all the British leading men had returned home to fight for England by this time. So which the exceptions of Bramwell Fletcher, Aubrey Mather,and Halliwell Hobbs who were all past the age of mandatory military service, the principle male roles were filled by Yankee actors trying to effect a British accent. James Ellison, and John Howard were popular "B" stars and did a workman like job in their portrayals. The ladies were all English and their performances helped to establish the location of story.Spoiler Alert... There are many viewers who can't help but notice the similarity of the Undying Monster to The Hound of the Baskervilles. This isn't an accident. Fox had scored big with their production of the Hound in 1939 and even used some of the left over sets for several of the scenes.I have a friend who calls this film "Sherlock Holmes Meets the Wolfman". Like Holmes, James Ellison's Detective Curtis of Scotland Yard is trying to solve the mystery with critical observation, logical deduction, and scientific research. Heather Thatcher is his bumbling "Watson" type of assistant. There is a lot of Sir Henry Baskerville in John Howards characterization of Oliver Hammond. I could go on.Brahm kept the pace moving and doesn't let Thatchers irritating comic antics disrupt the proceedings too badly. Old hand Lucian Ballard's cinematography gave Undying Monster wonderful visually fantastic look that was major reason for the films success. It's an hour of good old fashioned spooky fun.

jhammond59 My family, the Hammonds, first saw this movie on Million Dollar Movie on channel 11 KPIX NYC. We were fully alerted when we heard our name called out in the synopsis. We must have seen it ten times back then as the movie was shown for one week, 3 or 4 times daily. It scared us kids while our parent just rolled their eyes when we watched it again and again. It's a very atmospheric mystery/thriller, with outstanding cinematography. The actors are all good although the attempts at comedy were winch-inducing as others have mentioned. A few plot holes and stretched-thin character motivations round out the negatives but that atmosphere still carries the film and I really enjoyed seeing it again . . . and again.

ferbs54 "B material given A execution" is how film historian Drew Casper describes 20th Century Fox's first horror movie, 1942's "The Undying Monster," in one of the DVD's extras, and dang if the man hasn't described this movie to a T. The film, a unique melding of the detective, Gothic and monster genres, though uniformly well acted by its relatively no-name cast, features a trio of first-rate artists behind the camera who really manage to put this one over. And the film's script isn't half bad either. Here, Scotland Yard scientist Robert Curtis (James Ellison) comes to eerie Hammond Hall, a brooding pile on the English coast, sometime around 1900, to investigate some recent attacks ascribed to the legendary Hammond monster. Viewers expecting this legend of a voracious predator to wind up being explained in an anticlimactic, mundane fashion may be a bit surprised at how things play out. Ellison is fine in his no-nonsense, modern-detective role (he uses a spectrograph to analyze various clues!), and Heather Angel (who does have the face of one), playing the house's mistress, is equally good. But, as I've mentioned, it is the contributions of three men behind the scenes that really turn this little B into a work of art. Director John Brahm, who would go on to helm Fox's "The Lodger" and "Hangover Square," and DOP Lucien Ballard have combined their formidable talents to make a picture that is noirish, moody and fast moving, with superb use of light and shadow. And composer David Raksin, who two years later would achieve enduring fame for his score for that classiest of film noirs, "Laura," has co-contributed some background music here that is both mysterious and exciting. Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck apparently had hopes that "The Undying Monster" would be the opening salvo in his studio's bid to challenge Universal's monster domination, and in retrospect, it does seem like a fair way to start. This DVD, by the way, looks just fantastic, and sports more "extras" than you would believe capable of accompanying a minor B. All in all, a very pleasant surprise.