(1957)
Dir - Herbert L. Strock
Overall: MEH
American International Pictures' quick follow-up to I Was a Teenage Werewolf was the similarly limp I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, (Teenage Frankenstein). The lackluster results are understandable considering that producer Herman Cohen rushed both this and Blood of Dracula into production with each film having been written within four weeks. Herbert L. Strock stepped in for Gene Fowler Jr. behind the lens and the direction is detrimentally lifeless. The story primarily focuses on Whit Bissell's Professor Frankenstein, who unfortunately plays the unlikable asshole completely straight without any camp-fueled mannerisms whatsoever. Also, he is supposed to be English yet does not bother doing a British accent. The over-the-top monster make-up on Gary Conway is more ridiculous than grotesque and worse yet, he only gets to Hulk-out twice. The movie switches to color during the last minute for absolutely no reason, providing quite the lame gimmick as almost a hail marry effort to spark some life into the proceedings. Easily one of the most forgettable movies ever made with the Frankenstein moniker in the title, it very much deserves to be missed.
(1957)
Dir - Edward G. Ulmer
Overall: MEH
Whether due to laziness or ingenuity, The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is probably the only movie ever made that confuses werewolf and vampire cliches with the duel personality concept at the heart of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The daughter is accused of being a werewolf who drinks her victims blood and must be disposed of by driving a stake through her heart so, better to just include all of that to cover your bases then. The usual problem with movies like this is that we the audience know perfectly well that unbelievable things are happening, yet almost the entire movie wastes its time having characters argue about whether or not unbelievable things are happening. Gloria Talbott's title character is mostly either belittled or manipulated by the male characters and even more tropes like her being given sedatives to sleep, an angry mob, a cursed bloodline, and sinister dream sequences are thrown into Jack Pollexfen's script. To be fair, said script does offer up an adequate twist within its last ten minutes. Still, the presentation is too monotonous and formulaic to even make its arbitrary conglomerate of horror movie hooks work.
(1958)
Dir - Harold Daniels
Overall: WOOF
A sluggish, hare-brained bit of sensationalized melodrama, My World Dies Screaming, (Terror in the Haunted House), is merely a footnote in 1950's B-movie lore for being the first of only two films put out with the "psychorama" gag of utilizing subliminal images and phrases, the other such release being the following year's A Date with Death which was also done by Howco Productions. Anyone going into the proceedings here expecting something on the level of William Castle's wonderful gimmick spectacles will be frustratingly disappointed though as director Harold Daniels possesses no such showmanship from behind the lens. Not that the movie's utter failure is entirely his fault as Robert C. Dennis' script is insultingly lousy, once again using the tired trope of men refusing to believe a word that a hysterically upset woman says while simultaneously trying to manipulate that women for some unnecessarily convoluted purpose. The faux-psychology on display here is of the moronic, overly-simplified variety that hack screenwriters lazily retooled where the answer to the mystery is deeply hidden in someone's subconscious and can only be unleashed by traumatizing them further. Worse yet, the movie attempts and stumbles pathetically at convening its would-be spooky atmosphere, even though it professes to take place in a haunted abode.
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