The greatest movie ever!

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Spoilers abound: I've only seen Monster On the Campus a couple of times, find it entertaining and competently made. It's a nostalgic trip to the old Universal back lot of what's now a half-century ago, thus a lot of the sets are familiar to film buffs of the Hollywood of an earlier time.Arthur Franz plays the title character well and without a whiff of condescension. He's a better actor than the material requires, gives his all. Whit Bissell, like Franz, was also an old hand, a veteran of science fiction pictures of the period. Both actors had played professor-scientist types before, and both were good at it.The actors in the film consist of familiar faces and a few familiar names, most notably soon to be teen heartthrob Troy Donahue. Joanna Moore is the leading lady and, like Franz, does nicely with what she's given to do. Overall, the movie is a solid professional job, as director Jack Arnold had made a number of films like it before.My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the movie cues the viewer how it's going to end on the last leg of the journey, when the professor spends what's supposed to be down time in a mountain cabin. There are shades of earlier Universal films in Monster On the Campus, whose main character is not unlike the Invisible Man; and his fate is rather similar to that of the Wolf Man, with a needle instead of an autumn moon, but no matter.Those old, easy to guess plot twists,--it's pretty easy to guess who's going to "get it" next--were, to me, reassuring, and I think they would be for most viewers. The absence of much in the way of surprise in the story doesn't really hurt the movie, a road well traveled by those most likely to want to watch a film with a title that, well, says it all.

Professor Blake has a new toy. It seems that his university has just purchased a coelacanthe--a primordial fish species that was discovered to still be alive in the 20th century. Unfortunately for the Doc, he doesn't realize that the fish was preserved using Gamma rays!! This combination causes the fish to have horrible properties--if anyone touches the blood of this dead creature, they, too, become primordial--and dangerous! First, a dog licks the water that the fish came in when it arrived on campus. Because there was blood in it, the dog became vicious and its teeth elongated--almost like sabre-teeth. Later, the professor scrapes his hand on the teeth of this dead fish and he becomes....well, we really don't see exactly what he becomes until later in the film--but we do know he's mean and looks a bit like Lancelot the Missing Link.Oddly, while this professor is supposed to be super-smart, it took him a long time to figure out what was happening. You see, after becoming a monkey-man, he would later turn back to himself--with no memory of his bestial transformation. Later, when he did seem to understand what was happening, he actually deliberately injected himself to see if it was true--without really providing much in the way of safety of others. Sure, he went to a lonely mountain cabin to conduct this experiment, but sure enough, someone was nearby and ready to be killed. And, by the way, the killing was a dandy (pretty cool stuff) but sadly the makeup job wasn't. The monster we'd been waiting so long to actually see consisted of a cheap rubber mask and rubber gloves and lots of hair. It was very disappointing and showed that the budget for makeup must have been about $9.99--which is sad because the basic story idea and much of the acting was actually very good. Oddly, while the mask was cheap and crappy, the transformation process at the very end of the film was excellent--who'd have figured?Overall, a decent story idea as far as 50s horror films go. It's very creative and unusual. It's just too bad the creature looked so stupid and the professor behaved, well, like an idiot on multiple occasions.By the way, in a clever bit of writing, the Professor makes a phone call to a "Dr. Moreau" who lives on an island. This is obviously a reference to the H.G. Wells story about a crazy doctor who dabbles in making primitive creates very human-like (and vice-versa).

When infected by a coelacanth fish fossil's blood, the unfortunate victims revert back to their prehistoric ancestrial form with anyone it the path of these beings placed in certain mortal danger.Science professor, and proud voice of evolution, Donald Blake(Arthur Franz, stern voiced and serious, even when others deem him perhaps bonkers for insisting his unpopular theories)suffers two encounters with the fish's blood entering his body causing him to shift into a ferocious, unhinged half-ape hominid who murders those that he might consider a threat. A German Shepherd dog is our first victim after it drinks some of the bloody water that leaked from the truck carrying the fish to the science lab from it's past location of Madagascar..the dog attacks it's owner in a bloodthirsty rage. Second is when Donald accidentally gets the dead fish's teeth imprinted in his hand, causing infection when some of the coelacanth blood seeps into his bloodstream. After one female victim dies of fright, the police find hominid footprints and hand prints which guide them away from the true suspect..Donald Blake. When a dragonfly draws blood from the coelacanth, it grows to an enormous size, with two of Blake's students bearing witness to this freak of nature. Blood from the dragonfly, after Blake murders it on accident with a knife, drips into his pipe infecting the scientist once again. After he kills a policeman on duty watching after him, Blake will dedicate his time to finding the killer. When he grimly realizes who the murderer really is, Blake will have to come to terms with the horrible fact and get proof for this discovery. The scientific community, and world at large, must learn the truth..will he sacrifice himself for that truth? Joanna Cook Moore is Blake's dish Madeline, Alexander Lockwood is Blake's doubting, worried boss Professor Gilbert Howard(..and Madeline's father), Phil Harvey is Sergeant Powell on the case towards finding the peculiar murderer, and great character actor Whit Bissell as Blake's non-believing "rival" Dr. Oliver Cole. The film often shows how Cole and Professor Howard clash intellectually with Blake and his far-fetched theories regarding atomic radioactive gamma rays causing the coelacanth's plasma blood to revert whoever comes in contact with it to prehistoric origins..the whole idea that a hominid is committing the crimes they find absurd.I realize that the plot gives one the giggles, but Arnold somehow directs this straight and the cast perform in it admirably. Rubbish that is beneath Arnold's standards, but it's a testament to the great B-movie director that it comes off so entertaining. The ape disguise at the end might remind many monster fans of the future "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

To begin with, I had missed out on this one a couple of times on Italian TV in the past – so I was glad to finally get around to watching it for the first time via the Universal DVD as part of their "Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection" set.While a lesser effort overall coming from Arnold, this slow-starting, then thought-provoking film references several well-worn horror formulas – particularly of the Wolf Man/Jekyll & Hyde variety (with the prehistoric amphibian element, presumably, a nod to the director's own earlier Universal success CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON [1954]!) – and even takes care to include an anti-Nuclear message. Despite being lensed by renowned cinematographer Russell Metty, the film's look isn't especially interesting – nor is the monster one of the most memorable creations of the sci-fi era (though it's received a fair degree of exposure in the various books on the genre I own, frankly, the monster looks better in stills than it does on film).The catchpenny title suggests a teen-oriented venture, but the only such character to get a considerable amount of screen-time is heart-throb Troy Donahue. In fact, protagonist Arthur Franz' role here is perhaps the most substantial of its type that he played – doing well enough as both the obsessed scientist and the 'throwback anthropoid' he inadvertently turns into (especially effective in the scene where it dawns on him that he's the monster everyone's looking for). His girlfriend, played by Joanna Moore, is slightly above average as vintage sci-fi leading ladies go – while solid support is provided by Judson Pratt as the heavy-set police detective and the ubiquitous Whit Bissell as a conservative medic.An interesting point regarding the metamorphosis is that it only happens after exposure to the blood of an extinct fish that had been subjected to radiation – which rather makes the situations behind his subsequent 'regressions' not a little contrived! The climax can't resist having the monster run off with the leading lady a' la the Gill Man from the "Black Lagoon" films; besides, the final transformation (which Franz does in order to prove his point – clearly in direct imitation of the Jekyll/Hyde prototype – that a Neanderthal man is responsible for the killing spree which has gripped the campus and the surrounding area) does feel, perhaps, like one too many trips to the well…and it's further marred by the heroine idiotically remarking at one point that the monster is wearing Franz' clothes!! I've yet to watch German émigré director E.A. Dupont's solitary horror effort on similar lines, THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (1953); that said, the intermittent presence in MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS of mutant animals (namely, a vicious dog and a giant dragonfly) also reminded me of the fact that it's high time I reacquaint myself with the likes of THE FLY (1958) and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE (1959) – the former is supposed to be re-issued by Fox around Halloween as part of a Box Set (along with its two inferior sequels), while the latter is available on a bare-bones but affordable DVD (incidentally, also from Fox). By the way, I'm now left with only THE SPACE CHILDREN (1958) to catch up with from Arnold's numerous genre outings...