Happy October and Halloween season
I’ve got a fun one for you! If you can imagine yourself at a 1950s drive-in, a bucket of popcorn on your lap, the air buzzing with talk of spook shows and monster rallies, then you’re already in the perfect headspace for How to Make a Monster (1958). This is a black-and-white slice of late-night B-movie fun, the kind of picture that practically begs to be paired with fog machines, rubber masks, and a jukebox full of monster go-go tunes. It’s cheeky, it’s campy, and it’s exactly the kind of oddball fright flick that keeps the Halloween season lively.
Like many of the era’s monster mashes, How to Make a Monster was produced on a shoestring budget under the watchful eye of American International Pictures (AIP), the studio that practically defined drive-in horror. Directed by Herbert L. Strock, who also helmed cult favorites like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and Blood of Dracula (1957) the film was designed to cash in on the teen-horror craze AIP had already sparked. Howard was responsible for making the 50s such a fun and crazy time for monster kids and bringing such interesting masks and monsters to light! What’s especially fun here is how self-referential it is: AIP essentially made a movie about itself, with makeup artists, monsters, and studio executives all colliding in a meta-horror tale that blurs the line between the backlot and the big screen. Even the gimmick of ending with a splash of color after reels of black and white was a cheeky way to lure audiences with something “extra.”
The story follows Pete Dumond, a veteran makeup artist who is given his walking papers by a pair of coldhearted producers eager to modernize the studio’s monster brand. Furious at being tossed aside, Dumond turns his craft into a weapon, using specially treated makeup to hypnotize young actors into carrying out his revenge. Soon, the very monsters he created, actors playing the Teenage Werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein, are prowling the studio lots not for scares but for blood. It is part satire, part horror, and all B-movie fun, giving audiences both the thrill of creature mayhem and a peek behind Hollywood’s monster mask.
Adding to the fun is Gary Conway, who reprises his role as the Teenage Frankenstein from the earlier film of the same name. Seeing him lumber across the backlot again gives the picture a sense of continuity within AIP’s growing stable of monsters, and it is a treat for fans of the studio’s shared little horror universe. Beyond its original release, How to Make a Monster has lived on in unexpected ways, even popping up decades later in Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” music video, where clips from the film are spliced in alongside other classic horror titles. That sort of afterlife feels fitting for a movie that was made quickly and cheaply but still managed to capture the imagination of monster kids everywhere.
In the end, How to Make a Monster may not be the scariest or slickest horror film of the 1950s, but it has personality to spare. It is playful, it is strange, and it is a perfect watch for anyone who wants a little black and white monster mischief to go with their Halloween season.
