At a piano recital by the accomplished Anthony Lawrence (Ralph Morgan), Mad scientist Dr. Igor Markoff (J. Carrol Naish) spies Lawrence’s daughter (Wanda McKay). Obsessed with her similarity to his dead wife, he injects Lawrence with the disfiguring acromegaly disease as leverage to force her to marry him.
Quick Review: One of the more distasteful films I’ve viewed, The Monster Maker is a reasonably made “Poverty Row” horror film. Naish overacts, though not massively. Otherwise, everyone is believable. That said, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch this. It isn’t exciting, or mysterious, or even shocking. There is no sex or gore, and little violence. There’s just drab unpleasantness. When a movie is this unpalatable, it needs some importance message, some insight into the human condition. None are to be had. For its brief sixty-two minute running time, the audience is supposed to wallow in the “joy” of watching an insane scientist give a disfiguring disease to a kind, elderly man. I’m missing the fun here.
Perhaps if Morgan had been less sympathetic as the pianist, this might have been tolerable. Maybe with some low comedy (very low indeed)… Well, maybe not. Put onscreen bodies being ripped asunder by hooks, and I’m there, but some things are too much for me.