Disgraced mad scientist Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco) has developed a serum that turns humans into werewolves. He plans to use it on his mentally deficient handyman, Petro (Glenn Strange), to seek revenge on the scholars who he feels have ridiculed him. His daughter, Lenora (Anne Nagel) finds their exile to a swamp troublesome and tries to contact her reporter boyfriend Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs), who finds his own way into the story.
Low budget studio PRC tries its hand at werewolves, tying it to their overused trope of the mad scientist seeking revenge. If the script had been a bit smarter (and the characters a lot smarter), this could have worked well, but the scientistās plans are ridiculous, any reasonable policeman should have been able to trace the killing back to Cameron, the reporter suggests there are dinosaurs running around, and a professor treats the phrase āOh, I just had a slight heart attackā as if that was a normal thing to say. Yeah, itās pretty dumb.
Like in similar pictures (such as The Flying Serpent), the young hero and love interest drag things down simply because they are so empty and unnecessary. Unfortunately, Zucco isnāt much better. In general he makes a great villain, but his lines are all gloating or, more often, exposition. Glenn Strange does his best imitation of Lon Chaney Jr.ās Lennie from Of Mice and Men (1939); it sits right between distracting and amusing.
However, the monster stuff is solid. The makeup isnāt anything fancy, but is sufficient. And Strange is big enough to be frightening in any from. The swamp-dwelling locals, who are suffering the most from the werewolf attacks, are both sympathetic and add color. Iād have been happy to keep the focus on them.
This is a simple, cheap B-movie. For Poverty Row, you could do much worse.