Teenage Monster (1958)

The Worst Film Ever

Brilliant and touching

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

20 years before "Track of the Moon Beast", another classic, we got this wonderfully idiotic piece of junk about a characters' exposure to a falling meteor. That person is a child named Charles Cannon, who seven years later has become a hilarious anthropological throwback (complete with makeup by Jack Pierce). His mom Ruth (Anne Gwynne) never tries very hard to keep him hidden from the world, as he's always out and about maiming and killing people. Their fortunes would be seem to be improving when they finally strike it rich in the old family gold mine, but of course just keep getting worse and worse.You can't feel too sorry for Ruth; she leaves the poor creature (played as a teenager by 50 year old Australian Gil Perkins) to his own devices far too often.The actors, also including studly Stuart Wade as the local sheriff, Norman Leavitt as his brave deputy, and stuntman / actor Chuck Courtney as the slimy Marv, give admirably straight faced performances, but the movie belongs to Gloria Castillo as Kathy, an abduction victim turned conniving charmer. She's a pleasure to watch. And God bless her, Ms. Gwynne emotes for everything that she's worth.Charles' appearance is amusing, if not Pierces' best work, and his vocalizations (which occasionally become coherent) are damn funny for a while.This is another "good" one for watching with beers and buddies.Five out of 10.

"It could have happened..." is the catchphrase of this movie. According to "legend", back in June of 1880 (somewhere in the Old West) a sparkler, I mean meteor, crashed near the mine of the Cannon family. Because of the crash, Jim Cannon (father/husband) dies and his son Charles gets a severe case of dirty face.So apparently Charles, becomes a giant yeti-like creature (I guess due to the meteor) who goes around killing indiscriminately (due to the fact that he is a child in a monster's body - think of Viktor from the Bride except with a worse vocabulary, diction and his jaw locked shut). During this time his mother has Charles continue to mine for gold, as she hides him in the basement. When gold is discovered, everything unravels (is there a greed destroys us all theme hiding in there somewhere??). Everyone in this movie seems to use Charles in one way or another, for their own schemes (even mom). You end up empathizing with Charles, simply because everyone around him is conniving and he is after all still a small boy (on the inside).I'm not sure what the merits of this movie are, except to a hospital ward full of insomniacs. It is quite dull, extremely slow and quite predictable. Thankfully this made for TV movie is only 65 minutes long.-Celluloid Rehab

Surprise, surprise... "Teenage Monster" isn't all that bad a sci-fi movie. Sure, the teenage monster is laughable: he doesn't look scary at all (just hairy) and you're left wondering if Gil Perkins decided to play a monster with a speech impediment or if he's trying to speak normally and the make-up is making him mumble. Anyway, the result is pretty hilarious. (I meant to say "scary", but the only word I could think of was "hilarious".)But "Teenage Monster" is pretty educational: did you know what happens when a meteor strikes a father and his son? Well, I didn't! Apparently such a meteor strike kills a grown man, but not a child. However, the child will grow up with an exceptional amount of facial hair. Okay, so the plot seems to be ludicrous to non-existing at first, but give it a few minutes (not too many, the movie is only just over 60 minutes long) and see how scriptwriter Ray Buffum (also the man who penned "Teen-Age Crime Wave", "Brain from Planet Arous" and "Island of Lost Women") adds a few interesting touches to the script: see how the monster's mother tries to hide her son from the villagers (it doesn't help that the sheriff is in love with her) and how the monster is abused by another character. This may not sound too spectacular (and indeed it isn't), but do remember that most 50s sci-fi films offered you a cheesy monster and a dull story: "Teenage Monster", directed by Jacques R. Marquette (famous for directing "Teenage Monster" and ... oh, that's it?), at least tries to offer the viewer a compelling story. Compelling it isn't, but at least it keeps you from being bored and waiting for the next scene with the unconvincing monster.

MORD39 RATING: ** of ****This is not a classic by any means, and it shouldn't be expected to be one. The 1950's gave us simple, cheesy fun from more innocent times (which we could all use again).TEENAGE MONSTER succeeds in providing us with all the things we love in these half-baked films: A laughable monster, former Universal Forties film star Anne Gwynne looking embarassed just having to BE in it, and a scant running time of just over 60 minutes that breezes by with good, clean fun. I'll watch this over a a true modern piece of manure (like 1999's THE MUMMY) any day.