The Undying Monster (1942) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by sakana1 ★★ 6

  The Undying Monster is the lightest of lightweight werewolf pictures, a whodunit in which the werewolf hardly appears, and elderly servants act just as suspiciously as anyone trained on old, creaky mysteries would expect. It does have the added element of SCIENCE!, which takes the form of a lot of talking about things like light spectrums and blood tests, but that doesn't make the movie any more interesting than it would have been without a single microscope.

  When the film is interesting, the interest stems mostly from the fiercely competent young woman (Heather Angel as Helga Hammond) whose family curse is at the center of the story being told. Helga is pleasantly tough and fearless, blasting out into the frosty…

• Review by SpaghettiNoir ★★★

  Werewolf whodunnit starts and ends on the spooky side, but settles into a talkier detective procedural for the middle section. At just over an hour though, The Undying Monster is never boring. John Brahm was a master at these horror-flavored mysteries, even if he only made three (along with The Lodger and Hangover Square). Nice black & white photography by the great Lucien Ballard (The Wild Bunch), with heavy Haunted Mansion vibes in the opening scene.

  
  HoopTober 9: 2/31
  Decades: 1940s

• Review by FakeVoorhees ★★★★ 5

  Actual werewolf content is minimal but this is a great horror mystery about an investigation into a supernatural family curse. Very Scooby Doo at times.

• Review by Hunter ᴴᴰ ★★★★

  Animal, vegetable or mineral?
  I don’t know why I laughed so hard when I first heard that.

  The Undying Monster is werewolf done tastefully. But that howl is creepy as hell at night. The direction is really great and well shot. I love the moving opening. A mystery that is surprisingly susceptible to modern audiences mainly lacking authentic tension and clear characters. I wanted some more of the interesting creepy imagery and less predictable who done it. The ending blows and is wrapped up to neatly for me. Don't worry, Christy; wolves will never bother you.

  Altogether I really enjoyed my time watching The Undying Monster and very interested in the source novel. Recommended for the pleasant forties horror and easy mystery. I want a remake of this!

  That’s no dog!

• Review by julianblair ★★★½ 5

  boxd.it/lU0DO
  Classic Monsters List

  "When stars are bright,
  On a frosty night,
  Beware thy bane,
  On the rocky lane"

  This very neglected werewolf film is a handsome, atmospheric thriller that culminates in a rousing final reveal. You almost think it's going to be like a Sherlock Holmes film of this era.....but lo and behold, it's like The Hound of the Baskervilles really turned out to be a genuine.... Ah, but no more spoilers since very few people have actually seen it.

  Based on a far more complex and rather cosmic novel by Jessie Douglas Kerruish, it will not be disappointing to lovers of gothic mystery and the occult. The film has a short run time and the production values and direction (by John Brahm) are quite impressive. This is one of the very few true horror films that 20th Century Fox produced in the 1940s....but one might wish they had produced more such films after sampling The Undying Monster,

• Review by lisa ★★★

  "perhaps there are some things in this world that science has not yet found out about."

  pretty solid! really well shot and i love the atmosphere.

• Review by sillycatmom ★★★★

  For a 1942 movie it’s great! I watched it on “ Groovy Movies”. It has a huge doggy too! Great Danes name is Alex and he doesn’t like the “ Family Werewolf”. It’s like a takeoff in “ HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES”. The cast and script are worth the watch! One question though … why does every old house have a “ Laboratory” in the basement , and it’s perfectly normal? Just asking! Watch it and enjoy!

• Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

  Prior to watch this 1942 horror film, it never occurred to me how much John Brahm could be mistaken for a discount bin Tourneur in the 40s. His control of atmosphere is in place as well as his love for dark imagery. This is somewhere between the Universal horror cycle and one those murder mysteries with supernatural overtones and a detective ready to call it shenanigans of one sort or other. There’s a lot of pleasures, mostly visual, yet the film has an over researched exercise feeling to it and the personal obsession behind the expressionist pictorialism remains shallow.

• Review by TheDionysiac ★★½ 1

  “There is nothing more harrowing than a deadly hush with the feel of a great noise around it” - Jessie Douglas Kerruish

  'The Undying Monster' aka. 'The Hammond Mystery' was 20th Century Fox's first horror movie, and film historian Drew Casper pretty aptly called it "B material given A execution". The film itself is structured more like a murder mystery with James Ellison playing a Scotland Yard investigator looking into a case where an old aristocratic family is under an ongoing threat from an unknown assailant every time they go outside on moonlit nights. Of course it turns out the murderer is a werewolf, but that isn't resolved before the very end (even though this is being sold to us…

• Review by Bloodspiller🩸 ★★★

  Pretty dialog-heavy and most of the time, doesn't feel like a horror film, but The Undying Monster's lighting and sets are top notch. A treat for those who love gorgeous b/w cinematography. Just don't expect to fall in love with any of the characters.

• Review by James

  The Undying Monster is 20th Century Fox's take on a Universal horror flick with some mystery/thriller thrown in for good measure and it works.

  It's shot beautifully in black and white with great sets and locations. It's perfectly foggy outside and there are some amazing shadows.

  It's a werewolf picture but it's more of a murder mystery in that Scotland Yard steps in to figure out what's going on and who's committing these murders.

  John Brahm is a director I'm excited to see more of after this one. I have The Lodger and Hangover Square as well and I'm pretty stoked to watch them.

  One more thing that stuck out for me was the butler played by Haliwell Hobbes. His voice while being creepy and mysterious sounded to me just like John Houseman telling the ghost story in the beginning of The Fog. It's uncanny.

• Review by Will Walker ★★★★★

  "I just happened to think! I was sleeping in the next room the night that wolfman grabbed his sister! What if he grabbed me?!"
  "Don't worry, Christy. Wolves will never bother you!"

  It would be easy to dismiss The Undying Monster as just a knock off of Universal's The Wolf Man, but a mistake nonetheless. 20th Century Fox's underappreciated monster mystery was made in direct response to the success of 1941's classic The Wolf Man, but for a film made to capitalize off the success of a studio rival, this one has enough unique merits and does enough differently from its predecessor to stand on its own hind legs as a wonderful Horror movie. Heather Angel's aristocratic nurse Helga Hammond…