Makeup Artist Unleashes his monsters on Studio Execs!

A 25-year career makeup artist for monsters gets the bad news from new studio heads that he will be retired as they believe musicals is preferred over horror in the 50s. The “wheels of progress” as told to our makeup monster creator is that no one no longer desires monster wigs and scary pictures, preferring singalongs and pretty girls. So a “special cream agent” is used right before he applies the monster makeup to actors who are unknowingly used as pawns by the veteran artist to murder the studio heads involved in his “retiring”. A studio security cop tells the makeup artist and his assistant that they are possible suspects, written down in his “little black book” and will be told to police so he can potentially land a chief of police job…so, as you may expect, his words will lead to undoing. As each murder happens, the makeup assistant becomes more and more agitated and consumed with guilt while his 25-year boss tries to hold him in check. With the local authorities breathing down their necks after a maid comes across an actor made up as a bulging-eyed Frankenstein’s monster, how long can the makeup artist and his assistant defy them?

From the director and makeup artist of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (Herbert Strock and Phillip Scheer), How to Make a Monster was another cheesy B-movie drive-in horror flick released by American International, capitalizing on a thriving market towards youth. The Michael Landon werewolf makeup last seen in I Was a Teenage Werewolf turns up here (not Landon, the werewolf makeup, Scheer was responsible for that as well) and the actor donning it is told by Robert H Harris’ mad makeup artist to murder a studio exec during rushes for the werewolf movie that was to be his last. Harris’ Pete Dummond just didn’t turn diabolical thanks to news he’d be ditched by the studio as the final sequence tells us he’s been rather psychotic for some time. A shrine dedicated to the monster makeup masterworks of his career will communicate to us as the house goes up in flames. Anyway, Paul Brinegar (Wishbone of Rawhide) is the nervy, easily-controlled assistant that Pete tries to contain but this union is obviously fragile and certain to fracture as the police become factors that falter their crimes. Brinegar’s Rivero is an easy patsy for Pete, having depended upon him for decades, now assisting him in concealing murder. The kids who are persuaded through some concoction of chemicals in a type of cream Pete uses (a really silly plot development, but fits this kind of movie) are to be convinced (against their wishes, unbeknownst to them) to participate as subjects for Pete’s final two masterpieces to go with his home’s shrine collection.

I haven’t seen this before so it seemed like a nice little movie for October, and I was correct. This has a charm about it due to the ridiculous and amusing storyline regarding the idea that you could avenge your unpleasant firing by using makeup cream you created to lead to their dispatching. I was reminded of Jack Pierce while Pete holds the sign that once hung on the door to his makeup room, unceremoniously dismissed like a relic of an era to be forgotten. I was rather floored by the transition to color in the final scene, and while the look of the overall film is cheap and drab (like the budget, I’m sure), I wouldn’t have minded if How to Make a Monster would of all been in color. Still, I must admit that these kinds of movies appeal to me, and my heart couldn’t quite turn away this flick even if it is just preposterous. The performance and dialogue of Harris is smoothly essayed with a cold-blooded methodical accuracy that only unravels as the wheels of the plot tighten him into a corner he will not be able to escape from.

How to Make a Monster (1958) **½