Best movie of this year hands down!

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Seen this at the movies in 1956! I've listed this as my favorite werewolf movie of all times (I've seen a lot them) Takes place in the Big Bear Mountain area in Calif. Filmed in the winter time with snow still on the ground. Steven Ritch gives a good performance as the poor guy who gets treated by the wrong doctors after having a car accident. This can't really be considered a horror movie since it involves radiation etc. The special affects are fine and the werewolf makeup looks good (Looks like same makeup used in "The Return of the Vampire". A couple of great scary moments - The cave scene - The scene in the police station cell - My favorite is the scene at the beginning of the movie when the werewolf comes out of the alley and confronts a little old lady (The werewolf has his back to you but scares the heck out of the lady who is facing him)! No guts or gore in this movie. Harry Lauter, always liked him, plays the main deputy. I went up to the location where the movie's finale was shot (On the bridge)! I was 9 years old when I seen this movie at our local movie house and I have the movie at home now and try to watch it a couple of times a year! Watch it if you get the chance, you just might like it!! David N.

This modest but nifty horror oldie from the mid-fifties brings forward a rather interesting and progressive premise, namely a wolf man/monster created by weird science instead of by gypsy curses, bites from rabid wolves or whatever else. A very confused and nervous man stumbles into a bar in the little town of Mountaincrest, California. A rather unfriendly encounter with a local quickly establishes that this man – Duncan Marsh – is a werewolf, but he suffers from amnesia and certainly doesn't have the intention to turn the town into a bloodbath. For you see, Duncan was made into what he is by two scientists, one crazy and rather evil and the other docile and cowardly. They took Duncan's unconscious body from a car accident and injected him with an experimental serum. Why? Apparently because the evil scientist guy firmly believes that all men will eventually kill each other and thus he started fabricating a serum that would make a selected few undefeatable. Why don't you try it on yourself then, you coward? How dare you call yourself a scientist! The hunt for the beast brings a lot of people – whether or not carrying torches – to Mountaincrest, including Duncan Marsh's poor wife and young son who still hope he can be rescued. Since Duncan is a very atypical werewolf, the film naturally also doesn't feature any full moons, silver bullets or supernatural stuff of any kind. He transforms whenever subjected to heavy emotions, like anger or anxiety. By consequence "The Werewolf" isn't a full-blood horror movie like the contemporary Hammer monster movies that were being released on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but more of a family drama with a monstrous touch. Still, there's tension throughout the search for Duncan and the opening sequences are mysterious and atmospheric. The werewolf transformations as well as the facial make-up effects are surprisingly great for a low-budgeted 50's flick. Fred F. Sears directs solidly and provided the film with typically moody & ominous voice-over introduction. This guy, who also directed "Earth Vs the Flying Saucers" and "The Giant Claw" definitely died before his time

I'd be the first one to admit that this isn't the greatest werewolf movie that's ever been made. In a lot of ways, it's pretty standard, B- movie stuff. In the action and the chills there really isn't much here that you won't see in other werewolf movies from the era. The cast isn't especially well known (it is a low-budget, B-movie after all, so it doesn't have anyone even approaching the status of a "star") although the performances are fine. The "transformation" scenes are pretty standard for the era; the makeup is OK. What really made this work, though, was the premise. The relatively mundane title suggests a lack of creativity; in fact, this was a rather unique way of approaching the genre.It's a pretty good way of blending a 1940's "horror" type theme (werewolves) with a 1950's theme (radiation, and the fear of nuclear war and the fallout from it.) Essentially, the werewolf in this is an even more sympathetic figure than usual. After suffering a minor injury in a car accident, Duncan (Steven Ritch) is experimented on by two doctors who want to find out what would happen if people were exposed to large doses of radiation, so that they can be prepared to deal with (and survive) the aftermath of an atomic war. What they discover is that the radiation turns Duncan into a bloodthirsty, werewolf-type beast who goes on a killing spree in a small town and in the woods surrounding it. So there's no full moon in this, no animal bite. The guy is just the victim of the experiments of a couple of unsavoury scientists.It fits perfectly with the 1950's, Cold War era. People were afraid of nuclear war; they were afraid of radiation and what it might do as the weapons got progressively more and more powerful. So this, as a horror movie, would have managed to do what any decent horror movie tries to do - it would have played on the very real fears of every day people; a point the movie itself makes toward the end, in a scene when it's mentioned that people are afraid because now that they know it can happen to anyone, they also know there's a chance it could happen to them. This is a decent movie. (6/10)

I purchased this movie expecting it to be half-ass considering I bought it in the Sam Katzman's producers pack. I was surprised to find an interesting film in which a sympathetic character is cursed well...(I don't want to spoil the movie at all) I was enjoying the film until about 50 or 60 min into it, at that point I wanted the story to move along the film spends a lot of time wandering in the hunt to find this abomination. Which you never really see much of, this is the kind of monster movie were the creature needs to be seen early in a spectacular way. This does not happen here, you don't even witness a transformation occurring, the real let down. I was still surprised how much i felt pity on the main character and wanted him to become cure. The film still didn't do it for me though when I start looking at the clock during a movie, it's not getting anything above 5 stars. 4/10