Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

poe-48833 THE UNDYING MONSTER was one of those movies I'd been wanting to see for quite some time; I'd read good things about it, but it never seemed to turn up anywhere. Finally, I found it... Like far, far too many Monster movies, THE UNDYING MONSTER spends far, far too much time TALKING about rather than SHOWING the Monster- and, when it is at (long, long) last finally revealed, it's pretty much just a man in blackface. What the F---...??? All that talk and all that speculation and all we get in the end is a glimpse of a guy in BLACKFACE??? I was tempted to rate this one even lower than I have, but most of the movie IS well crafted- which makes it rare among Fright Films of the period (unfortunately). A big disappointment for THIS viewer.

mark.waltz While the monster here is an unseen creature, rumored to have haunted this part of the English country side for centuries, it is very apparent that it is some sort of predatory monster of remarkable strength and fierce cunning. Wolves haven't lived in England for ions, someone points out, but it is very obvious that somebody knows more than they are revealing.Obviously made in the wake of the recent return of several famous Universal monsters, this ain't no rip-off. It has a lavish look, albeit on a B budget, and is as chilling as the Val Lewton thrillers being made over at RKO. The murders are nothing short of shocking and the murky atmosphere perfect for the grand guignole shakes and shivers it may produce going up and down your spine.The intelligent screenplay is perfectly aided by the fog-laden photography, eerie music and fast-paced editing. As directed by the under-rated John Brahms, James Ellison, Heather Angel and John Howard deliver believable performances with Halliwell Hobbes and Eily Malyon memorable as the butler and housekeeper who seem to be guilty of something.

slayrrr666 "The Undying Monster" is a nice, pleasant surprise for a cheaply-made werewolf film.**SPOILERS**Unconcerned with a family legend about werewolves, Helga Hammond, (Heather Angel) thinks that it's a tale of jealousy until her brother Oliver, (John Howard) is attacked late at night near their family castle. Claiming it to be a strange monster similar to the legend, Robert Curtis, (James Ellison) and his assistant, Cornelia Christopher, (Heather Thatcher) both Scotland Yard inspectors, are called in to help solve the case. The evidence points to a deadly creature from their past, and discovering the creatures motive, they race to stop it from carrying out it's deadly intentions.The Good News: This one really surprised me with how good it actually was. The most important part of the film is that it's really atmospheric. There's a large amount of scenes out in the wilderness with huge heaps of fog rolling in from off-screen, most notably in the opening. From the moon-lit walk through the forest with the fog rolling in that obstructs objects in the distance to the off-screen animal howls that come out of nowhere which add to the proceedings and it makes for some really impressive scenes. The throwaway scene of a carriage arriving at the estate is also shown to be arriving with fog creeping in on the party, and it adds to the fact that no matter where, it's also dark and spooky which gives the surroundings much more creepy feel to them. The ending is the film's best part, as the werewolf finally makes an appearance and attacks the household, which is quite nice. The growls and screams of terror pierce the air at the right frequency and urgency to send a shiver down the spine, and the chase out into the outsides is handled properly to make it a big presence. The fight inside the mausoleum is a nice addition, making nice use of the surroundings and being a bit of a brawl, going back and forth between the combatants and each one getting beat and doing the beating. Nicely stands out from the weak middle as it's during the investigation scenes and it is one of the high points to the film. This really wasn't all that bad and was a nice surprise.The Bad News: There really isn't too much in here that's off. The main thing that's wrong is that the investigation scenes in the middle go on a little too long. It's some nicely written scenes, and they play out nicely in taking the story and giving it some real meat, but they transpire like second-rate detective stories that have been done better in countless different films. Rather than actually being hidden and some real detective work involved, it's all laid out in the open and is all stumbled upon. It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the detectives when the clues used to deduce the crime from could've been found by just about anyone. It's also completely tensionless, and it could've had some really creepy scenes inside it, but it just drags on in a seen-it-better-before kind of attitude. The lack of on-screen werewolf action, or even the creature itself, until the very end may cause disarray from the hardcore fans, but it's the way the story goes so it's an unavoidable problem. Otherwise, this wasn't all that bad of a film.The Final Verdict: It gets a little talky at points, but that doesn't detract from this being a rather decent affair. It's atmospheric, entertaining and has some good things going for it, so fans of the werewolf genre or of "The Wolf Man" and similar films will want to check this one, as should all fans of classic horror.Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence

Robert J. Maxwell It's hard to imagine that this was a product of 20th-Century Fox because it looks so much like a B feature from Universal Studios -- the isolated mansion, the absence of daylight, the ground-covering fog, the spooky music, the family haunted by a curse, the dark figures slinking through the shadows, and most of all the werewolf. I haven't read the novel but the writers have used every cliché in the monster book. I could hardly sit through it -- wouldn't have sat through it except that I'd bought the DVD.There's nothing wrong with John Brahm's direction except that it's flat and unimaginative. He's done much better work elsewhere, as in "The Lodger." Really -- in a dark corner of the room, a hairy hand sneaks out from behind a heavy curtain while the musical score tells us to notice it and be frightened. There is not only no poetry here; there's very little effort at all. The script sucks. The dialog not only lacks sparkle but is predictable from moment to moment. There is even one of those ancient proverbs that serves as a warning, "Even the man who is wholesome and sane must cover his rear as he walks by wolfbane." Something like that. (Repeated twice, and also displayed on a plaque.)And the score, by the way, so stereotypical, is by David Raksin, who was to go on two years later to produce the pretty little suspenseful and romantic theme for "Laura." Heather Angel is okay. She has the proper delicate features. But what is James Ellison doing as a Scotland Yard scientist assigned to investigate a death and mauling at the estate of an upper-class British family? He brings to the part the broad vowels of an American cowboy from Iowa. And the director doesn't help him in the least. Ellison rushes through his scenes as if the film were a one-hour quickie from Monogram Studios.As it turns out, one of the family members suffers from "lycanthropy" -- the belief that under certain conditions he turns into a wolf. The problem is that in this instance he really DOES turn into a werewolf. We see him looking like hairy Lawrence Talbot until he's shot, and then as he dies he assumes his normal human form. A sample of his wolf hair disappears in the lab while under analysis. And yet, at the end, the whole business is treated as a quirk of the victim's mind, a kind of insanity, even by the family's doctor. It makes no sense. Either lycanthropy is a delusion or it's real. The movie gives us both, contradicting itself and papering over the plot holes.The most interesting scenes involve the spectrograph and the centrifuge. Both the instruments had been around for a while so they're not anachronisms.