TEENAGE MONSTER is a textbook examination of Teenage Angst: our hero, Charlie, is dealing with feelings of inadequacy, so he lashes out at Society. Because his testosterone levels have been upped considerably by an errant meteor, this results in several gruesome deaths. When he first discovers the joys of male/female relationships, his naïve notions of Love are put to the ultimate test by a young temptress; this, too, results in mayhem. All of this is typical teenage behavior. Ask Whit Bissell. TEENAGE MONSTER doesn't waste any time whatsoever getting down to business: the meteor comes crashing to Earth during the prologue, effectively killing two birds with one stone (Charlie is transformed and his dad killed so horribly that the filmmakers didn't have the intestinal fortitude to show it). Jack Pierce takes over at this point, and we gets lots of good close ups of The Monster (a huge plus for ANY Fright Film). The pace never slackens. Not disappointing.

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.

This movie came out in the late 1950's when science fiction/monster/teenager movies were all the rage, so I guess the producers of this picture decided to try and combine all three, plus throw in a western setting to come up with 1957's "Teenage Monster". This movie is cheesy, but is actually not bad, if you can get past the "monster", who is not scary looking at all, but instead looks like a 50 year old half man, half ape in cowboy boots and jeans. It's unintentionally hilarious. The premise of the movie is that a teenager turns into a hairy beast after being exposed to a meteor that fell to earth and killed his father when he was a little boy. The movie never explains why the father was killed and the boy survived, and why being exposed would turn him into a cross between the incredible hulk and an ape who mumbles when he speaks and is several sandwiches shy of a picnic.Ann Gwynne plays the monster's mother. She is a good actress, but she is pretty much reduced to scolding the teenage monster and crying throughout most of the movie. Despite these flaws, this movie really a hoot. I love cheesy 1950 drive in movies, and this is one of the better ones in my opinion.

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.