Continuing the review series, I just finished watching The Mad Monster.
But first! More Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon. Great Cthulhu’s nose tentacles this is a horrible series, perfect for Joel and the bots. In this continuing story, we see that Commando Cody wasn’t disintegrated by the evil Moon Man leader’s atomic ray gun because he jumped behind a piece of furniture just before it was disintegrated instead—phew, that was a close one!
In this second installment, Commando Cody escapes back to the rocket, then recruits help to go steal the tripod-mounted atomic ray gun from the Moon Men. Commando Cody introduces Nitrous Oxide into the ventilation duct of the Moon Man base, which makes them fall asleep, except for the leader, who dons an oxygen mask under a table and uses it to revive a henchman. While Commando Cody is disassembling and stealing the ray gun, they attack him. Another fistfight ensues, Commander Cody escapes with the ray gun, and his lackey helps him carry it back to the rocket ship. But wait! The Moon Men have a car (sort of) that they chase Commando Cody with. He ducks into a moon cave, and the Moon men use their ray gun on continuous heat mode to melt the rock around the tunnel. The molten rock flows into the tunnel and Commando Cody and his ray-gun-stealing partner-in-crime leave their ill-gotten ray gun behind as they run from the flowing, molten rock. The episode ends there, stay tuned for the next review!
Okay, on to the movie. The Mad Monster is about an evil scientist who distills something from the blood of a wolf and injects it into his retarded gardener. The gardener (named Petro, but I thought they were calling him “Pedro” and was wondering why because he didn’t look very Latin) turns into a werewolf (that somehow manages to keep his sport coat buttoned the entire time and kills a little girl out in the swamp surrounding the scientist’s house. One of the earliest scenes shows the scientist talking to ghostly peers at an empty table. I guess they were trying to convey how crazy the scientist was, but it was a strange scene. In a misbegotten attempt to prove to his peers he isn’t crazy, he sics the werewolf on them in various ways so they know he succeeded just before they die at the hands of a slow werewolf. In the end, of course, the experiment backfires and the scientist dies at the paws of his own creation, and they both burn up in the house as it burns down. Oh crap, sorry I just ruined the ending for you.
Honestly, though, I don’t think it was as bad as The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy. It still stank, but more like wet dog…