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I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Simply A Masterpiece

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This was the worst of the 3 movies that Hans Brahm directed for 20th-Century Fox. Unlike The Lodger and Hangover Square, this one looks like one of the cheap quickies that Republic and Monogram Studios used to churn out in the '40's.Casting for this movie was getting look-alikes of more famous stars-the guy who played Oliver was a dead ringer for Lon Chaney, Jr. And Christy looked suspiciously like Cornelia Otis Skinner with a dye job, right down to the hair-do and the rubber faced facial mugging, right out of The Uninvited. The worst part of the movie was the ending-the way they sped up the monster's running scenes on camera looked pretty silly, and the transformation from wolf to man was some really sloppy camera work.

A Scotland Yard inspector (James Ellison) investigates an attack on a wealthy man named Oliver Hammond (John Howard) at his family's estate. Turns out there's a werewolf curse on the Hammond family but the inspector believes there's a more scientific explanation. Rare '40s horror film from 20th Century Fox. It's obviously meant to capitalize on Universal's success with The Wolf Man. It even has its own werewolf poem. Not exactly as catchy though. It's a good B horror-thriller. Director John Brahm and cinematographer Lucien Ballard create a beautiful-looking film, full of shadowy atmosphere and some great sets. Ellison and Howard are good, as is the lovely Heather Angel. Nice support from Halliwell Hobbes, Holmes Herbert, and Bramwell Fletcher. It's barely over an hour so there's no excuse not to try it out. It will be well worth the effort.

I think the film is exceptionally moody and sinister—and subtly subversive. Director John Brahm may not have been an auteur, but this German director imported by Fox from England certainly was a master at using light and shadow to induce the creeps. Or was celebrated cinematographer Lucien Ballard the genius? Much has been made of similarities between "The Undying Monster" and "Hound of the Baskervilles" released by Fox three years earlier. But there is more to the similarity than Fox's attempt to cash in on an earlier success. In "Hound of the Baskervilles" Sherlock Holmes debunked the Baskerville curse as a diversion used to cover up a murder attempt. The writers of "The Undying Monster" subverted the audience's belief that there would be a similar natural explanation of an apparently supernatural attack in which a member of the Hammond family is injured. The Hammond curse concerns an ancestor who is supposed to have made a pact with the devil for immortality. The ancient ancestor is still rumored to live in a secret room in the castle's cellar from which he preys on his descendants, thereby prolonging his unnatural life. In this film the murderer is indeed a werewolf.But this astonishing revelation is muted by a curiously unconvincing final scene in which a forensic pathologist from Scotland Yard, who has witnessed the creature's transformation back into human form, tosses off the unprecedented phenomenon as something perfectly natural. Lycanthropy, says the investigator, is merely a person's delusion that he can change into a wolf. The family doctor admits he has been treating the monster for a genetic brain affliction. But we have seen it was much more that a delusion. We remember what the investigator conveniently forgets, that a sample of wolf's fur from the crime scene miraculously disappeared during chemical analysis. The unwarranted insertion of a "logical" explanation for the curse steers the film away from an uncomfortably audacious premise, and toward the inoffensive conventions of an old dark house mystery.But the film began with something much more sinister in mind. When Helga, the mistress of the manor, leads investigators to the Hammond family crypt, we see that near Crusader Sir Reginald Hammond's sarcophagus stands a statue of Sir Reginald and a beast that has a dog's, wolf's, or jackal's face and paws, but human arms and unmistakable female breasts. The pathologist dismisses the beast's odd appearance with the facile comment "Man has always bred the dog into fantastic shapes." There are no further references to Sir Reginald, and the final scene feels as if it had been tacked on in post-production, more so because Heather Angel who played Helga, the investigator's love interest, is not in the scene. My guess is that fear of the Hayes office caused Fox not to carry through with the dark suggestion that Sir Reginald's pact unleashed evil upon his descendants. The otherworldy combination of male and female, human and animal characteristics of the wolf in Sir Reginald's statue suggests at the very least he was involved in an unholy union that may have spawned male descendants genetically tainted with diabolical traits. If detected, such a theme would surely have roused the ire of the censors. Fox's timidity may therefore have cost this handsomely mounted film, that sported more elaborate sets and technique than Universal had at its disposal, any chance to join the A list of B films from the 1940s horror cycle.Nevertheless, it's an entertaining film if you can look past the ending and the comic relief provided by an assistant investigator who comes off as a female version of the bumbling Dr. Watson of the Holmes movies.

The House of Hammond is burdened by a family history of suicides at the supposed sight of a monster. When a nurse..and Oliver Hammond(John Howard), who now owns the current estate of his family..is attacked at the edge of a sea-side cliff next to the lane traveling to the Hammond estate, Scotland Yard science detectives Curtis(James Ellison)and his unflappable assistant Christy(the delightful Heather Thatcher)are called on to solve the mystery that has shrouded the family for centuries. Also left mangled and torn at the scene of the attack is a dead cocker spaniel dog. The troubling aspect of this crime scene, where it appears as if a savage animal of some sort committed the carnage, is that there are no footprints leaving a trace of what caused such a violent rampage. With the nurse unconscious in a coma and slowly withering away from a severe brain hemorrhage, amazingly Oliver is recuperating well despite some nasty cuts and bruises he supposedly suffered at the hands of whatever caused the attacks. When asked about what committed the attacks, though, Oliver's muddled story leaves little for Curtis and Christy, and the village police, to go by. Ruffling the feathers of the Hammonds and their hired help, it appears that secrets are being held from Curtis and Christy as they pursue the truth behind the deaths that have plagued this family for so long. Also acting suspiciously is the village doctor, Jeff Colbert(Bramwell Fletcher)who seems to be deliberately making things difficult for Curtis such as muffling the footprints left on the floor of a secret locked room, or his taking the Hammond family history book from a library before the detective could retrieve it. And, curiously, why would a renowned brain specialist leave London for a small village position? Would it be that he has designs on marrying Helga Hammond(Heather Angel)who would be sole heir of her family estate if Oliver was out of the way? Curtis and Christy will have to use their scientific methods of spectrum DNA analysis, which has solved cases in the past, if they wish to figure out what monster, or possible human murderer, is behind the death of the nurse who would succumb to her injuries.Before directing "The Lodger", John Brahm does what he was commissioned to do..bring an atmospherically crafted mystery, shooting from all sorts of fantastic angles, with his cunning abilities using the camera, fluidly expressing a sense of style that would later cement his legacy as a quietly underrated genius. You can see how Universal inspired other studios in just how "The Undying Monster" opens. I felt the "bending trees" which populate the surrounding areas of the Hammond estate, and the massive studio sets representing the inside of Hammond castle(..and the mausoleum housing the Hammond ancestry), resemble "Frankenstein" more than "The Wolf Man", the model obviously for the werewolf theme in "The Undying Monster". You can certainly see what skills director Brahm had in the studio system such as the opening shot where the camera eyeballs various Hammond staples in the living room of the castle, and the nurse running for her life down the lane as the camera follows her from a distance. I loved one particular shot where Brahm's camera captures a conversation behind the rising flames of a fireplace. The monster itself, certainly a werewolf style which resembles the iconic Jack Pierce standard, only makes a major appearance at the end..only do we get a good look at it's face, with the director using the usual dissolves from hair to face when we find out who is plagued with lycanthropy. A good portion of this film, though, is the unveiling of a mystery, with Curtis discovering what secrets this family might be hiding, while also utilizing the new methods of investigation to find about about strange evidence in order to find out what caused the attacks that lead to an unfortunate death. The script has the family's past as sordid with supposedly a member selling his soul to the devil. That kind of reputation only fuels the idea of a monster, with the family's name continuously remaining notorious. As each suspect is ruled out, Curtis, a scientist who scoffs at the notion of the supernatural, will discover, through science no less, just who his culprit actually is. Lycanthropy, in this film, is looked at as an affliction of a diseased mind, passed down through the generations. Thanks to Brahm's sure hand, and an interesting script, this film rises above being just a Wolf Man rip-off. But, this was just a stepping stone to greater triumphs, with "The Undying Monster" serving as a template where Brahm would lay the stylistic groundwork for what was to come later.