NIGHT MONSTER (1942)

Director: Ford Beebe

Writer: Clarence Upson Young

Producer: Ford Beebe

Cast: Ralph Morgan, Don Porter, Irene Hervey, Leif Erickson, Fay Helm, Doris Lloyd, Nils Asther, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Janet Shaw, Frank Reicher, Francis Pierlot, Robert Homans, Cyril Delavanti

People are found strangled to death around the swamp of Pollard Slough. At the nearby Ingston Towers estate, patriarch Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan) has summoned the three doctors that were unable to cure the ailment that has turned him into an invalid. Kurt’s distraught sister Margaret (Fay Helm) has summoned a doctor of her own, psychiatrist Dr. Lynn Harper (Irene Hervey). Margaret is troubled by the terrible evil she senses in the Ingston household and wants Dr. Harper to determine her sanity. Margaret’s fears seem justified as more killings continue within Ingston Towers.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

It seems odd to me that the '40s horror movie factory of Universal Pictures would produce a film that turned out like Night Monster. Since horror had been Universal’s bread and butter for over a decade at this point, getting two of the genre’s stars in the same film must have been by design, right? After all, Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill headed up the cast of Universal’s Son of Frankenstein (1939) that restored the popularity of horror at the box office. However, when their services are secured for co-starring in another fright flick, despite their star billing, both Lugosi and Atwill play rather minor characters. That’s a mystery even more puzzling than the identity of the murdering fiend in this movie.

Perhaps the advantage of directing B-movies in Hollywood’s golden age was that one could get away with more eccentricities. Because the smaller budgeted and shorter scheduled productions were not as financially risky, they were probably not as closely supervised. So long as they met genre requirements and stayed on time and on budget, the B-film directors were probably given more freedom. In the case of Night Monster, maybe Ford Beebe, as both director and producer, was allowed to seemingly squander the established horror names in his cast. Since the story operates as both a mystery and a horror thriller, Beebe may have thought that Lugosi and Atwill would act best as potential suspects in the story and disrupt genre expectations.

Ford Beebe specialized in directing westerns and action serials. He certainly manages to keep things moving in Night Monster, yet he also generates a lot of atmosphere and builds up to his horror climaxes very effectively. Apparently, the old pro really knew what he was doing and could apply his know-how to any genre. No less a talent than Alfred Hitchcock is supposed to have admired Beebe’s work on Night Monster.

While Irene Hervey, as the beautiful Dr. Harper, and Don Porter, as mystery writer Dick Baldwin, present us with an obvious romance in the offing, they are both quite low-keyed. She is always a levelheaded professional while he is relaxed, humorous, and even self-deprecating.

The rest of the characters are an important reason the film maintains interest. Most of the characters have conflicts and quirks that make them distinctive. My favorite performer is Leif Erickson as the lecherous lout Laurie, the Ingstons' chauffeur. Anything in a skirt is fair game for this big brute, which, of course, makes him an obvious suspect. He would be just as memorable and unpleasant a decade later in the surreal sci-fi creeper Invaders from Mars (1953).

Night Monster is a fun little chiller that is most remarkable due to its unique menace. I can’t recall any other fright flick that uses a phenomenon quite like the one found here. The film also manages a lot of atmosphere with its traditional old-dark-house-thriller styled setting. Add to this a cast of strange characters, mysticism, a foggy swamp, and an escalating body count, and you wind up with Universal Pictures’ most unjustly overlooked movie from their '40s horror heyday.