I was a teenage old hairy man with bad teeth that mumbled a lot.
In a small town in the American Southwest Charles Cannon (Stephen Parker) and his father are present when a meteorite crashes to the ground. His father is killed but he survives. Exposure to the meteorite infects the child with a werewolf-like sickness.
Seven years later he looks like an old man covered with hair. He is also violent but with the mind of a child. His mother Ruth Cannon (Anne Gwynne) tries the keep him home, but she needs to work the family gold mine. Left alone, Charles (Gil Perkins) wanders the countryside killing people.
Finally she strikes gold. Now that she is well off she decides to buy a large house way out of town. Charles continues to sneak off and eat cattle and kill people. He scares some children that are playing in their yard. Then he kidnaps a young woman named Kathy North (Gloria Castillo) and tries to hide her in the closet.
When Gwynne finds out she bribes Kathy to be a sort of babysitter to her monster son. She gives her $500 and offers her more to be her son’s companion. Kathy’s pimp of a boyfriend finds out about the money and takes it from her. Kathy being a devious little psychopath talks Charles into killing him, while Kathy looks on. With her new power Kathy believes that Charles will kill anyone for her, perhaps even his own mother.
“Teenage Monster” was released in 1958 and was produced and directed by Jacques R. Marquette. It belongs to the “Weird West” genre. Part western, part horror, part science fiction. At only about 65 minutes it is a relatively short movie. Typical of the 50’s. It’s a low budget independent movie. The original title was supposed to be “Meteor Monster”. The name was changed to take advantage of the “I was a Teenage” craze going on at the time. The meteor was a fourth of July sparkler.
For some reason they dubbed the monster’s voice with someone who garbled his way through the monster’s dialogue. And did it badly. The acting is bad. Anne Gwynne over acts. I will say that Gloria Castillo does a decent psychopath. The script is also bad. Just about everything is bad. Even the make-up was bad and that was done by Jack P. Pierce. Go figure. (The GEICO caveman looks better.)
It was one of those movies that was thrown together because Jacques Marquette needed something cheap for a double bill with “The Brain from Planet Arous”. And with a budget of $57,000 he got what he paid for. What can I say, you can’t win them all. This one belongs either in the bad category or the so bad its good category. It all depends on what you like in your bad movies.
Anne Gwynne was the grandmother of actor Chris Pine.