In the small town of Mountaincrest a man wanders aimlessly down a street. He goes into a bar and has a drink. When he leaves a man from the bar follows him and demands his money. They fight. A woman passing by sees the struggle. There is a snarl and one man goes limp. Someone steps out from the alley in front of the woman. What she sees is inhuman. When she screams everyone from the bar runs out. The man in the alley is dead.
Deputy Ben Clovey (Harry Lauter) and the men from the bar head out after the killer. When they find strange footprints in the snow Ben sends everyone back to town and waits for sheriff Jack Haines (Don Megowan). Later Jack comes back into town with Ben. Ben’s been attacked by a creature.
Jack takes him to Dr. Jonas Gilcrist (Ken Christy) for treatment. Ben says the creature that attacked him was covered with hair like a wolf but it wasn’t a wolf. Jonas’s niece Amy Standish (Joyce Holden) is a nurse. She begins treating Ben. Jonas says the wounds on Ben look like those on the dead man they brought in earlier. He says they were animal wounds. The subject of a werewolf comes up.
The next day a man shows up at Dr. Gilchrist’s office. He says he was in an accident and was taken to two doctors but doesn’t remember anything else. He also says he killed a man the night before. When Amy tries to give him a sedative he bolts from the house and runs into the woods yelling that the doctors did something to him.
While the sheriff and a posse of men is searching for the killer, two doctors, Dr. Emery Forrest (S. John Launer) and Dr. Morgan Chambers (George Lynn), come to town. They are responsible for experimenting on the hapless man with wolf serum and turning him into a werewolf. They are in town to try to mitigate their culpability for the man’s condition. Also Helen Marsh (Eleanore Tanin) and her son Chris (Kim Charney) come to town looking for Helen’s husband Duncan Marsh (Steven Ritch). Duncan is eventually identified as the werewolf.
While the Duncan’s and Amy and Dr. Gilcrist try to convince the sheriff that Duncan is ill and needs medical help, Drs. Forest and Chambers are only concerned with killing him and hiding their part in making him a monster.
“The Werewolf” was released in 1956 and was directed by Fred F. Sears. It is a science fiction/horror film. Director Fred Sears did the narration in the opening sequence.
Usually werewolves are created by being bitten by another werewolf and follow traditional mythology. In this film the werewolf was created using science and the creature was susceptible to ordinary bullets. No silver bullets were required. He also changed when attacked and his condition was not based on the full moon. It’s not the first werewolf movie to use this theme. “Mad Monster” did it in 1942 and the silent film “Wolf Blood” from 1925 used a wolf’s blood transfusion as its theme but it is different enough to note the difference.
There are some other cool and interesting things about this movie. First of all the guy is already a werewolf when the film starts. The make-up for him was also decent for a fifties Columbia Pictures low budget film. He is portrayed as a sympathetic victim all the way through the film. Also of note is that for a long time the film was on the obscure side. I believe it was finally released on DVD in 2007. Before that it was only seen on TV and then rarely. It is a decent fifties horror movie that should not be just a memory.