When a film has four writers, that usually does not lead one to believe they are about to sit through a masterpiece, in fact it is as far away as possible from that as you can get.  What is surprising then, as you watch this film is that it really is not all that bad.  The movie finds writer, producer, director and star Robert Clarke as a man who has a strange condition about him.  It seems that after being exposed to some radiation during an experiment, Dr. Gilbert McKenna reverts back to a reptile or amphibian of some sort from thousands of years ago if he is out in the sun too long.  So instead of transforming during the moon like a werewolf, he instead transforms during the daylight hours.  Suffice it to say, McKenna is not a happy man.

This movie looks cheap and there is a perfectly good reason for it.  As Robert Clarke wanted to try and make a film of his own, he supplied the cash, or at least most of it, tried his hand at writing the film, along with Phil Hiner, Doane R. Hoag and E.S. Seeley Jr., directing it and starring in it.  He also more famously cast some of his friends and family in it, which actually turned out quite well as they did a fair job at their roles.  So while the editing might be a little sloppy here and there, the directing perhaps not the best it could have been and the dialogue leaving a little to be desired, the film turned out okay.  It is a Z picture of course, on par with many of Roger Corman’s best, but it is a whole lot of fun which is why you go to watch a movie.

For his part, Clarke did a good job, on all fronts with his acting being the best thing about the film.  His costume actually looked pretty good as well and maybe it might have been better had there been a larger budget, for what it was, it was effective and looked better than most.  If the aforementioned Roger Corman tried half as hard to make his costumes look half-decent, perhaps his films would not be as bad as they are.  The leading ladies of the film, Patricia Manning and Nan Peterson looked quite lovely and was a smart piece of casting on Clarke’s part as whenever they were on screen your eye was more often than not drawn to them and not the surroundings.  Clocking in at only seventy-four minutes, the film still felt a little long even though there was quite a bit of action, with a few scenes dragging just a little and it makes you wonder if a little bit had been cut from the movie, would it have been any better?

Some might laugh at this film, and perhaps it deserves a little for its cheap production values and whatnot, but at the end of the day it is a solid little science-fiction film that never fails to entertain.

2.5 out of 5