Judging from the stills I'd come across prior to my viewing it, this Mexi-horror outing promised to be goofy fun in the vein of THE BRAINIAC (1962). However, even if the monster make-up is a definite hoot (more on this later), the film proved a relatively sober offering and with its judicious borrowings from the likes of Faust, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and The Phantom Of The Opera thematically intriguing.
The narrative deals with a mediocre musician who envious of his loved one's skill as a pianist sells his soul to the devil, kills the girl and hides her mummified body in a closet (thus anticipating Hitchcock's PSYCHO [1960]). The catch is that, from that point on, he turns into a monster whenever he attempts to play a particular tune (the score for which is still kept by his beloved) which rather suggests that, had he avoided playing it in the first place, nothing would have gone wrong but, then, there'd be no movie! Incidentally, the idea of a murderer being triggered by a musical theme had already been seen in Luis Bunuel's delightful black comedy THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955) and, having just mentioned my favorite film-maker, it's interesting that two of the leads here went on to appear in his Mexican work Enrique Rambal (the Professor) in THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962) and Ofelia Guilmain (his mother) in NAZARIN (1959) and THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL itself. Abel Salazar, as usual, does double-duty as producer and star though, here, he's not so much the wisecracking type (and, perhaps, thankfully so).
Anyway, the relationship between the musician and his mother is quite poignantly developed and the respective actors respond accordingly with convincing (if occasionally campy) portrayals. That said, the mother is endowed with the typical accoutrements of a witch white-haired, black-clad, stern demeanor and a cat as constant companion but the plot provides no explanation whatsoever for such an affectation (especially since she wasn't at all involved in her son's diabolical pact)! Similarly, when the time comes to desert the mansion and avoid meeting up with the police (alerted by the suspicious Salazar), the corpse of Rambal's former muse has been unaccountably reduced to ashes we're simply shown the result, which the musician still preserves inside a casket. A more irksome conceptual flaw, however, concerns the leading lady (Rambal's protégé who, very conveniently, is a dead-ringer for his lost love!) opting to remain in his mansion despite the obvious danger to her life (in all, she comes into close contact with the monster three times during the course of the film): since the girl tells Salazar that she can hear the Professor playing the piano by night from her room, the fact that she'd be completely oblivious of his constant growling and maniacal laughter while doing so (at one point, the mother even carelessly addresses the monster by her son's name while he's stationed outside the girl's door!), therefore, strains credibility somewhat.
As I said, the plot is a mishmash of well-worn horror elements; the film disappoints because it doesn't do much with them: for instance, when the musician turns into a monster, he usually locks himself in and throws the key out the window. In fact, his only victims are chance acquaintances: a passer-by, the unfortunate occupier of a hotel room which had been Salazar's (though this scene does develop into a well-staged rampage/scuffle in the lobby) and a little girl, a piano student whom Rambal kills in spite of himself (even if her death occurs offscreen, it bears unmistakable echoes of a famous scene in FRANKENSTEIN [1931]). Incidentally, the latter horror classic is referenced again when the monster menaces the heroine as she's preparing for her debut concert!
While the direction by Rafael Baledon (who would later helm the even grimmer THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN [1961]) is occasionally clumsy opting, for instance, to end the film on a sentimental two-shot of the dying Professor and his heartbroken mother rather than the much more arresting (and all-encompassing) image of them in the foreground and the protegee' and Salazar, who symbolically sets the musical libretto on fire, in the background the opening sequence alone is among the most effective of its kind that I've seen, immediately setting the mood of mystery and violence. In fact, as with most of my previous experiences with Mexi-horror, the film's major asset is the palpable creepy atmosphere it manages to create with the barest of resources (the central setting itself of the Professor's hacienda and adjacent courtyard could well be the very same ones that were featured in THE VAMPIRE [1957] and, again, in THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M [1958]!).
Even so, THE MAN AND THE MONSTER also contains surefire instances of unabashed goofiness which, in their own way, are equally characteristic traits of this particular genre of film-making: the mother's familiar goes into a panic whenever the musician enters the room...and, then, there's that hilarious hairy make-up accomplished by primitive special effects heavily reliant on awkward freeze-framing during dissolves and comprising a weird combination of Martin Scorsese's bushy eyebrows and the bulbous nose of W.C. Fields!!
The narrative deals with a mediocre musician who envious of his loved one's skill as a pianist sells his soul to the devil, kills the girl and hides her mummified body in a closet (thus anticipating Hitchcock's PSYCHO [1960]). The catch is that, from that point on, he turns into a monster whenever he attempts to play a particular tune (the score for which is still kept by his beloved) which rather suggests that, had he avoided playing it in the first place, nothing would have gone wrong but, then, there'd be no movie! Incidentally, the idea of a murderer being triggered by a musical theme had already been seen in Luis Bunuel's delightful black comedy THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955) and, having just mentioned my favorite film-maker, it's interesting that two of the leads here went on to appear in his Mexican work Enrique Rambal (the Professor) in THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962) and Ofelia Guilmain (his mother) in NAZARIN (1959) and THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL itself. Abel Salazar, as usual, does double-duty as producer and star though, here, he's not so much the wisecracking type (and, perhaps, thankfully so).
Anyway, the relationship between the musician and his mother is quite poignantly developed and the respective actors respond accordingly with convincing (if occasionally campy) portrayals. That said, the mother is endowed with the typical accoutrements of a witch white-haired, black-clad, stern demeanor and a cat as constant companion but the plot provides no explanation whatsoever for such an affectation (especially since she wasn't at all involved in her son's diabolical pact)! Similarly, when the time comes to desert the mansion and avoid meeting up with the police (alerted by the suspicious Salazar), the corpse of Rambal's former muse has been unaccountably reduced to ashes we're simply shown the result, which the musician still preserves inside a casket. A more irksome conceptual flaw, however, concerns the leading lady (Rambal's protégé who, very conveniently, is a dead-ringer for his lost love!) opting to remain in his mansion despite the obvious danger to her life (in all, she comes into close contact with the monster three times during the course of the film): since the girl tells Salazar that she can hear the Professor playing the piano by night from her room, the fact that she'd be completely oblivious of his constant growling and maniacal laughter while doing so (at one point, the mother even carelessly addresses the monster by her son's name while he's stationed outside the girl's door!), therefore, strains credibility somewhat.
As I said, the plot is a mishmash of well-worn horror elements; the film disappoints because it doesn't do much with them: for instance, when the musician turns into a monster, he usually locks himself in and throws the key out the window. In fact, his only victims are chance acquaintances: a passer-by, the unfortunate occupier of a hotel room which had been Salazar's (though this scene does develop into a well-staged rampage/scuffle in the lobby) and a little girl, a piano student whom Rambal kills in spite of himself (even if her death occurs offscreen, it bears unmistakable echoes of a famous scene in FRANKENSTEIN [1931]). Incidentally, the latter horror classic is referenced again when the monster menaces the heroine as she's preparing for her debut concert!
While the direction by Rafael Baledon (who would later helm the even grimmer THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN [1961]) is occasionally clumsy opting, for instance, to end the film on a sentimental two-shot of the dying Professor and his heartbroken mother rather than the much more arresting (and all-encompassing) image of them in the foreground and the protegee' and Salazar, who symbolically sets the musical libretto on fire, in the background the opening sequence alone is among the most effective of its kind that I've seen, immediately setting the mood of mystery and violence. In fact, as with most of my previous experiences with Mexi-horror, the film's major asset is the palpable creepy atmosphere it manages to create with the barest of resources (the central setting itself of the Professor's hacienda and adjacent courtyard could well be the very same ones that were featured in THE VAMPIRE [1957] and, again, in THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M [1958]!).
Even so, THE MAN AND THE MONSTER also contains surefire instances of unabashed goofiness which, in their own way, are equally characteristic traits of this particular genre of film-making: the mother's familiar goes into a panic whenever the musician enters the room...and, then, there's that hilarious hairy make-up accomplished by primitive special effects heavily reliant on awkward freeze-framing during dissolves and comprising a weird combination of Martin Scorsese's bushy eyebrows and the bulbous nose of W.C. Fields!!
