Category: 1950s

The Tacky Magnetism of Paul Blaisdell’s Fantastically Ridiculous Sci-Fi/Horror Puppetry

I want to add this little note to my post. I did happen to find mention of Blaisdell in at least 2 books so far that are part of my library. Since I’ve moved to the coastal city of Bath Maine, my studio and library are in a disarray, so many of my books and things are sort of caught between worlds of stasis and static. Keep Watching the Skies by Bill Warren volume II 1958-1962 does cover Paul Blaisdell a bit as well as D. Earl Worth’s Sleaze Creatures. And now Randy Palmer's book, Paul Blaisdell: Monster Maker This makes me a little less sad! M.G.

Paul Blaisdell was an unsung asset to American International Pictures (A.I.P) and to the truly unprecedented, unintentional pioneer and auteur of cheap, cheesy and campy gems on shoe string budget that somehow have been elevated to icon status because of their enduring charm.

THE GREAT ROGER CORMAN

Thanks to Roger Corman for giving Paul Blaisdell the opportunity to create his omnipresent monster — the busty Beulah the incarnation of an arcane female manifestation from out of the primordial ooze channeled through Marla English during regressive hypnosis, in The She Creature (1956).

THE GREAT PAUL BLAISDELL



Beulah went on to appear albeit altered +crazy wig for Voodoo Woman (1957).

and an oddly incongruous to the plot, a derivation of her had a cameo in The Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow (1959).

Beulah in The Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow is just a little less busty!

The reason Beulah got around was due to the production company having no budget for any special effects so they asked Blaisdell if he would let them use Beulah and he was kind enough to consent allowing them to bring her out for a command performance.

I especially love the adorably nasty little bug-eyed creatures with large heads somewhat like brussel sprouts who loved to get cows drunk, not to mention a young Frank Gorshin in Invasion Of the Saucer Men (1957)

LITTLE CABBAGE HEADED BUG EYED FIENDS!


And we can’t forget his laughable cucumber Mutant in It Conquered the World (1956), and of course the alien cucumber’s little flying minion a crusty umbrella bat thingy that implanted a doodad in your neck so you’d do its bidding.

Of course, there’s the mutant that was supposedly most likely a bear at one time before the fallout’s noxious vapors transformed it into a monstrous 3 eyed horny creature in Day The World Ended(1955)


And one of my personal favorites is the awesome Tabanga tree stump equipped with a beating heart that walked really slow and could hardly move a branchy arm yet inspired great fear amongst the superstitious jungle folk and interloping Western scientists alike.

5 Movie Monsters in Search of an Existential Crisis: AntiFilm School Presents the 3rd Annual Halloween Horror Movie Spooktacular!

Paul Blaisdell was an artist who worked in rubber like Auguste Rodin.


worked in marble, well maybe not, but to those of us who grew up with his cheesy monsters, it was art after all.

At first, Blaisdell was a sketch artist, fine arts painter, and sculptor, being an artist/musician myself I understand how poor one person can be by doing what they love. He never made a lot of money as a monster maker in the height of the fabulous 50s. Also, like me, he drew monsters and did models as a kid.

I used to make all the Aurora Universal monster models. Collected all of Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazines.

and sketched the creatures from those sacred rags and superheroes from my huge Marvel and D.C. comic book collection. I would be stinkin’ rich if I hadn’t sold each and every one for 10 cents a copy while sitting on the street corner back in the good old days, in the suburbs of Long Island New York.

little monster girl and her pop who didn’t mind her playing with monsters!

Obviously, Blaisdell was really good at what he did, because he wound up making a great and lasting contribution to the monster business and Roger Corman’s campy cult films of the 50s. Me I went on to become a songwriter inspired by these glorious childhood memories, but I am better at playing piano and songwriting than building giant rubber mutants with bulging eyes. Although I did try to build a space station in the basement with parts that I got from our vacuum cleaner, which wasn’t broken at the time… don’t ask.

From that point on, every time the hammer went missing in my house, my father would give me the most piercing looks and start yelling. To his credit, he’s the one who would take me to the local mom-and-pop stationery store to buy or bring me home the latest Famous Monsters Magazine, and never said, “Little girls shouldn’t be interested in monsters”, so he was truly a great guy, even if he did yell about the hammer a lot! So anyway…

Blaisdell submitted his illustrations to pulp sci-fi publications like Spaceways


and Otherworlds. And eventually, he was discovered by magazine publisher Forrest J. Ackerman who was so impressed with Paul’s work that he became his agent.

Because of Ackerman, Blaisdell got his first film job designing the alien creature for The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955). He actually helped the project out because at the point he came on board, there wasn’t any little alien yet in the movie at all, which would have to be problematic!

Paul and Jackie Blaisdell with ‘Little Hercules’ between them.

The beastly slave of the alien is a hand puppet created by the cheesy greatness that was Paul Blaisdell.

Interesting side note: For The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Corman needed someone to design the alien who originally was supposed to be an invisible force marauding through the galaxy hitching rides on various life forms and taking over their consciousness, like the mind control of the animals in the film. In Bill Warren’s informative book Keep Watching the Skies, Corman contacted friend collector/historian Forrest Ackerman suggesting stopping animation genius Ray Harryhausen (who obviously was way out of Corman’s league and price range) Warren-“Corman recoiled in economic in shock.” Then Forrest recommended Jacques Fresco a futuristic eco-conscious architect and designer who had created the space station and rockets for Project Moon Base (1953)

But Fresco wanted too much money to do the job, so Ackerman came up with another idea. There was an illustrator who designed cover art and did illustrations for his magazines, named Paul Blaisdell. It wasn’t like Blaisdell had the experience building movie models but the young guy did build model kits (the Aurora kind I used to spend the days gluing and painting) and he also did some sculpting. Blaisdell said he would try it for $200 for the job and another $200 for materials. It was still more than Corman wanted to invest, but it seemed the last resort if he wanted a creature in his film. Corman sent the poster to Blaisdell as a composite and informed him that it didn’t have to do much more than show itself on screen for a few moments, then collapse. Blaisdell could then make it on a small scale, using only the upper torso since the rest would be hidden by the ship’s hatch. And so he made a hand puppet which was a dragon-like creature with wings he molded from clay and placed a simple latex mold over it. Paul’s wife Jackie modeled its hands. The Blaisdell nicknamed him “Little Hercules.”

Blaisdell made him a leather jacket, an eight-starred medallion, and a toy gun and then added manacles and chains to its arms to point out that he was really a slave to the alien intelligence. According to Randy Palmer's book, Paul Blaisdell: Monster Maker he was happy with his work, and so were the crew.

Corman and American Releasing Corp must have been satisfied enough with Blaisdell’s skill and his price as well, as he went on to become the go-to monster-maker for the studio during the 1950s. Including The busty She-Creature (1956), the cucumber alien in It Conquered the World (1956), The fanged umbrella bat in Not of This Earth (1957), The alcoholic Google-eyed brain invaders in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), my personal favorite Tobanga the walking tree spirit in From Hell it Came 1957 and the alien stow away in It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958).

He also acted inside the suits he designed, created special effects, and did his own dangerous stunts in Corman's movies. However, the 60s were not kind to Blaisdell and he decided to retire. He did co-publish a monster movie magazine with fellow collector and friend Bob Burns but walked away from the industry entirely. Blaisdell passed away in 1983 suffering from stomach cancer at the age of 55.

Paul went on to design monsters for all the low-budget American International Pictures like the little flying thingy in Not of This Earth (1957). The bug-eyed little green men in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Earth Vs. the Spider (1958). He was also responsible for an uncredited corpse in The Undead (1957), but I don’t know if that counts as a monster, unless it was a crusty rubber corpse with bulging eyes. Blaisdell also created the imposing alien creature in the tautly paced and fantastic It, The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), which was an inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979)

One of my absolute favorites is the Tabanga tree monster in From Hell It Came (1957) as well as the cucumber guy, as they are both hilarious and I simply just adore trees and cucumbers.


In terms of the cucumber mutant, I don’t know if I dreamt this up, pulled it out of my arse, or am just misremembering reading an interview or watching a documentary with Corman saying that Blaisdell’s cucumber creature sat in a shed for years until Paul and Roger got drunk one night and took it out and played with it until the arms fell off. If anyone else recollects hearing or reading this, please drop me a note so that I don’t start doubting myself.

So Blaisdell had a unique vision with the design of his campy mutants and aliens and little flying thingies  He probably will be most remembered for Beulah the grotesque representation of primordial womanhood with the scaly protruding mounds of what were supposed to be her luscious scaly creature boobs? in The She Creature.

Of course, he’ll be fondly thought of for the outrageous cucumber creature in It Conquered the World that terrorized Beverly Garland thanks to husband Lee Van Cleef who invited the damn thing to earth. It’s just sad that he doesn’t get more notoriety for creating some of the most ludicrously delicious and silly monsters of all time.

In addition to designing these creatures, he also often played them as well. Unfortunately, Blaisdell became disillusioned with the film business and just quit making anything more for the movies in the 50s. How many times can Beulah make an entrance right?

I would have thought that Paul designed the giant Crab Monsters for Corman in what else but Attack of the Crab Monsters,(1957) but he was already working on The She Creature and apparently the low budget for the special effects on that film had put Blaisdell off.

In the early 60s, Blaisdell started his own magazine called Fantastic Monsters of the Films but it was a very short-lived endeavor which featured a “how to” section called The Devil’s Workshop

In the early 60s, he did some conceptual artwork on several movies which never made it out of the can. And like a lot of talented people, he wound up living out his life in obscurity. I’ve tried to find his name in several indexes of the film books about the 50s genre that I have here and I can’t find mention of him at all. It made me a little sad.

It would be really interesting to see what kind of monsters he could envision today if he were still with us.

Blaisdell had a knack for working with no budget and yet slapping something together although absurd and silly looking he always came through for AIP and even Bert I Gordon who soon realized that Blaisdell could get things done – and not just make rubber monster suits. Bert I. Gordon hired him to build all the miniature and oversized props needed for his films The Amazing Colossal Man, (19570 Earth vs. the Spider, and Attack of the Puppet People (1958). It was Blasidell who was responsible for the giant hypodermic needle in Colossal Man and for the set of doll-sized items used in Puppet People.

He also worked doing some conceptual sketches for the Milner brothers, designing my favorite Tabanga Tree in From Hell It Came. While the Milners based their menacing tree-stump on his designs, Blaisdell didn’t receive any money, and awful but true he didn’t even get credit for it either, that’s why it’s a lesser known fact that he was responsible for the Tabanga Tree Guy at all.

Sadly, Paul died of stomach cancer at the very young age of 55 on July 10, 1983, in Topanga Canyon, California. But Beulah, the cuke, the flying thingies, Tabanga, all the little bug-eyed guys, and Paul Blaisdell’s devoted fans like me, will always appreciate the giggles and chills he/they evoked when watching his wonderful creations come to life.

Paul Blaisdell’s film contributions:

I found these two links about Paul Blaisdell and thought that both people put a lot of heart and effort into collecting great information about this unsung patron saint of foam rubber and glue.

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/3btheater/tributes/Paul_Blaisdell/paul_blaisdell.html

http://www.bloodsprayer.com/uncategorized/how-to-make-a-monster-paul-blaisdell-remembered/

The Films of Jack Arnold: Visions of Giant bugs, sympathetic monsters and little men danced in his head.

Good Afternoon folks!

Just a little note. It’s Sunday. that always gives me a feeling of nostalgia as does Saturday afternoons. Those were the times when I would sit quietly in front of the television set. All the other kids were outside scrambling around getting sweaty and dirty and doing well, what most kids do be mean to each other. Me, I chose to inhabit the mysterious worlds that Roger Corman, Jack Arnold, William Castle, Universal and RKO pictures had the good sense to give us “outliers” of society. Those of us who Identified with the monster. Thus the nickname Monster Girl. A name the neighborhood kids used to taunt me with, not realizing that eventually I would wear it as a badge of honor.

JACK ARNOLD

I owe much of my creativity as a songwriter and artist, to these films that validated my existence. These monsters were my true friends, because they helped me cope with the awkward phases of childhood when you just don’t fit in, and never will. These films are more than just nostalgic memories for me, they were my epiphany into the real world as an imaginative, compassionate, empathetic and yes a visionary in some ways. With my music and my writing. I plan on doing extensive individual posts about some of these great films.

Like Incredible Shrinking Man. Creature From the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space. It’s Sunday, so I thought I’d share a little tidbit of the old days, when Jack Arnold bestowed upon us Giant Spiders and one little guy who had to fight one off in the basement of his house, a common environment turned sinister and dangerous, where it takes a whole day of strategizing to get a moldy crust of bread the size of a small crouton to us.

During the years of 1950’s horror and sci-fi films made by the great Jack Arnold there was a sympathetic, symbiotic lens that Arnold used towards aliens and “The Other” and the outsider. While working at Universal along side the production of William Alland, he gave us our first venture into the genre offering us benevolent yet mystifying aliens who crash land near a small town, inside a mountain and merely need time to fix the spaceship in order to leave earth.

It Came From Outer Space (1953) based on a story by Ray Bradbury the prolific science fiction writer of that era, as did Richard Matheson who told of bizarre, inscrutable and very advance race of one eyed amorphous creatures who could assume the form of any human in order to facilitate the uninterrupted  repair of their ship. The aliens were not here to seize the planet to enslave earth people, nor destroy earth in order to be the ultimate life form in the universe, threatened by the advancement of our weaponry, fear of the bomb in that age engendered many bomb, cold war scare films.

Like Invaders From Mars (1956) and Don Siegel’s Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956),fear of Communism and losing our individual identity as well as the patriotism and national prowess. The visionary writers and film makers knew how to frame this message in their flights of fantasy films. The last major film that Arnold did was the sublime and metaphysical masterpiece The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). A film that still inspires chills up the back of my neck when Grant Williams realizes that he isn’t disappearing, merely becoming greater as he is subsumed by the vast universal heart beat of the unknown yet interconnectedness and essence of life force itself.

The Incredible Shrinking Man was based on Matheson’s novel and actually scripted by him as well. Shrinking Man and It Came from Outer Space are still considered two of Arnold’s best work. The film that has really become his most iconic as an enduring classic is Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

Creature From The Black Lagoon had no involvement from either writer. In fact, it was because this film was so successful for Universal, that it prompted them to direct their attentions specifically in more productions that involved Sci-Fi and Horror films after 1954 many of which were directed by Jack Arnold.

In a lot of ways, aside from the money that these films made for Universal, it’s really the charm of Arnold’s films that make this specific moment in history for the genres to remain in the hearts of those of us who remember watching them on rainy Saturday afternoons, or like I said the sunny ones when you didn’t fit in with the nasty jerk heads in the neighborhood, so you’d rather hang out with the sort of cute green scaly guy who could stay underwater for days at a time.

David J Skal who’s a hell of a writer, I recommend The Monster Show refers to Creature as the “most vivid formative memories a large segment of American population”

Like The Twilight Zone, Serling’s compact morality plays tied up in fantasy story telling, for a lot of us these offerings became the rituals that were quickly picked up on by the “mass media” The desire for these type of stories became the contemporary trend that inspired great writers and film makers like Stephen King, John Carpenter and even Steven Spielberg.

Much the same way that H.G Wells fantastical tales inspired a hunger for films about science marvels and other worlds.Edgar Wallace, Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft and Hawthorne inspired the Gothic horror, horror mythos and crime thriller.

Arnold’s films evoke formative memories not only of being frightened by the elements of horror, but it brings you right back to the feeling of being that child again. At least if you’re like me and rail against growing older and losing your imagination. King and Carpenter have spoken about the individual films of Arnold that gave them their first cinematic experience which like for me, changed their lives forever. You could say that Arnold’s films could be used as a benchmark and cultural reference or jumping off place for teenagers to identify with feeling alienated by society. The 50’s were a period where the generation of teenagers were influenced by these types of films. Later on filmmakers would self consciously pay homage to Arnold’s films. And every decade or so, we also see a revived interest in the use of 3D, which make movie going a sort of ritual collective event. The glasses, the group experience.

Anyway, I plan on going in depth about Arnold and several of my most memorable beloved films of his. I just wanted to write a little Sunday hail to the king of giant bugs and little people, (not like the munchkins in The Wizard of Oz) I mean people who were once big enough to drive a car, and can now sleep in a match box for shelter.

Have a great Sunday, I think I’ll watch Tarantula (1955) . I’ve got my hot cocoa and it’s raining outside. The cats are all purring and I think it’s a perfect time to watch a little arachnid suddenly growing as large as a Semi and ambushes a whole town. I’m still kind of traumatized by the woman who’s skirt get’s stuck in the car door!

See ya later! MG

PLEASE DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST THIS CAT! Grant Williams was bite size…….

Contemplating man’s place in the universe. The Transcendent Man

Leo G Carroll’s well intended experiment, produces horrific results of great proportions!




Julie Adams is the object of The Creature’s affections.





MonsterGirl’s Saturday Morning Some Men Doing Science In Their Laboratories!

Saturday mornings are for MEN WHO DO SCIENCE… BEWARE…!!!!!!!

THE 4D MAN

PETER CUSHING- The Curse of Frankenstein 1957

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE 1958

DR. PHIBES

DR FRANKENSTEIN

ATOM AGE VAMPIRE


Leo G Carroll playing with the forces of nature

TARANTULA

BEN TURPIN

THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD

THE INVISIBLE RAY

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

JOHN CARRADINE

MONSTER ON CAMPUS 1958

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE 1958

THE DEVIL BAT

THE DEVIL COMMANDS 1941

DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE

DONOVAN’S BRAIN 1953

DR. CYCLOPS 1940

THE FACE OF MARBLE

DR MORBIUS – FORBIDDEN PLANET 1956

CORRIDORS OF BLOOD

HELP ME HELP ME ….THE FLY 1958

METROPOLIS

THE UNEARTHLY

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN 1956

DR MOREAU THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS

THE INVISIBLE MAN – CLAUDE RAINS

THE THING -HOWARD HAWKS

THE MAD GHOUL

THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET

THE TINGLER

MonsterGirl’s: Saturday Morning’s Some Men Who Do Science-posters

It’s Saturday morning so here’s some men who do science posters!

Next Saturday perhaps we’ll see inside their laboratories….!

Monster Girl’s Quote of the day: Night of the Hunter (1955)

Night Of The Hunter (1955)

“Don’t touch my knife. That makes me mad. Very, very mad.”-Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum)

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959)-My lips are sealed, or “only the evil that men do, live after them!”

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959) Directed by Edward L Cahn,(It, The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)which was sort of the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s ALIEN and the very cool Invisible Invaders (1959) whose Walking Corpses predated Romero’s Night Of the Living Dead 1968) story by Orville H.Hampton and starring the uniquely featured (he looks as if his face has been carved from wood) Henry Daniel who plays Dr. Emil Zurich. Valerie French plays Alison Drake. Grant Richards plays Lt Jeff Rowan and Eduard Franz plays Jonathan Drake. Paul Wexler plays the hulking zombie Zutai whose lips have been sewn shut with rotted-looking string. And Howard Wendell as Dr. George Bradford.

Continue reading “The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959)-My lips are sealed, or “only the evil that men do, live after them!”” →

Monster Girl’s Quote of the day House On Haunted Hill (1959)

House on Haunted Hill 1959

Watson Pritchard: (Elisha Cook Jr.)

“Only the ghosts in this house are glad we’re here”.

“The ghosts are moving tonight, restless… hungry. May I introduce myself? I’m Watson Pritchard. In just a moment I’ll show you the only really haunted house in the world. Since it was built a century ago, seven people including my brother have been murdered in it, since then, I’ve owned the house. I only spent one night then and when they found me in the morning, I… I was almost dead.”

“These guns are no good against the dead. Only the living.”

31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure you in! Part 4 The last Killing in a Lineup of unsung noir

 

The Man Who Turned To Stone (1957) Are those stones in your pocket or are you just happy to see me!

The Man Who Turned To Stone  (1957) was directed by Leslie or Laszlo Kardos and produced by Sam Katzman. Screenplay by Raymond Marcus, Bernard Gordon.

The cast: Victor Jory, Ann Doran, Charlotte Austin, William Hudson, (Allison Hayes’ louse of a husband in 50Ft Woman)Paul Cavanagh, Jean Willes, and Frederick Ledebur.Incidentally, Hudson’s older brother John was also a louse of a husband in another gem The Screaming Skull(1958), although I recommend the MST3K version too, it’s a hoot!

This is a quirky, outre fun obscure horror film that I simply love. It combines the women in prison thingy with the mad scientist genre. It could even be considered a sci-fi film. It’s very hard to categorize some films because they do cross-pollinate with multiple themes, to me it’s all instant vintage bliss.

The idea of women in captivity isn’t new, and certainly putting them at risk within their confinement creates a very frantic atmosphere. We feel trapped along with them right? So add to that a really tall man in a black suit who looks like pigeons would love to alight upon his shoulders and you get The Man Who Turned To Stone. Naughty girls are put away from society, being experimented on for the purpose of extending the secret of eternal life.

I don’t want to keep harping on this but I do confess, I live with a sociologist and so a lot of her discourse osmosis into my thought processes. Actually viewing films and television, or even reading a good novel has been dramatically transformed because of my exposure to an Academic’s life.

I promise that not all my posts will become didactic or laden with conscientious opining and critical thought.

Sometimes a monster girl just wants to see the giant rubber hand smash through the roadside cafe and grab that cheating lecherous creep of a husband of Allison Hayes and not think of the feminist overtones of a 50 Foot woman enraged. But I digress.

So I just have to say this one thing and then back to the man who could sit in the park and collect pigeon shit all over himself.

The theme of using women in prison is sort of an extension of the confinement of women out in the world who are thought of as captive objects, an archaic tradition of ” a woman’s place is in the home” an institutionalized sort of domestic restraint for some.

I myself find it gratifying to be at home, watching horror and noir films. Playing with my cats and drinking coffee, then do a quick vacuuming and set the crock pot up for 6 hours, chili at 7 pm. Housewifery is nirvana for me.I am merely making an observation about the implications and the allure of the women in prison genre. Also watching a gratuitous girl fight has its fascinations. Guilty as charged!

In typical girls behind bars flicks there’s always the tough one who’s been around longer than mud, and the new fish who comes in and transforms the dynamic with her fresh innocence and naivete eventually helping the other inmates achieve some kind of revelation about life and themselves.

There’s also the stock evil “total institution” figure or figures (a sociological phrase, sorry!) that hovers over the women, exploiting, abusing, and being well, horrible authoritarians, tyrannical Fascist dirtbags on a power trip.

The women in LaSalle Detention Home for “Girls” have been inextricably dying, in a most mysterious way. These are young girls and yet they are suffering heart attacks? This has been going on for 2 years. Over the course of those 2 years, the inmates hear disturbing screams in the middle of the night.

The problem is that there aren’t any people who would care about “bad girls” in jail. They’ve lost all their rights, no one cares about such types, and so it’s a perfect environment to perform experiments on these women because they are a)helpless and b)anonymous. Hidden away from watchful responsible eyes.

And you see the people running the prison aren’t really evil agents of the law, they are actually really really old evil people who do esoteric science and are using the prison as a cover.

Charlotte Austin plays Carol Adams, the social worker who actually does give a damn about the girls. Carol has integrity and wants to help the girls reform and make sure that their living conditions are adequate.

Tracy, the iconic old-timer inmate of the group tells Carol about the suspicious string of “heart attacks”that have occurred over the past 2 years, Carol tries to investigate. This puts Carol in danger because she’s starting to interfere with Dr. Murdock’s (played by Victor Jory) experiments. He and his assistants try to deter Carol at every turn. So Murdock, Mrs.Ford(Ann Doran), and the other scientists start panicking.

No one knows that these people are actually over 200 years old. It’s delicious to see these evil practitioners of eternal life wearing eighteenth-century clothes. Way back in the 1700s they had uncovered a method of prolonging the life force or actually renewing life by transferring energy from one person to another. Something to do with electricity, blood transfusions, and large steel bathtubs.

Not unlike Vampirism, but by sucking the life force out of one body and infusing it into themselves. These scientists have been virtually using the girls to literally feed their years. When one of the girls is chosen to re-energize one of the scientists she dies, and they make it look like a heart attack. These scientists have figured out that the best giver of this life-nurturing force is women in their childbearing years. The jail is full of those.

Thus the reason why Murdock has set up their laboratory in prison for “bad girls” The one problem Murdock and his accomplices face is that if they go too long without sustaining themselves with a new source of energy, their skin becomes as hard as stone, and their hearts pounds so wildly that it’s actually audible, then they die!

This happens to a few of them, and the sound we hear when time runs out is really creepily cool. So is the make-up for the stone skin. Another problem they are faced with is the rocky ghoulish-looking Eric (Frederick Ledebur), a walking, mindless statue who suffered brain damage in their first experiments. It’s curious why they would keep him around for a couple of centuries. Perhaps he made a nice dining room ornament at the annual mad scientist cocktail party. It’s really Eric that gives The Man Who Turned To Stone is creepitude. The way he hulks around the house would give anyone the heebies, even a “bad girl”

Eric is also taking longer and longer to respond to the recharging treatments so they have to up the amount of female sacrifices from the jail pool.

Once one of the girls supposedly commits suicide, Dr Jesse Rogers (Hudson) a psychiatrist with the State Department of Corrections takes Carol’s pleas seriously and tries to help find out what’s been going on at the prison.

Eventually, Carol and Dr. Rogers uncover the secret. Dr Murdock and the others try to kill Rogers and Carol but they fail to do so. Eric is out of control and winds up kidnapping one of the inmates from her bed. After several mishaps, the scientists are vanquished of their nefarious and unholy rituals and their lab is burnt to the ground. And the girls can go back to confinement without Eric lurking about.

-MonsterGirl