Frankenstein's Daughter (DVD, 2005)

Excellent if you love bad movies, which I do. As an indie filmmaker it still amazes me that there was a time, before cable and dvd and the internet when you could actually make a movie like this and see it be release in a real movie theater!

Produced by Marc Frederic; Directed by Richard Cunha; Screenplay by H.H. Barrie. The film was distributed by Astor Pictures in 1958, and was also released in an 8mm "home movie" version titled "SHE MONSTER OF THE NIGHT; 85 minutes, B & W.

The Plot: The entire city is terrorized by a weird "monster woman." Her body is exquisite but her face is ghastly and shocking. In a stately old house in the neighborhood where the creature has been seen, lives lovely Trudy Morton and her uncle, Carter Morton, a scientist. Carter is assisted by Oliver Frank, 30. The men are working on the development of a drug that will wipe out all the destructive cells and organisms that plague man. No one in the household is aware that Oliver and Elsu, the Carter gardener, are plotting something. Elsu is a gnarled old man who looks like an overgrown dwarf and who is frightening to look at. Without Carter's knowing it, Oliver and Elsu have created a secret entrance to the laboratory and are working on an experiment of their own. This experiment is the creation of life from the dead. Oliver Frank is really the descendant of Frankenstein and is continuing the horrible experiments that his father started. The monster woman who has been frightening the city is really Trudy. Oliver has been administering potent drugs that turn Trudy nightly into the monster woman. Trudy is completely unaware that it is she who has been the nocturnal monster. In the end Trudy and her boyfriend survive while Oliver and the monster he created are trapped and perish in the flames.

A key point is that make-up man Harry Thomas did not know the monster was supposed to be a female until the last minute, and so applied a bit of lipstick to the ugly monster's lips. The make-up is kind of unique in a really bad sort of way. Actually the whole film is unique in a really bad sort of way. Fans of so bad its good cult cinema have got to add this to their "must-see" list.