TERROR IS A MAN. Valiant Films, 1959. Re-released as Blood Creature. Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Richard Derr, Oscar Keesee, Lilia Duran. Screenplay: Harry Paul Harber, based on the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells (uncredited). Co-directors: Gerardo de Leon (as Gerry de Leon) & Eddie Romero.

   The long shadow of H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau hangs over the incredibly bleak Filipino-American film Terror is a Man (aka Blood Creature). Produced in stark black and white, the movie feels more like a late 1930s or early 1940s horror film than one made at the tail end of the 1950s. This is a film that, with modifications, could have just as easily been made by John Brahm at the height of his creative output.

   Co-produced by Eddie Romero, the esteemed Filipino director whose vast corpus of work includes of a series of English-language exploitation and horror films in the 1970s, Terror is a Man features Francis Lederer in a leading role. He portrays Dr. Charles Girard, a mad scientist clearly inspired by Wells’ eponymous Dr. Moreau. He’s a man guided by both a zealous quest for knowledge and a desire to create a new kind of man, one unburdened by the effects of natural evolution. Indeed, his quest is not, in itself, malicious. Rather, it is a noble quest, but one that deliberately goes against the laws of nature.

   The plot of the movie is rather straightforward. William Fitzgerald (Richard Derr) is an American sailor who washes up on a South Pacific island. His ship went down and he’s the only survivor. It’s up to Dr. Charles Girard and his beautiful blonde wife (Greta Thyssen) to make a home for the stranded Fitzgerald.

    It doesn’t take long for our intrepid sailor to discover that there’s a panther on the loose on the island. He soon discovers that Dr. Girard’s experiments have something to do with the panther’s lethal behavior and – oh yes – that the panther may actually be a man!

   All of the tension that’s built up during the exceedingly talky first hour of the film ultimately comes to a series of catastrophic and violent clashes between the panther-man and the main characters. If the movie could be faulted for anything, it’s that it takes a little too long for any real action to occur. But when it does, it’s handled skillfully and with a genuine sense of impending doom.

   All told, Terror is a Man is a better horror movie than you might expect. True, the movie feels a little slow going at times and it wears its message of not tinkering with the laws of nature on its sleeve. But it’s much better than a lot of the American horror movies released at the time, particularly those derivative productions that blended horror with science fiction and atom age anxieties.

   What makes Terror is a Man a true horror film, as opposed to a work of science fiction, is that the real beast in the movie isn’t the panther-man, but his creator. Recommended for those viewers who don’t mind an occasionally stagey production and especially for admirers of Francis Lederer as a leading actor.