Monster of the Day #235

Updated on April 15, 2011 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

It’s not easy being green. (Well, you knew this guy was going to show up.)

If this picture strikes a chord among readers of a certain age (which is the exceedingly small demographic this site caters to), it’s because this photo appeared in Denis Gifford’s seminal A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, perhaps the first book in the long ago age when there not only wasn’t an Internet, but not a lot of genre movie books, either. As such, fans such as myself tended to pour over this tome again and again, dreaming of seeing exotic films back when it was nearly impossible to imagine doing so (this also being decades before home video).

These films did hit schlock UHF TV stations in the early ’70s, where they amazed monster-obsessed youngsters by being a lot gorier than the American stuff shown on TV up until that time.

This fellow also had the rare privilege of appearing in a sequel film, one in which he clearly got ahead.

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  • The Rev.

    Man, I haven’t seen any of the movies this week. I feel so left out.

  • monoceros4

    I’m feeling left out too. I don’t recognize this guy.

    “As such, fans such as myself tended to pour over this tome again and again, dreaming of seeing exotic films back when it was nearly impossible to imagine doing so (this also being decades before home video).”

    I know the feeling although, I admit, it was with different books, notably Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies!

  • roger h

    OK, where is Miss Pettyjohn!?

    I was pretty convinced as a kid that his was a pRon film cut up for TV. I did not know to much about pRon at the time.

  • I love this movie and first learned of its existence in Famous Monsters of Filmland.

    For those inexperienced in the ways of awesomeness, this is the mighty Chlorophyll Man, from a pair of movies in which his name did not appear in the title at all.

    And his body goes on a headless(!) rampage at the climax of the second movie. What could be more awesome?

  • Yes, this is a GREAT scene.

  • Rock Baker

    In a weird turn of events, I own a copy of the second film (Beast of Blood), but I’ve never seen the first film (Mad Doctor of Blood Island).

    What I mostly took away from the screening was that John Ashley handled himself well in action scenes. Sadly, I’m not aware of his ever being cast as a super spy, because he would’ve filled the role nicely.

  • zombiewhacker

    Agree with Rock. Loved that one scene in (was it the sequel or the first film?) where the chlorophyll man comes to life, battles the ship’s crew (including Ashley) then jumps into the water.

  • zombiewhacker

    “If this picture strikes a chord among readers of a certain age (which is the exceedingly small demographic this site caters to), it’s because this photo appeared in Denis Gifford’s seminal A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, perhaps the first book in the long ago age when there not only wasn’t an Internet, but not a lot of genre movie books, either.”

    Love ya, Ken. I still have my Gifford book. An amazing assortment of rare pics that even with today’s internet are extremely hard to find.

    (The Hands of Orlac promotional poster on one page of the book is killer.)

  • Rock Baker

    ZW, that was the second film, Beast of Blood. That was how the movie opened, actually!

  • GalaxyJane

    The books I remember poring over again and again were this set of slim orange hardcovers, each of which covered the complete film history of a specific classic “Dracula” “Frankenstein”, etc. monster. Specifically I remember that being my first exposure to the Hammer flicks, years before they turned up on DC 20. I have no idea who wrote them or published them (although I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers them) I just know that the school library had probably a score of the darn things and we all passed them from hand to hand, fought over who got to check them out and read them about a hundred times each.

  • Rock Baker

    My school also had the Crestwood monster books, and I checked each and every one out over and over. Come to find out now those things are collector’s items!