Man-Made Monster is a 1941 American science-fiction horror film directed by George Waggner and produced by Jack Bernhard for Universal Pictures. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Lon Chaney, Jr. (in his horror film debut) and Lionel Atwill. Man-Made Monster was re-released under various titles including Electric Man and The Mysterious Dr. R. Realart Pictures re-released the film in 1953 under the title The Atomic Monster as a double feature with The Flying Saucer (1950). On the film's original main title, there is no hyphen; it's simply Man Made Monster.
The plot resembles The Invisible Ray (1936), The Walking Dead (1936), and two decades later The Indestructible Man (1956); that much later feature starred Chaney but was not directly inspired by Man-Made Monster.
Plot[]
A tragic accident occurs when a bus hits a high power line. The incident has claimed the lives of all on board, except for one Dan McCormick, who survives because he is, surprisingly, immune to the deadly electricity. McCormick does a sideshow exhibit as Dynamo Dan, the Electric Man and is taken in by Dr. John Lawrence, who wants to study him. However, Dr. Lawrence's colleague, mad scientist Dr. Paul Rigas, desires to create an army of electrobiologically-driven zombies.
He gives McCormick progressively higher doses of electricity until his mind is ruined and left dependent on the addicting electrical charges. This temporarily gives McCormick the touch of death, making him capable of killing anyone he touches by electrocution. After accidentally killing Lawrence, Rigas ensures McCormick's conviction to see what will happen if he is sent to the electric chair. McCormick survives, and with a super charge in his glowing body encased in a protective rubber suit he kills several people, including Rigas, before becoming entangled on a barbed wire fence which tears his rubber suit, causing the electricity to drain out into the wire and McCormick to die.