THE MONSTER-MAKER (1897)

THE MONSTER-MAKER aka THE SURGEON’S EXPERIMENT (1897) – As Halloween Month hurtles toward its conclusion, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at one of the overlooked horror tales of one of America’s most overlooked writers – W.C. Morrow. This story depicts a mad doctor dabbling in unspeakable experiments.

NOTE: The movies titled The Monster Maker (1944) and The Surgeon’s Experiment (1914) were not based on this short story. 

The Monster-Maker is not the most original horror/ sci fi story in the world, but it has that certain appeal common to all such neglected items. Morrow was a writer living in – and largely published in – California, and his early work was praised by the one and only Ambrose Bierce.

This tale’s setting in 1800s San Francisco gives a nice American touch to what would otherwise have been yet another story set in a creepy castle somewhere in Europe. An annoying factor is that, like some of Jack London’s early short stories like A Thousand Deaths, The Monster-Maker does not provide names for any of its characters.

The horror begins as a perfectly healthy yet pathologically melancholy young man from a wealthy family seeks a meeting with a VERY reclusive surgeon. The physician is considered brilliant and emerges periodically to perform skilled surgery for such high fees that he can devote the rest of his time to his bizarre experiments.     

It’s clear that the doctor doesn’t spend his money on the spacious yet decrepit old mansion in which he resides with his wife. Our villain – whom I’ll call Dr. X just to have a name for him – is tall, bald and clean-shaven, unlike many of the bearded mad scientists of 1800s fiction. 

The wealthy young man, consumed with despair, knocks and kicks at the remote mansion’s doors until he finally catches the attention of Dr. X. Our Depressed Loner offers the doctor $5,000.00 (worth $183,208.00 here in 2023) to kill him painlessly, so hopeless does he consider life to be.

The sinister physician is at first reluctant, despite the pleading of the Depressed Loner, and tells him he should commit himself to an insane asylum. (Oh, yeah, an 1890s insane asylum will really brighten his existence.)

Depressed Loner threatens Dr. X, pointing out to him that the city is already steeped in dark tales of his ghastly experiments on corpses, living animals and – in the most extreme rumors – human guinea pigs. The young man with a death wish implies that, if turned away, he will tell such exaggerated accounts of what he has seen in the decrepit mansion that much unwanted attention will come the doctor’s way.

Dr. X gives in and agrees to the Depressed Loner’s request. He takes the young man into his laboratory which houses preserved samples of Dr. X’s failed experiments in vivisection and in replacing human body parts with animal parts or mechanical parts.

After the depressed loner drinks a drug which the doctor claims will kill him, the young man lapses into a comalike state. Dr. X chuckles as he muses aloud that he is double-crossing the suicidal youth, not killing him but keeping him alive but helpless for his experiments.

As time rolls along, the 60-ish Dr. X’s 40-ish wife, who usually keeps to herself out of fear of her deranged husband and the kind of work he does behind closed doors, begins to realize that the physician has conjured up something unspeakable. 

At length her conscience prompts her to inform the police about her husband’s ugly activities. One of the detectives helps her, willing to believe that Dr. X might be up to something illegal based on all the stories about him.

The fearful wife summons enough courage to feed the detective steady reports about events in the mansion she shares with her spouse and whatever he has created. She relays details about the inhuman sounds from Dr. X’s laboratory, about the enormous quantities of food he needs in order to keep his creation alive, and about the reinforced doors, locks and chains that the doctor has had installed throughout the otherwise dilapidated mansion.

From our villain’s perspective his scientific notes recount grotesqueries regarding his use and alteration of the Depressed Loner’s nerves, muscles and brain. He also records how he once grew careless and was almost killed by his uncontrollable creature.

One memorable bit of business describes the monster pulling out a metal tube which Dr. X has used to replace his creation’s digestive system. This misbehavior caused all the undigested chyle in its stomach to pour out on the floor.

The heroic wife (Mrs. X?) risks her husband’s wrath to smuggle out some of the mad doctor’s notes to the detective. At last, the detective’s captain on the police force feels there is cause to raid the villain’s home.

SPOILERS AHEAD: 

Around 1:00AM the detective leads three other cops in a stealthy raid on the doctor’s mansion. In the story’s climax the monster frees itself from the sturdy chain binding it to the laboratory floor and the police plus Dr. X’s wife at last see what her husband has created.   

The monster retains the Depressed Loner’s torso but its powerful arms and hands have been grotesquely altered. It has more than two legs now and those lower limbs are described as lobster-like.

This creature has only part of its human brain left, and that part is housed inside a large metallic globe fused to the body. The metal mouth and throat produce indescribable screams as the beast rampages and kills.   

Throughout the dark corridors of the mansion the monster is encountered by the detective, the three uniformed cops, the mad doctor and the doctor’s panicked wife. The creature kills Dr. X and his wife, but has accidentally started a fire from a lamp carried by the doctor.   

The detective and at least one of the uniformed cops survive the horrific experience and assemble outside the mansion. They watch as the spreading fire destroys the monster and all of the dead bodies within, including the remains of the villain’s failed experiments.   

The Monster Maker, as stated above, is not really groundbreaking but has monster movie appeal and its setting in 1800s California helps it stand out. Morrow wrote many other short horror stories of varying quality. 

FOR THE NEGLECTED 1879 STORY ABOUT AN AZTEC MUMMY BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD AND ON THE LOOSE IN CALIFORNIA CLICK HERE.