Villain(s)  Hypnotized killers in monster makeup

Actor(s):  Robert H. Harris, Gary Conway, Gary Clarke, Morris Ankrum

Brief Description  How to Make a Monster (1958) is a meta-fictional horror-drama from American International Pictures about Pete Dumond, a veteran studio makeup artist who turns psychotic and uses mind-controlling greasepaint to force young actors—costumed as a teenage werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein—to murder the executives firing him.

Plot:
Master makeup artist Pete Dumond (Robert H. Harris) learns that AIP has been bought out by new management. The new executives decree that the horror genre is dead and announce the studio will shift production to escapist musicals, rendering Pete obsolete after 25 years of service. Enraged and mentally unravelling, Pete resolves to use his remaining days on the film Werewolf Meets Frankenstein to exact bloody vengeance. He mixes a special, unregistered numbing agent into his foundation cream. : This chemical cocktail renders anyone wearing it completely susceptible to his hypnotic suggestions. Pete uses the formula on Larry Drake (Gary Clarke), the actor playing the Teenage Werewolf, and orders him to murder studio executive Jeffrey Clayton in his projection room.

Pete later applies the mind-altering makeup to Tony Mantell (Gary Conway), the actor playing the Teenage Frankenstein. Under Pete's hypnotic thrall, Tony murders the second studio boss, John Nixon, in a garage. As investigators close in, Pete brings the two young actors back to his home studio, which is filled with creepy masks from old projects. When the boys start to regain their free will, Pete prepares to murder them. During a tense confrontation, a fire breaks out in the room. Police and investigators arrive just in time to rescue the young actors, while Pete perishes amidst his own burning creations. : Following the trend of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, the movie is shot entirely in black-and-white except for the final 10 minutes. The climax shifts into vivid Technicolor to emphasize the lurid horror of the studio fire.