Actuarial Science Movie Reviews

First of all, let's not kid ourselves--"Hercules Against the Moon Men " ( HAMM ) and the "Witch's Curse" ( WC )are pretty bad movies. However, for people like me who remember those dubbed, Italian "spear and sandal" epics from the early 60s, these films still provide good fun. If you are expecting big-budget production values, plots that make sense and great special effects--stay away !

HAMM gives us "Alan Steel" as Hercules--he certainly has the physique but, for me, Steve Reeves was, and always will be, the best Hercules. Reeves was always knocked for his acting--well, Steel makes Reeves look like Olivier ! Basically Herc has to overcome one obstacle after another to battle forces from the Moon ( don't expect too much here ) and the evil queen who is under their control. Probably the highlight is when our hero is captured, and placed between two slabs of wood with huge knives pointing toward him--as those nasty points get closer, Steel gets to flex his muscles all over the place. This is a classic moment for Hercules' fans. Actually, I found the finale of the film very quick and disappointing. Overall, if you like a healthy seving of cheese and muscle, HAMM delivers.

As another reviewer has pointed out, an error occurred in the transfer of HAMM--figures seem abnormally stretched--if a corrected version is released will my friends at Amazon send a replacement ( hint--hint )?

WC is even more outlandish--it is 17th century Scotland--everyone is heavily clothed ( Scotland can be chilly ! )--and here comes muscle-bound Kirk Morris running around in briefs. This is one of many smiles you will get from this "so bad it's good" movie. Again, in his search through the underworld for an evil witch, our hero--Maciste--must use all of his strength to defeat various phony-looking monsters, and avoid one scrape after another. This is a very bizarre movie, but I found that I had to keep watching it.

The transfer of WC is not great--but it is not poor enough to spoil your fun.

Overall, a fascinating double bill--what's that expression--" they don't make them like that anymore " !

The main feature, "Hercules Against the Moon Men" to my eyes looks very compressed. The figures are stretched out as if they spent time on a Medieval torture rack. The images call to mind old Cinemascope movies mooshed together to be shown on fullscreen TV. Sort of hard to watch. Nice, bright, colorful pictures, though. The back-up feature "The Witch's Curse" is so-so. Many of these things are bought on the basis of the extras. HOWEVER: Many of the "coming attractions" trailers for the peplum movies are in black and white.

If you love bad films - I mean really bad films - this double feature is incredible. The gladiator cycle of the 1950's and 1960's that started with Steve Reeve's very decent Hercules was running out of ideas and was becoming increasingly far fetched in plots. In Hercules versus the Moon Men, we enter science fiction territory as Herc battles silly masked aliens, cardboard rock monsters, and an ape creature with a serious lower jaw problem (how does he eat?). There's also a dust storm that lasts forever. In Witch's Curse we are in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath territory as our hero Maciste is in 17th century Scotland (without much clothes, where people have no Scottish accents) and literally goes to hell to save an innocent woman accused of witchcraft (the first thing he meets is a lion - how does he eat?). Logic and consistency are never allowed to stand in the way of advancing the plot. If you demand things in movies like believability or halfway decent acting, these are not for you. Otherwise, enjoy. The DVD is loaded with tons of tongue in cheek extras but no commentary - you get to supply that on your own. This has "MST3K fodder" written all over it.

I saw this movie ten years ago and I'm still trying to get the bad tase out of my mouth. There is NOTHING good about this movie.

The women of a prehistoric tribe has had enough and flee from their brutal males. The women take the girl children to form their own tribe away from male oppression.

But a ten-foot giant kills all of the women and the girls are raised by a wise woman. Eventually the girls grow up and have strange feelings. The wise woman sends them out to capture some men.

Well, now the women are the oppressors as they boss their males around. Eventually, this is worked out in the end so that all are happy.

This could have been a better DVD release, but the night scenes are so dark it is hard to tell what is happening. This is made even more difficult by the fact that they speak a cave language.

Also, much of the movie seems to be an excuse for the leopard-skinned young ladies to jump up and down around the campfire in primitive dance (at least three long scenes like this).

All in all it is really quite silly. But is bouncing young women are what you want to watch, that's pretty much all you'll see in this one.

This is a classic 50's bad film, so bad it's hysterical. And at a running time of slightly over an hour, even if you hate it, it's over fast. Every cliche of the genre, and then some, is exaggered to unintentionally comic effect. If you like this kind of thing, you will love "Prehistoric Women."

See two tribes of clean, well groomed savages discover the basic principles of science in a couple of weeks! Thrill to the flight of the duck-a-dactyl! Cringe from the giant Guati and wonder if that poor guy got paid anything over scale! Get a sandwich as the girls dance and know not why!

As an aside, modern audiences will be amazed that this was once considered racy fare, perhaps because of the bathing-suit-like fur outfits sported by the dubious "beauties" in this film. Hubba hubba!

"Screwball sci-fi" is a misleading label for SPACE THING; it's a boring pseudo-sex film whose only saving grace is a quartet of attractive starlets.

Producer David Friedman says that SPACE THING was made because, as of 1967, no one had yet made a sci-fi nudie movie. But apart from the "outer space" setting, there is no legitimate science- fiction in SPACE THING. The derivative spaceship sets and costumes are really all that separate SPACE THING from, for example, BOAT THING or TRAIN THING.

The narrative structure of SPACE THING is compartmentalized to allow for all the staple elements of Friedman's "adult" entertainment, but without a plot there's no purpose to anything that happens, beyond serving as mere spectacle.

So SPACE THING unsurprisingly works best as a spectacle. The sex scenes are tepid and truncated, but the women are very pretty. The color print used by Something Weird is gorgeous. But since this film is of the substance and character of cotton candy, SPACE THING badly needs a second feature to bring the disc up to snuff. The HEAD MISTRESS/FANNY HILL DVD (a Friedman double-feature from Something Weird) is a much better value.

This "special edition" is for Friedman/SWV completists and the most rabid (i.e., uncritical) sci-fi collectors only.

If you like to see big-breasted babes cavorting in the nude, you will enjoy this movie. If you like low-budget sci-fi with laughable special effects, you will enjoy this movie. If you like a story that makes some sense, however, you will not find one here. Even filmmaker Friedman, in his commentary, laments the lack of plot in this genre entry in the nudie-cutie field. He admits that if it were not a softcore effort, with only naked girls to provide interest, it would probably be considered a worse film than the classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. Ed Wood probably had a bigger budget on Plan 9 than Friedman had here!

The special effects? Colored cotton balls for asteroids, and plastic models bought in a hobby shop for the spaceships, hung on thread to simulate flight. One of them is a model of the flying saucer from the TV series The Invaders and the other is a model of the good ship Enterprise from Star Trek, saucer section removed, and hung upside down! Friedman says he wasn't even aware that it was upside down while making the movie! Evidently he wasn't a Trekker.

But he was a fan of the pulp magazines in his youth, in particular Amazing Stories (as was Steven Spielberg!) and Planet Stories. The latter especially because of its lurid covers which always featured a scantily-clad woman in danger from a horrible monster of some sort. He says he wanted to capture some of the sexy fun of those colorful covers, and to a degree, he did, by uncovering some sexy girls with impressive special effects of their own.

The commentary is about the only interesting thing in the special features of this DVD. There's an overlong and somewhat boring gallery of poster art, repetitive and not too well done, a couple of short subjects, scene index, trailer, and that's about it. If you want sci-fi on a shoestring, and a G-string, this movie's for you!

I love this DVD! Well, to be honest, I've only watched it with the filmmaker's commentary on, but trust me, you aren't missing much!

David Friedman sits down with video distributor Mike Varney (sp?) to discuss the making of this obscure "nudie cutie," and Friedman is none-too-hesitant to call it the worst film ever made. He's not far off. As stated before, watching the movie without the commentary is needless, there's nothing to it really. Lots of T&A, some space ship models and some very bare sets (no pun intended). The stories that Friedman and Varney recount are the best part, from the history of the theaters this type of movie played in, to how Friedman got around the legalities of using the Starship Enterprise in this celluloid schlock.

If you're a fan of bad sci-fi or T&A flicks, this is a definite must!

Inspired by the success of the American science fiction movie "Rocketship X-R", Hammer Films decided to produce the first British science fiction film since "Things to Come" (1936). "Spaceways" is in no way comparable to those two films. After a heavy-handed exposition the film unravels to be only a modest little crime story with a space sequence as special twist. It seems that the budget was very small. The film-makers opted to combine real footage with F/X-shots, which is quite problematic. During the climactic spaceflight the camera stays within the interior of the capsule all the time. Fisher did not even attempt to solve the problem of showing zero gravity. You even get to see more in "Nude on the Moon" (Hey, I mean special effects!). The script is quite slow and far too talkative. It was based on a radio play and it clearly shows. Director Fisher displays a fairly good craftsmanship, but this film is not in the least as effective as his later gothic horror movies that became the trademark of Hammer. Nevertheless, I think he made the film as effective as the screenplay and the budget allowed. Moreover, the supporting cast is quite well. Combined with Fishers skills they prevent this film from being campy.

In general it`s a little bit bouring, it`s not a scifi movie like others in his time. It`s more like a police suspence and triller.

Just if you do`n`t have any more to do......

This tidy little murder mystery with a sci-fi setting features tough,
gruff Howard Duff and beautiful, exotic Eva Bartok as star crossed
lovers working together on the first attempt to put a satellite into
orbit above the Earth. Duff and Bartok becomes the first man and
woman into space when they have to rocket off to the satellite to
prove his innocence in the murder of his wife and her lover, whose
bodies are thought to be hidden on the satellite.

The story is from a radio play by novelist Charles Eric Maine, who
had two of his other works turned into movies--The Isotope Man
became The Atomic Man and Escapement became The
Electronic Monster. He had a penchant for writing Alfred
Hitchcock-like murder mysteries with a science fiction flavor.
And like Hitchcock's movies, Spaceways is rather slow paced and
tedious at times, before the payoff comes, such as it is.

Director Terence Fisher, in his pre-Frankenstein and Dracula
efforts for Hammer Films, does a good job with what little he has--
a low budget and stock footage of German V-2 rocket launches,
plastic spacesuits, and sparsely designed control room sets. It all
works pretty well, though, because of the fine cast.

This DVD features excellent image quality and sound, a chapter
index, and the theatrical trailer, and that's it. Recommended
mostly for fans of Eva Bartok and early British sci-fi.

Let me start off this review by saying that this is a low budget 50's atomic paranoia flick. If this genre is your bag read on, if not there is a hundred other films of this ilk that will appeal to you. I suggest buying ANY of them instead of this [one].

The plot boils down to this...

A team of scientists decide to drive this wacky machine (called a cyclotram) into the heart of the earth to discover a shelter where human kind can hang out while an atomic war rages above. A few misadventures later (of the extremely boring variety) they eventually find an underground cavern that serves thier purpose. More misadventures later they return.

I usually dig low budget 50's sci-fi/horror films with bad acting and absurd plots...however, this movie is as lousy as can be. Where are the giant mutant whatevers? where are the blind morlock looking creatures? Give me anything! something! arrrrgh!

Not only is this a lousy boring movie, it's also a very poorly done DVD. Absolutly no extras, and as with all Alpha Video releases the scene selections don't even seem to work correctly. The print is grainy and full of cigarette burns. constant mult-colored banding runs throughout. There was not even a token attempt to digitally clean this movie! Save your money - and steer clear of Alpha Video's releases.

This 1951 offering from Lippert Pictures takes us 2500 miles underneath the surface with a group of somewhat annoying scientists. Dr. Morley (dubbed the Prophet of Doom by at least one newspaper reporter) is an obsessive opponent of all things nuclear. Fearing that atomic weapons will destroy all life on earth, he recruits a group of scientists for his Society to Save Civilization, and they make plans to find a living space deep within the earth where man can survive and rebuild from the nuclear holocaust they see just over the horizon. After the group fails to secure any funding, a rich newspaper publisher's son forks over the cash and accompanies them on their monumental journey. It's your typical group of B-movie scientists: there is Morley, who seems lost and mad at the world all the time, a couple of scientists who basically push buttons and read dials, a young and attractive feminist scientist, an explosives man, and the paperboy. Of course, the group is constantly bickering and fighting, and no one likes the paperboy at all-at first. This had to change somewhat because, as you would expect, he has to put the moves on the lady scientist and she has to pretend to resist. How do our intrepid explorers go about their task? They design a cyclotram, basically a great big ugly metal boxcar with a humongous drill for a nose, ascend to the top of an extinct volcano, go down into the crater and start drilling through rock as they make their way downward. Every so often, they stop for a minute to fight or to provide an opportunity for one of them to die. They are rather bumbling amateurs when it comes to the deep exploring gig; you would have thought one of the scientists would have remembered to pack a lot of water. They sometimes even seem surprised to discover that it's actually pretty dark miles underground.

I was led to believe the group ran into dangerous animals in the depths of the earth, but that is not true. There are similarities between Unknown World and Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, as you would expect, but this film never develops the aura of plausibility that Verne's work had. To answer the question of how they will survive the intense heat of the earth's core, the geologist amongst them simply announces the fact that the temperature at the earth's core is actually lower than that on the surface. This movie is only about 70 minutes long, so it's short enough to not become too aggravating too quickly. Taken in the context of its time, it's really not such a bad movie. Some may also be interested to know that part of the movie was actually filmed inside New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns.

This is an early Sci Fi film from 1951 and in that context deserves to be appreciated!

Years ago I saw this film on TV and I never forgot it ... there was a kind of lonely mystique about it.

It has a very strong anti-nuclear orientation... The thesis of the film is a group of scientists fearful of nuclear war decide to explore vast caverns under the earth's surface as a refuge. There are no phoney looking monsters running around... Some of the scenes were taken from actual caverns such as Carlbad Caverns, New Mexico.

The vehicle used for this exploration called a "Cyclotram" reminded me a little of a 1950 Lincoln...

As a storm rages outside a creepy old mansion on a clifftop, lovely Susan Hart is kidnapped by a half-fish/half-man creature and taken to Vincent Price's undersea lair. Tab Hunter, David Tomlinson and Herbert The Chicken (who gets a special screen credit at the end) go to rescue her. I wont say any more about the plot in case you want to check this out for yourself. I thought the movie was not campy, outrageous nor exciting enough to be anything more than a pleasant Sunday-afternoon time-killer. Director Jacques Tourneur has done some great stuff in the past (like Curse Of The Demon)and I was hoping for more thrills....oh well! Vincent Price just walks through this one having nowhere near as much fun as he does in some of the other AIP Poe adaptations and in Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (also with Susan Hart). The DVD itself has great artwork, a nice letterbox print and good sound plus a trailer.

With little fanfare, MGM has quietly transferred a handful of great B films to DVD that they not too arbitrarily categorize as "Midnight Movies." The nice looking digital prints are in their original theatrical format and appear as if they were taken from original material. The discs come with no substantial extras but care has been lavished on the box art, often reflecting the lurid lobby cards and posters of their initial release. Even acknowledging the B category, these are for the most part well-crafted and, well, adequately acted.

In "WAR GODS OF THE DEEP," the late and much-lamented Vincent Price co-stars with 50s pretty boy Tab Hunter in an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story that pits he-men against gill-men with sexy Susan Hart caught in the middle.

See, Price is uberlord of a lost underwater city (apparently built by a low bid papier mache developer), and he's got gillgoons that kidnap landubbers. The second half is a showdown between brave humans and slimy fishmen with an angry, about to blow volcano towering over everything. ...

This gets 3 stars 'cause Vincent Price and Edgar Poe had a hand in it.

Although the story-telling and pacing leave a lot to be desired, this is a nice addition to the very collectible MGM Midnite Movies series. Great sets, locations, and actors (Vincent Price, whom many would pay to hear him recite his laundry list) make this a very visually appealing film. I disagree with Maltin's comment about the "shoddy underwater city". For its time, the visual effects (with the notable exception of the gill-men ), sets, and props were impressive. Try it out and see for yourself.

Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is not a great movie. It's not even a great bad movie. It's really for cheesy 50s ARC/AIP SF completists only. The movie is below-average low-budget 50s dreck; talky and slow-moving, with few laughs, and very little 'face time' for the monster. The human drama is only slightly compelling and the infrequently spotted "phantom" looks like a big paper milk carton with teeth and claws. Or something. Buy the cool-looking poster instead. Makes Monster from the Ocean Floor seem breezy and action-packed in comparison. The only good thing you can say about this flick is that apparently the Milner brothers made enough cash off of it to finance their magnum opus, From Hell It Came. I wish THAT movie would come out on DVD!
Of course if the disc transfer and extras were good enough, 50s trashcore fans like us would have to get this for the library anyway, right? Unfortunately, this DVD is definitely subpar. To start off, the transfer is fair to mediocre at best. It really looks like it was mastered from an EP mode VHS tape, or recorded off-air from a UHF station, using a loop antenna. Very flat, very grainy/fuzzy; not as bad as a Madacy disc, but close. It's actually hard to tell if it's the print or the transfer that's to blame 'cause it's just so bad overall. And in a really tacky move, to say the least, the otherwise presumably G-rated disc includes several trailers featuring frontal nudity and softcore sex scenes. Not that junior is pestering you to see this movie or anything, but questionable nonetheless. But you're not going to buy this disc anyway; I guarantee you will be disappointed for the money. I would advise waiting for Image or Rhino to get around to putting this out unless you absolutely have to see it. (When I realized that Fred Olen Ray was involved in this DVD, it all started to make sense.)

Strange deaths near an oceanography school are attributed to a phantom by some of the locals. Various people have come to investigate. What they find is a powerful radiation source on the ocean floor and a bizarre fish-man guarding it.

Intrigue and counter-intrigue mesh until we are not sure who is on what side (except for one character who always seems shady). But in the end, the dangerous radiation source is deactivated and, as in Godzilla, the scientist takes the awful knowledge with him.

This is a basic disk with Play and Scene Selection as the only options.

This is a bad movie. Some would say it was bad enough to be good. My main problem with the lot is that the first victim we see is knocked out of his rowboat. Later, it always seems that getting back into a rowboat is all it take to be safe from the creature.

Despite the obvious plug of the title (taken from Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), the creature is rather disappointing (no Harryhausen effects here). In the early scenes it looks very lion like in the face (complete with mane). The resemblance disappears when seen from the side. Unlike the Creature From The Black Lagoon, this rubber suit does not seem designed for swimming so the actor does not move much underwater (lessening the suspense).

I have to say that this is one I will be watching again even if it is not up to the "bad" standards of other B-Movies.

As a fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I could not help but be amused by the coincidental facts that the main character initially uses the assumed name of Ted Baxter and ends up working with an investigator named Mr. Grant. Luckily, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues has a little more going for it than this ironic coincidence. As the movie begins, a fisherman is pulled into the water by some monstrous sea creature. When his radioactive remains wash up on the beach, Ted Baxter is there to find him (though I'm not sure why he was walking along the beach in a suit). He seeks out the head of the oceanography college, and eventually he confesses that he is actually Ted Stevens, author of two important but controversial books on the use of heavy water for atomic purposes and radiation-induced mutation. He undertakes a diving expedition off the coast and comes across a huge source of dangerous uranium-induced radioactivity and a monstrous creature seemingly guarding it; from his own limited experimentation, he knows this dangerous, obviously man-made threat must be destroyed. The scientist is paranoid about his work, which brings him under suspicion. Also under suspicion are the scientist's secretary and assistant. As the movie progresses, we see the phantom kill a few more people, watch Stevens woo the daughter of the scientist he is investigating, watch in amazement as the scientist changes his jacket an inordinate number of times, and wait for something to happen - this effort is in vain, for the most part. There are a couple of good explosions near the end, but the conclusion holds no real surprises whatsoever.

The title implies that the phantom originally comes from some place 10,000 leagues under the sea; actually, all of the underwater action seems to take place a couple of hundred yards offshore. The divers we watch every so often exploring the ocean floor have the remarkable knack to come up to the surface exactly beside their boat, no matter how far away from it they have traveled. As for the phantom, I thought he was portrayed rather well; he certainly looks like something one would want to avoid beneath the ocean waters, and the moviemakers wisely show him standing still for the most part. This movie is your typical 1950s underwater monster adventure, offering little to delight but little to disappoint the audience. In other words, it's not bad - but it's not good, either.

Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is not a great movie. It's not even a great bad movie. It's really for cheesy 50s ARC/AIP SF completists only. The movie is below-average low-budget 50s dreck; talky and slow-moving, with few laughs, and very little 'face time' for the monster. The human drama is only slightly compelling and the infrequently spotted "phantom" looks like a big paper milk carton with teeth and claws. Or something. Buy the cool-looking poster instead. Makes Monster from the Ocean Floor seem breezy and action-packed in comparison. The only good thing you can say about this flick is that apparently the Milner brothers made enough cash off of it to finance their magnum opus, From Hell It Came. I wish THAT movie would come out on DVD!
Of course if the disc transfer and extras were good enough, 50s trashcore fans like us would have to get this for the library anyway, right? Unfortunately, this DVD is definitely subpar. To start off, the transfer is fair to mediocre at best. It really looks like it was mastered from an EP mode VHS tape, or recorded off-air from a UHF station, using a loop antenna. Very flat, very grainy/fuzzy; not as bad as a Madacy disc, but close. It's actually hard to tell if it's the print or the transfer that's to blame 'cause it's just so bad overall. And in a really tacky move, to say the least, the otherwise presumably G-rated disc includes several trailers featuring frontal nudity and softcore sex scenes. Not that junior is pestering you to see this movie or anything, but questionable nonetheless. But you're not going to buy this disc anyway; I guarantee you will be disappointed for the money. I would advise waiting for Image or Rhino to get around to putting this out unless you absolutely have to see it. (When I realized that Fred Olen Ray was involved in this DVD, it all started to make sense.)

Strange deaths near an oceanography school are attributed to a phantom by some of the locals. Various people have come to investigate. What they find is a powerful radiation source on the ocean floor and a bizarre fish-man guarding it.

Intrigue and counter-intrigue mesh until we are not sure who is on what side (except for one character who always seems shady). But in the end, the dangerous radiation source is deactivated and, as in Godzilla, the scientist takes the awful knowledge with him.

This is a basic disk with Play and Scene Selection as the only options.

This is a bad movie. Some would say it was bad enough to be good. My main problem with the lot is that the first victim we see is knocked out of his rowboat. Later, it always seems that getting back into a rowboat is all it take to be safe from the creature.

Despite the obvious plug of the title (taken from Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), the creature is rather disappointing (no Harryhausen effects here). In the early scenes it looks very lion like in the face (complete with mane). The resemblance disappears when seen from the side. Unlike the Creature From The Black Lagoon, this rubber suit does not seem designed for swimming so the actor does not move much underwater (lessening the suspense).

I have to say that this is one I will be watching again even if it is not up to the "bad" standards of other B-Movies.

As a fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I could not help but be amused by the coincidental facts that the main character initially uses the assumed name of Ted Baxter and ends up working with an investigator named Mr. Grant. Luckily, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues has a little more going for it than this ironic coincidence. As the movie begins, a fisherman is pulled into the water by some monstrous sea creature. When his radioactive remains wash up on the beach, Ted Baxter is there to find him (though I'm not sure why he was walking along the beach in a suit). He seeks out the head of the oceanography college, and eventually he confesses that he is actually Ted Stevens, author of two important but controversial books on the use of heavy water for atomic purposes and radiation-induced mutation. He undertakes a diving expedition off the coast and comes across a huge source of dangerous uranium-induced radioactivity and a monstrous creature seemingly guarding it; from his own limited experimentation, he knows this dangerous, obviously man-made threat must be destroyed. The scientist is paranoid about his work, which brings him under suspicion. Also under suspicion are the scientist's secretary and assistant. As the movie progresses, we see the phantom kill a few more people, watch Stevens woo the daughter of the scientist he is investigating, watch in amazement as the scientist changes his jacket an inordinate number of times, and wait for something to happen - this effort is in vain, for the most part. There are a couple of good explosions near the end, but the conclusion holds no real surprises whatsoever.

The title implies that the phantom originally comes from some place 10,000 leagues under the sea; actually, all of the underwater action seems to take place a couple of hundred yards offshore. The divers we watch every so often exploring the ocean floor have the remarkable knack to come up to the surface exactly beside their boat, no matter how far away from it they have traveled. As for the phantom, I thought he was portrayed rather well; he certainly looks like something one would want to avoid beneath the ocean waters, and the moviemakers wisely show him standing still for the most part. This movie is your typical 1950s underwater monster adventure, offering little to delight but little to disappoint the audience. In other words, it's not bad - but it's not good, either.

"The Vengeance to She" is the sequel to Hammer Film's very popular "She." Unfortunately, not only does Olga Schoberova take over the role of Ayesha ("She Who Must Be Obeyed") from Ursula Andress, this 1967 film directed by Cliff Owen "updates" H. Rider Haggard's classic adventure story by making her a modern gal named Carol who cannot have a nice time on the French Riviera because she keeps hearing voices telling her to head east. Eventually she reaches the lost city of Kuma in Africa where she is worshipped as the reincarnation of Ayesha and wackiness ensues. This is one of those bad movies that becomes unintentionally funny. I suppose it might be more enjoyable as a double-bill with the original "She," assuming, of course, your standards for enjoyment decrease steadily over the course of the evening.

Look at the rating and that explains it all. I've read some reviews where the reviewers went over the relative breast attractions of the starlets, and recommended a different flick because the main gal bared it all (and only because she did) - this is a "G" rated movie.

"Vengence of She" is safe and sanitary, with some fights, a little mature hint of marital dissatisfaction, a woman in her undies swimming, but overall this is a film fit for Disney. Compared to some realistic Disney evening shows of late, it is even a little tame. Fit for Disney means it isn't going to shock jock, skin flick the audience, and that the acting isn't going to be too far off base - quiet staid, actually. This movie almost tries to reduce or exclude wild action or hot romance. It's one of those old movies where nudity was perverse but killing someone in hot blood is okay - although I'd personally watch a naked woman rather than a killing any day.

You have to watch it either because you like the general genre of "She" or you want a fairly sanitary flick to watch when your sanity is pressed by the continuos outrageousness of some more modern shows. I myself have seen some old black and whites which were more interesting, if nothing else because the G-rated acting was more lively. But, since I have a passing interest in the Haggard books made to film, I bought it and watched it. Okay for a casual view and pretty good quality recording.

You won't find a blonde in a pink mini-skirt wielding a whip like the picture on the cover, but Olinka Berova (hired to replace Ursula Andress in this sequel to "She") still looks pretty spectacular in the white chiffon gown that she wears in the film's final scenes, when she returns to the underground lost city with the blue flame and we find out if she really is Ayesha reincarnated from the first picture. This is a surprisingly good-looking film, with gorgeous shots of the Mediterranean and a very clear digital transfer. I especially enjoyed the 1960's vintage TV and movie trailers that reminded me of what movie ads looked like back then before CGI-created titles.

Only one man could produce and direct a movie as outrageously stupid as The Creature From the Haunted Sea: Roger Corman. I might as well start with the monster. If you thought low-budget Japanese monster movies featured the most patently fake monsters in the cinematic universe, you haven't seen Corman's creature from the haunted sea. A kindergarten class could make a better monster out of shoelaces and a couple of buttons. You have to see it; I can't even begin to explain how ludicrous this monster is.

The story is also laughable. After Castro's revolution, counter-revolutionary forces have stolen the treasury of Cuba, and their plan is to sneak the gold off the island in an American boat. They choose Lorenzo because, according to their reasoning, the fact that he is an American gambler makes him beyond reproach. Lorenzo's crew is, in a word, unreal. First, there is his best girl Marybelle and her brother Happy Jack, who got his name from the twitch he developed from watching too many Humphrey Bogart movies. Next up is Pete Peterson, Jr., whom, as the narrator actually explains to us, is the son of Pete Peterson, Sr. Pete's only talent is his ability to mimic any and all kinds of animals, but he's never been the same since blowing his brain out of whack imitating a whooping crane years earlier. Then there is the "hero" of our story, an American spy who makes Maxwell Smart look like Albert Einstein. He never really understands what is going on, but he diligently reports his non-findings to headquarters using his home-made, undetectable radio set constructed using simulated hot dogs for knobs and tubes inside of dill pickles. His narration of the story is filled with incredibly philosophical statements such as "It was coming on dusk. I knew because the sun was going down." Getting back to the plot, the crooked Americans want the gold for themselves, so they hatch an elaborate plot to kill the Cuban soldiers on board one by one and make each death appear to be the work of a mythical sea creature. What they don't know is that the creature, as ridiculous as he is, actually does exist.

Featuring such unexplained oddities as a pay phone (with a steady stream of users) existing on a deserted island, this movie goes out of its way to insult the intelligence of every creature who ever harbored a conscious thought. As a result, the film is pretty darn funny at times, although one is hard pressed to see whether or not Corman intended this to be a comedy or a serious monster movie. I for one never know what Roger Corman could possible have been thinking.

Made as an afterthought on the trip back from some other shoot (a fairly typical Corman occurrence), CFHS is probably much too weird even for most fringe types who like Corman's other stuff to accept.
The setting is the Cuban Revolution, and Corman educates viewers on the conflict not with stock footage of some other war as Ed Wood might have done, but with Addams-style cartoons. The film's opening scenes are sharp- if easy- satire, relating a chase and the introductory meeting between the movie's nominal hero Sparks Moran and a female co-spy. Sparks is played by future Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne, who brings to mind Nicolas Cage's head on Alan Alda's body, and underplays his idiotic secret agent admirably. We learn that a chest of gold has been stolen from Cuba's treasury, and Moran is infiltrating the group of militants and mobsters who are trying to sail away with it.
They get on a sailing boat, and the mobsters plan to kill off the Cuban army members one-by-one, using a made-up creature as their cover. But a real monster shows up, and they have to alter their plans.
Some of the best comedy is in this section, as we meet a crewman capable of making animal noises, hear more of Moran's noodlehead pontificating, and when the mobster's moll sings a number without stopping during a machine gun shootout. I'm not aware of another filmmaker besides Corman working in satire like this by 1960.
But then their ship crashes on some reefs and they seek refuge on an (almost) deserted isle. The movie slows down and gets repetitive here, and additional scenes were shot to pad out its running time for TV. These are of a comedic level with Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki or even the abysmal Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, as two crew members meet tropical ladies they fall in love with. Whereas the earlier sections were silly but (I daresay) ahead of their time, the hijinx in this portion you've mostly seen before. By the time the monster shows up and starts killing people again, the damage is done.
A few funny deadpan wisecracks are spread throughout, of the kind that might make Clouseau seem like Einstein: "It was coming on dusk. I knew because the sun was going down." But the movie dies a death far worse than the monster could ever inflict in its middle portion.
One step down from Little Shop of Horrors, a step-and-a-half from Bucket of Blood, if this flick would've stayed on the boat or Cuba and avoided the reefs altogether, it might have surpassed them both.
Quality note: I took 1 star off this otherwise 3-star flick for the poor quality. This dvd skipped all over the place in Chapters 1 and 2 of 4, so you may wish to try another version. But probably none of them are going to be wonderful. Alas, it's public-domain Corman, after all. Caveat Emptor.

The first time I saw this film was when I was 13 or so on a late night horror movie show in the mid sixties, I thought it was just a really dumb movie, but I liked it, I thought it was just someone trying to make a serious horror film that just turned out funny. When I saw the film for sale on DVD I just had to buy it, just to see if my boyhood memory of the film was true what I found was a film that must have been planed to be funny or at least I hope so, as a fan of really campie movies I have to rate The Creature from the Haunted Sea right up there with Plan 9 and other dumb movies, call me weird but I just like it its good for a giggle.