Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Beast from Haunted Cave (1959) ** (out of 4) Slow-moving but mildly entertaining horror film from director Monte Hellman has a group of thieves stealing some gold and deciding to hide out in the snowy mountains. Their plan seems to be working at first but soon they come across a giant spider deep within the cave.This here was an early Roger Corman production and like a lot of the films from this era you soon realize that they were working with very little money, which means that there's going to be a lot of talking and very little action. One of the Corman's most known sayings was how when you're monster looks bad it's best to keep it hidden. That pretty much happens in BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE as the spider is rarely seen outside of a part here or a part there. The bad costume finally shows up at the very end but at that point it's too late to turn the film off.I thought the cast were decent for what they were asked to do, which was basically hit their marks and say their lines. The cast were at least interesting enough to keep you glued to the movie and to stick with it longer than you probably would have otherwise. The spider creature design is obviously very cheap but there's some mild charm that you can take from it.Hellman would go onto make much better cult movies but this one here was mildly entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious.

After making a getaway from the authorities with a ransom of gold, a group of thieves' plan to use an accident at a ski resort unwittingly releases a giant spider-like creature that puts a halt on their escape plans as it hunts them down one-by-one.This was a decent but enjoyable effort that really works a lot better than it should, despite some noticeable flaws. The main part is the haphazardly-edited finale, which is so chaotic and confusing that there's no way to tell what's going on in any of the scenes and the method of killing the creature gets lost in the fray due to this, it's all done so fast. At times the creature looks way too cheesy and doesn't really seem a part of the scene at all with the way it's imposed onto the image, and the only time you see it in full is at the end which is quite confusing. That leaves a large portion of time on useless features where the cast is forced to go through their different story lines which just aren't that interesting or enjoyable with the heist or the group's distrust of each other really making for some lame times. That said, the suspense of the attacks works well with a few creepy moments, the film is never really all that slow so it's got a nice pace to it and the overall design of the monster creates quite an impression. Those are enough to make up for some of the flaws.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

Roger Corman is the king of film recycling! He reused the same props, costumes, sets, and sometimes the same footage, over and over again, until it became so obvious that it was embarrassing even by his standards. That's how he managed to produced over 400 films. Certainly not classics, by any standard, but sometimes worth your time. He didn't win any awards for his films, but he did take home a boatload of lifetime achievement awards.He recycled Alexander Laszlo's creepy music in this film into at least three more. That's not a criticism as the music was really good.Now, don't for any stars here. Not even Frank Sinatra's cousin could bankroll his name into anything more than a couple of uncredited roles in Frank's films.And the monster, it looked really recycled!

Alex, Marty, Byron, and Gypsy (Frank Wolff, Wally Campo, Richard Sinatra, and Sheila Noonan) move from place to place, successful bank robbers, now in South Dakota, preparing to blow a mine so that the local authorities will be distracted while they are heisting loot (gold bars)from another location. They hire a ski resort owner/instructor, Gil Jackson (Michael Forest) to train them on how to ski, wanting him to take them to a specific spot where the group plans to catch an airplane ride, gold bars in tow. What none of them expect is to be in the midst of a creature that has been following close behind, living in a reputed haunted cave. Early Hellman picture is nothing special, but will probably remain a watchable item due to the novelty of featuring an up and coming director learning under the tutelage of Corman, allowed a bit of freedom as long as he keeps the production cost under budget. The "beast" of the title is basically a giant spider with two extended appendages that grab victims (Hellman is wise enough to keep the camera close and covers the creature in cob webs, never showing its face or total body, because doing so would hinder the creep factor). I think the most effective scenes have victims cocooned in web, white, lifeless faces displaying the drained blood thanks to the creature's thirsty appetite. Most of the film is rather dialogue-heavy, featuring noirish hoods, with Hellman preparing us for the eventual showdown between Alex, the leader of the thieves with a nasty streak that shows when he loses his temper, and the dashing, pipe-smoking, nature-loving, mild-mannered ski instructor, Gil. I know Forest from shows like Star Trek and The Outer Limits, and his character here is likable enough, tolerant of the obnoxious behavior of Byron and Marty. The animosity that starts to brew between Alex and Gil stems from Gypsy's burgeoning disenchantment with her current "family". It is evident early that Gypsy is falling hard for the handsome Gil, someone who could possibly offer her a better, more fruitful life. Alex is a calculating career criminal who likes the thrill his "occupation" provides, but he cannot contain his anger when Gypsy is flirting with Gil; Alex's jealousy in his Achilles' Heel. The creature mainly shows up at the end, with a great portion of the film dedicated to Alex's set-in-motion plans for the heist and exit strategy, Gil just a means to an end, the guide who takes them where they need to go to get on a plane (that doesn't show up on schedule due to inclement weather), Canada their destination. Like in many other (much better) heist films, the robbery is successful, but the escape plans go awry, this time a creature disrupting the supposed fool-proof trip out of the country and on to greener pastures. Good South Dakota locations help. Leisurely paced (even barely over an hour it feels longer), with less emphasis (probably because Hellman was little interested in making the standard creature feature picture) on monster attacks (until the very end in the cave, that is) and more on the dynamic that exists between the principles (particularly the love triangle).