Giant from the Unknown (1958)

Touches You

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A series of animal deaths and other disasters hits a rural town. When humans start dying, a local, be-wigged, stock-native known, not-so-lovingly, as "Injun Joe" speaks of omens and portents. The townsfolk are... unimpressed. The sheriff is flummoxed by it all. When archaeologist, Dr. Frederick Cleveland (Morris Ankrum- KRONOS, THE GIANT CLAW, etc., etc.) and his daughter, Janet (Sally Fraser) come to town, they draw the sheriff's suspicion. Especially since they happen to know a loner, named Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer). Cleveland just happens to be searching for evidence of an ancient, sadistic, towering conquistador known as Vargas, The Devil Giant. Coincidence? Hmmm. Cheeeze-tacular, pseudo-scientific claptrap sets up the idea that the old behemoth could possibly have been re-animated. While Cleveland and Brooks search for artifacts, Janet makes lunch, brews coffee, and cleans up the camp! Aaaah, the 50's! After what feels like a century, Vargas finally makes his appearance, but nothing much takes place. The obligatory romance blooms between Janet and Brooks. More locals are eliminated. Will the sheriff ever believe the truth? Will Janet ever brew the perfect pot of coffee? Will "Injun Joe" ever get a better hairpiece? Chunky cheddar doesn't get much chunkier than GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN! Highly entertaining hooey... P.S.- Janet also makes sandwiches!...

There is so much to say about this terrible movie.I could write a review longer than the script but it's not worth my time. The trailer says "From The Depths Of Hell It Came,To Hold All Men Prisoner and Every Woman Slave!!" That's 100% false,it didn't do any of that. Not to mention that it's not a giant and they know where it's from..... This flick is so bad that the make-up "artist" gets his name in the opening credits and the make-up is just some dirt on the guys face. So anyway,a scientist and his daughter show up in some country town(sounds REAL familiar) and guess what?They immediately run into another scientist!!! Turns out the younger scientist was at a lecture given by the older one but the old guy doesn't remember.At the same time the sheriff shows up to hassle the old guy and warn him that the younger guy is probably a murderer, even though there's no evidence to support that. Most of the movie is spent using terrible writing and acting to get the characters to split up,it's silly. The old guy has come to town to search for artifacts to prove whites had been there centuries before Columbus and that one of them was a giant.After a few minutes of searching he decides to give up,then they stumble on a mass grave.They dig it up and without any evidence of a giant he gives up again.Then the younger guy finds the giant's armor while hitting on the older guy's daughter, AND IT'S JUST BURIED UNDER SOME LEAVES!!!!!!!! Oh,it gets worse. They decide to hang the armor on a tree and go to sleep.Guess what happens next?? You just wasted an hour and a half. Watch this movie expecting it to suck and it might not make you angry.If you never see it,you didn't miss anything.

This is a pretty lacking 50's monster movie from Richard E. Cunha, the man who brought us the schlocktastic female monsters and Nazis trash-fest, She Demons. That latter movie is considerably more entertaining than Giant from the Unknown. The basic premise of the film is reasonable enough though, with archaeologists arriving in a remote cabin town to discover that a 500 year old giant conquistador has been preserved and reanimated by special minerals in the local soil. It just so happens that this giant is a raving lunatic and goes around killing people for no reason other than he is evil, and that's what evil giant reanimated conquistadors do.I suppose the trouble with the movie is that the title villain only really gets into his stride in the latter stages of the film, the rest being a somewhat unremarkable build-up. While there are some undeniably memorable set-pieces like the final confrontation at the dam, there aren't really enough and the film isn't entertaining in a campy sense either as, to be fair, it's too solidly made and acted to provide many cheap laughs. It's certainly not bottom of the barrel stuff but you might find this one lacking in much entertainment value outwith a few isolated scenes. Fans of 50's sci-fi and horror films might find something of value here mind you, but it is strictly a minor and lower division effort.

Way way back in my childhood years (well okay, maybe not THAT far back!) I remember seeing this movie many times on the late late show. I was attracted to this film originally because I had previously seen THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT WOMAN and I expected something more. When I say the giant of the title was just a little bit taller than the rest of the cast I was disappointed at first but the spell of this movie quickly won me over. I mean, how can you not like a movie that has former B western star Bob Steele as the no-nonsense sheriff of a small mountain town? Ed Kemmer (EARTH VS THE SPIDER), Morris Ankrum (INVADERS FROM MARS among many others) and Sally Fraser (WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST) are searching a mountain area with the foreboding name of Devil's Crag in the hopes of finding proof that a legendary renegade Conquistador named Vargas really did exist ("A man of unusual size and strength . . .a depraved degenerate of a man."). To their amazement they discover that he still does exist after some 400 years. Preserved by chemicals in the soil (so Morris informs us) he is revived by a bolt of lightning. Vargas (Buddy Baer, brother of prizefighter Max Baer and uncle of Max "Jethro Bodine" Baer Jr.) is no gentle giant though. At first he just slaughters cattle but then he graduates to people! His attack on mountain girl Joline Brand hints that a brutal sexual assault preceded her murder and he leaves local "crazy guy" Indian Joe hanging from a hook! The scientists join the sheriff and his posse to hunt down and destroy the giant but either he is too tough to be brought down by bullets or that is one really good suit of armour he is wearing. So can the mountain folk win out over the rampaging giant? Well luckily this film is now on DVD so you can find out without having to stay up until 2 in the morning like I did when I was a kid.The makeup for Buddy Baer was done by Jack Pierce, who created such memorable scary faces as the Frankenstein Monster, I'm-Ho-Tep, Kharis and the Wolfman. It was directed by Richard Cunha who gave us 3 other memorable late night classics: MISSILE TO THE MOON, SHE DEMONS and the unforgettable FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.