Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

A Major Disappointment

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

What previous reviewers don't tell us is which movie they are reviewing, namely the 63 minutes theatrical version or the 75 minutes television take. The latter version is available on an excellent Alpha DVD and that is the version I watched last night. I thought it was awful, although I'll admit it had a few promising ideas here and there and maybe if it was "condensed to make the laughs come faster" (to utilize a prized slogan of showbiz patter back in the days when newsreel theatrettes dotted every second or third New York street corner) it would have seemed a lot more entertaining. As it is, all the jokes fall flat and most of the promising plot twists are negated by surprisingly incompetent direction, poor acting, lazy editing and "B" budget scruples.

There are a lot of movies that people think are the worst movies everbut I don't think they are. The Godfather movie which people think the best movies ever. Those I hate. But this movie with is thought to be one the worst came dame near close to being as bad as The Godfather movies. This real is one of the worst monster movies ever. It is badly acted. It is also badly written. It as an awful ending. It as awful special effects. It is nothing not a crappy knock off of The Creature from the black lagoon movies. I like 28 out of the 30 Godzilla movies. So I consider myself a Godzilla fan. And I have this fan theory that this is a Godzilla spin off. My theory is that the monster is Godzilla's third that swam into the Golf of Mexico.

This is pre-Airplane humor. Anyone who thinks this is a "monster movie" will be sadly disappointed. My first clue? The very first scene has a guy getting his shoes shined. And what is he wearing? White canvas sneakers. There are lots of quirky dialog that doesn't even need MST3000K to make jokes about. "Did you get that?" "Right. Where do I turn for the decoder pin?" "Left." "Left?" "Right." "Right". And the classic, "It was dusk. I could tell because the sun was going down."Nothing in this movie was intended to be "horror". But if you listen closely and watch, you'll find plenty to laugh about. Kind of clever, actually.

Much as one admires Roger Corman's shrewd entrepreneurial qualities and the prescient nurturing of various up-and-coming talents, admittedly, his own non-Poe horror output is alarmingly erratic – so that, on the one hand, you had undeniable classics such as NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957), A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959) and THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960) and, on the other, the likes of the goofy IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956), the dull ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957) and this one, which is at once heavy-handed and silly! The film is a remake of the director's own NAKED PARADISE (1957) but made in the vein of Monte Hellman's BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE (1959), which had added a monster to PARADISE's central heist plot. Besides, it followed on from the afore-mentioned BUCKET and SHOP with respect to the comic tone adopted throughout (all three, as well as BEAST, were scripted by Charles B. Griffith); as with the latter, too, its borderline feature-length was expanded for TV showings (adding some 12 minutes in all) and this chore was assigned to none other than fledgling director Hellman! Another notable name here is that of hero Edward Wain, actually Robert Towne(!), who would soon carve a reputation for himself as an ace scriptwriter (penning Corman's masterpiece THE TOMB OF LIGEIA {1964} and eventually winning an Oscar for Roman Polanski's own best work CHINATOWN {1974}) and occasional director.Corman was quick to incorporate topical issues (if only in a superficial manner) into the narrative – in this case, the Cuban Missile Crisis: in fact, the film features several authoritative or vaguely sinister Latin American types. One more definite influence, however, is Howard Hawks' adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway adventure TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) – whether consciously or not, the protagonist here (Anthony Carbone) looks quite a bit like the iconic star of that one i.e. Humphrey Bogart! Wain is ostensibly a secret agent investigating the transport by boat of stolen Cuban gold: he has apparently gained Carbone's confidence and yet, unless he is confessing his love for the criminal's moll(!), he mostly keeps to the sidelines. The greedy skipper wants to get rid of his foreign associates and, to this end, commissions his underling to kill one of the crew members and place the blame at the foot of a legendary sea monster (what he does not know is that the latter is very much real and that Carbone and his men have been targeted for 'breaching' its territorial waters)!Unfortunately, the creature is among the loopiest ever conceived: CONQUERED and CRAB's were similarly outré, but this one actually belongs alongside the notorious ROBOT MONSTER (1953) in the annals of non-scary film fiends! The other low-point here, then, is the truly execrable comedy relief: it is not that some of the lines and situations prove unamusing but, along the way, we are improbably treated to a henchman with a penchant for communicating via animal sounds (who is later involved in a bit of jungle romance with a similarly-inclined{!?} South Sea woman) and the moll's klutzy younger brother (who, of course, becomes enamored of the native's daughter)…not to mention, coming up with lame quirky touches such as having Corman himself appear unbilled as a perennially-grinning man wearing shades waiting to use the phone on the South American island and a man in a suit walking along the rocks by the sea and purposefully stepping into every puddle he comes across! Yet another female character is introduced during these latter scenes, just so she can be with Wain for the finale – after the monster has killed virtually the entire cast (unlike BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, the leading lady in this case was apparently deemed too much of a harlot to be allowed to survive!) and is thus left in sole possession of the conveniently-sunken treasure.Of Corman's remaining genre efforts, I have the following still unwatched in my collection: DAY TIME ENDED (1955), WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958), TEENAGE CAVE MAN (1958; though I had checked out Larry Clark's 'controversial' 2002 TV remake) and LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960; which was shot back-to-back with the film under review and even retains the same three leads!).