Serpiente de mar (1984)

... aka: Hydra

... aka: Hydra - Monster of the Deep

... aka: Monster of the Deep

... aka: Sea Serpent, The

Directed by:

Amando de Ossorio 

I would say that this seems to have time warped in from the 1950s, but I don't want to insult the far superior giant monster films from the 1950s in the process. An American military plane is having issues with their bomb mechanism. To try to prevent those pesky Russkies from getting their mitts on the top secret weapon, they're instructed to simply drop the bomb into the ocean and go on their merry way. After doing so, the atomic blast awakens a vicious sea beast that appears to be taking a nap on the ocean floor before it's revived. Soon after, local fisherman in a nearby Spanish fishing village have been reporting that most of the fish in the area seem to either be dead or have a strange, radioactive glow. One of the boat owners gets desperate enough to hire Captain Pedro Fontán (Timothy Bottoms) - a recovering alcoholic with a not-so-great reputation - to take a crew out to sea to try their luck. On their trip, they're attacked by the monster. It sinks the boat and several men get gobbled up. Pedro, along with his first mate Lemaris (Jared Martin) and a few others make it back to safety in a lifeboat. 

Unfortunately for Pedro, Lemaris harbors a long-standing grudge against him because he blames him for his brother's death during a shipwreck. Lemaris denies the presence of the sea monster and gets the others to follow suit. During a trial, Pedro loses his captain's license and is set to go to court facing criminal negligence charges. Things aren't much better for Margaret Roberts (Taryn Power), who witnesses her drunken friend Jill (Carole James) get eaten alive by the beast. No one believes her either and she's locked up in a Portuguese nuthouse. Some time passes and Pedro (now on the run from the authorities) somehow learns of Margaret's ordeal and goes to Lisbon to help her escape from the asylum. The two hide out in the area while plotting to prove the existence of the beast. They meet up with cranky but helpful marine biologist Timothy Wallace (Ray Milland), who believes their story and wants to help. Learning of another survivor of a similar attack, the trio rush to a hospital, but they're too late. The man has already been smothered to death by a pillow by his irate boss (Jack Taylor)! 

Lemaris also shows up in the area hoping to hunt down Pedro and get revenge. Instead, he bears witness to a night watchman (Víctor Israel) getting set on fire and then eaten by the monster, which prompts a change of heart. Strangely, Lemaris acts like he didn't see the monster earlier in the movie as it attacked and killer several of his buddies, but oh well. Things lead up to an exciting (not!) finale where our heroes toss Molotov cocktails at the monster from the sidelines and then... simply let it swim off to safety, without even informing the authorities OR proving its existence to anyone else. Uhhh... 

Director Amando de Ossorio (credited as "Gregory Greens" in the anglicized credits) has a decent reputation in horror circles because of his sometimes-admired (but in my opinion, overrated) Blind Dead series. He had also made Fangs of the Living Dead (1968) with Anita Ekberg, THE LORELEY'S GRASP (1973; which also involved a sea beast, but this time a sexy one played by Helga Line), NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS (1973), Demon Witch Child (1974) and others. This is by far the crappiest thing I've seen from him. Don't get me wrong, some of the other films listed above are also duds, but they're not outright incompetent. This one actually IS and it skims by almost entirely on unintended chuckles. 

One of the most obvious issues is that the film is horribly paced. It just torpedoes ahead, totally skipping over what one would assume should be key plot elements. None of the dialogue is interesting or humorous, the cliché-ridden plotline is utterly void of anything new or fresh, the acting by most is horrid or horridly wooden (though this is likely because of the atrocious - and goofy! - English-language dubbing), the musical score is an annoying, by-the-numbers cloning of John Williams' famous Jaws theme and, by the time the film is over, one gets the impression they ran out of time or money or both to come up with a satisfactory conclusion. There's nothing worse than a film leading up to something, only to have that something be nothing! 

The special effects are the sole saving grace of the film. Don't get me wrong, they too are awful, but they're also kind of cute and oddly entertaining to watch, anyway. The sea monster, designed to look like a giant snake, is laughably visualized with giant ping pong ball eyes and what appears to be wings. It has also been aptly described as looking like a giant sock puppet by many viewers. The fx team created both miniature models (used when the monster destroys large structures or transports) and a scale model (used for close-ups of the the cast thrashing inside to simulate being eaten). Over the course of the movie, the monster destroys several boats, a lighthouse, a helicopter (it headbutts it, making it flip over and explode) and a bridge. It even almost blows itself up at the very end when a train's last car (marked "ARAL"... and why no caboose?) comes loose, falls into the water and blows up. And yet our "overgrown worm" lives to see another day, anyway. 

Showing up briefly in the film are Gérard Tichy (from Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon and many others), Charly Bravo, José Canalejas, Pilar Alcón and Bernabe Barta Barri. Director León Klimovsky (who had made some very enjoyable Euro-horrors back in the 1970s and really has a much better track record than de Ossorio, though he's not as well-known) also appears briefly as a doctor. It has been released several times on VHS in the U.S. (the first issuing was from Lightning Video), but there's no DVD release as of yet. The original release title of this Spanish / U.S. co-production was Serpiente del mar, which basically means "The Sea Serpent," which was also the U.S. release title. It was also released as Hydra in other markets. By any name, it's pretty bad but enjoyable for a generous smattering of unintended laughs.

SBIG

Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976) (TV)

...aka: Look What Happened to Rosemary's Baby

...aka: Rosemary's Baby II

Directed by:

Sam O'Steen

I tried my best to put Polanski's 1968 masterpiece in the back of my mind before viewing this long-forgotten follow-up, but even accepting this on its own terms and within its own network TV limitations, it's still a complete failure as both a sequel and a stand alone film. Badly written, badly acted, horribly dated and completely lacking in both suspense and chills, it's no wonder no one's ever bothered resurrecting this unnecessary, embarrassing relic. Eight years after the events in the original, Rosemary Woodhouse (an annoyingly shrill, consistently hysterical Patty Duke) is still living in the same apartment house raising "Adrian" in the company of the same coven of elderly Satanists headed by Roman (Ray Milland) and Minnie (Ruth Gordon) Castevet. She flees with her child, takes refuge in a church during a storm, hops on a bus the next day and heads out west toward Hollywood to try to get some money from her estranged, backstabbing husband Guy (George Maharis). While on a layover in Nevada, Adrian (or as she calls him, Andrew) kills two children who pick on him. Rest stop whore Marjean (Tina Louise) helps them hide, but is possessed and tricks Rosemary onto a hell bus, which conveniently removes her from the rest of the movie.

Years later, a now twenty-something Adrian (Stephen McHattie) is still living with Marjean, who now owns a successful casino. Adrian's an annoying moody rebel who's always in trouble with the cops for speeding in his black sports car and wants to be a rock singer (groan). On his twenty-first birthday, Uncle Roman and Aunt Minnie show up with some cultists and give Adrian some strange concoction to drink. He then jumps up on stage and starts gyrating around like a spandex-clad Jim Morrison with his face painted up like a mime (!) Outside, Adrian's best bud Peter (David Huffman) is killed when Guy picks up a fallen electric wire off the ground and electrocutes him. Adrian collapses and, blamed for the death of his friend, awakens in a hospital for the criminally insane where a doctor named Ellen (Donna Mills) tries to help him overcome his amnesia with hypnosis sessions. The film then seems to turn into a love story (complete with a ridiculous 'bird woman' hallucination cut in during their little hotel romp... don't ask!), which is actually little more than a cheap set-up the predictable twist ending.

It's divided into three segments; "The Book of Rosemary," "The Book of Adrian" and "The Book of Andrew;" getting progressively sillier as it goes along. The subtle creepiness and expertly modulated suspense of the original is completely absent here, the director gets uneven work from usually dependable actors and employs clumsy voice-overs from various characters and screenwriter Anthony Wilson attempts to ape the black humor of the first and fails miserably. Great actors Milland and Gordon, for instance, are given little to do other than sit around and bicker ("Would you shut up!") and during most of the cult scenes background extras annoying chant "Hail Satan... Hail Adrian... Hail Satan" over and over again. Third-billed Broderick Crawford appears in just one scene as a sheriff.

How many sequels to extremely famous horror films can you name that have never been released to either VHS or DVD in their home country? Obviously someone out there would prefer to keep this one buried, and I can't say I blame them. In Europe (the UK I think), it was released on the Arena label during the 1980s, but other than that I'm not aware of any other releases.

★1/2

Frogs (1972)

Directed by:

George McGowan

Millionaire patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) and his extended family gather together at his private island mansion to celebrate the 4th of July and have much more to worry about than photographer and ecologist Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) snooping around getting material for a magazine layout on pollution. You see, Pickett isn’t the only one who’s fed up with Milland’s environmental poisoning as a horde of frogs wisen up and lead their swampland buddies (alligators, snakes, lizards, turtles, birds, leeches, spiders and more) in a violent revolt. Thanks to the piercing sounds of Les Baxter’s score and the sheer variety of creepy crawlers on display, you are likely to cringe somewhere along the line in this enjoyably implausible, very silly and often awkwardly directed, but nonetheless entertaining, effort. How can you not love a movie where woman gets stuck in the mud and starts screaming her head off as a... turtle... slowly... approaches. Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke and Judy Pace co-star.

★★1/2

Terror in the Wax Museum (1973)

Directed by:

Georg Fenady

John Carradine doesn't last long as Claude Dupree, owner of "Dupree's Wax Museum" in turn-of-the century London, who wears coke-bottle glasses and coaches deformed hunchback half-wit Karkov in the art of wax dummy production. Carradine plots to sell his business to Amos Burns (Broderick Crawford), dreams his creations come to life and kill him, wakes up (love that cap!) and one dressed like Jack the Ripper stabs him. His niece Meg (Nicole Shelby) and her uptight/bitchy guardian Julia (Elsa Lanchester) show up to reopen the business and everyone fights about who actually owns the place. After a few more murders, police think the killer is angry museum curator Harry Flexner (Ray Milland), but there are many others after the inheritance who qualify as possible suspects. This Bing Crosby production has poor period detail, is cheap and very restrained (no gore, nudity, bad language), plus there are several unsuccessful attempts to copy Corman-esque nightmare sequences, but the lovable cast of veteran horror stars (also including Maurice Evans from ROSEMARY'S BABY and Patric Knowles from THE WOLF MAN) helps out a little bit. My favorite moment is when Carradine snarls, "You know I always insist on perfection!" Like in several other wax museum-set horror flicks, if you pay attention you can see the "dummies" move. Many of the cast members here (including Lanchester, Knowles and Shani Wallis) also appeared in director Fenady's horror-comedy ARNOLD from the same year.

★★

X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

...aka: X

...aka: Man with the X-Ray Eyes, The

Directed by:
Roger Corman

Review coming soon.

★★★1/2