(1954)
Dir - Wyott Ordung
Overall: WOOF
Notable as the first production job for Roger Corman, Monster from the Ocean Floor is only of historical interest as it set the course for the rest of the man's career and is otherwise insultingly comatose-inducing. Corman scrounged up enough funds from selling his Highway Dragnet screenplay to get the movie underway, bringing in actor friend Wyott Ordung to direct who allegedly put him in contact with soon-to-be Corman regular Johnathan Haze, cinematographer Floyd Crosby, and producers James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff from American International Pictures fame. Always the huckster, Corman even got free use out of an electric-powered one-man submarine by crediting its inventor and as one could surmise, all of these behind the scenes details are light years more interesting than anything that transpires on screen. The plot is so uninteresting that it almost undetectable, the characters are as bland as can be, Ordung's direction is shockingly lifeless, and we only get a couple of seconds worth of the undersea monster that is nothing more than an over-sized octopus.
(1957)
Dir - Lee Sholem
Overall: MEH
A low-grade dud from Poverty Row studio Bel-Air Productions, Pharaoh's Curse has little to offer for horror fans of the Ancient Egypt variety. Everything about the film is pedestrian, from Lee Sholem's flat direction, Richard H. Landau uninspired screenplay that does not even bother to throw a proper mummy into the mix, a cast of forgettable Caucasian actors who are all going through the motions, and shoddy set design that conveys none of the mysterious majesty of unventured tombs full of sinister curses and the like. Arriving in the late 1950s, the material itself comes off as dated since Universal stopped churning out their increasingly lackluster Mummy sequels over a decade earlier, though Abbott and Costello at least held their own two years previous with the apply titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. There is a suspicious foreign woman who joins a party of soldiers that are investigating an archeological expedition, (played by actual Israeli/American actor Ziva Roddan), some domestic squabbling, and a guy who turns into an old man make-up "monster", but there is nothing else going on here.
(1958)
Dir - Paul Landres
Overall: MEH
A contemporary American suburbia retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula done on a modest budget, The Return of Dracula, (Curse of Dracula, The Fantastic Disappearing Man), is one of the rare and better of such "classic monster" movies made on U.S. soil in the era where alien or over-sized creatures were the new norm. Directed by Paul Landres who mostly dabbled in Westerns, (as well as being behind the lens on the previous year's similar undead yarn The Vampire), it sets the Count himself in white picket California, posing as a European cousin who all too easily dupes his now-adopted "family" into thinking nothing of his antisocial mannerisms and unavailability during the day time. Though he poses absolutely zero menacing threat and minimal sexual energy, Austrian/Hungarian actor Francis Lederer is as logical of a choice to play the famed title character as any, with his natural foreign accent and friendly charm when convincing everyone around him that he is just a normal bloke from Central Europe. Released the same year as Hammer's game-changer Horror of Dracula, this particular entry has no chance but to be the more obscure of the two and rightfully so, but it has an agreeable pace, the same recognizable "Dies Irae" musical motif that was utilized in The Shining, and one or two ghastly, atmospheric set pieces.
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