(1957)
Dir - Kenneth G. Crane
Overall: MEH
One of many dull and D-grade giant monster movies made in the 1950s, Monster from Green Hell features wasps and an oversized spider crab that become mutated after rockets full of cosmic radiation crash land in Central Africa. The premise is as bog-standard as the movie, featuring the usual low-level components of stock footage, zero charisma actors, endless chatter between them, and roughly two and a half total minutes of on-screen creature mayhem. Endre Bohem and Louis Vittes' script tries to get around its main attraction by throwing its crop of mostly Caucasian characters up against a harsh foreign landscape that does everything in its power to do them in before they can take care of the radiation-charged insect problem. While their treks through jungles, deserts, and volcanic caves proves to be anything but heart-racing, the production gets a few things correct, such as giving African American actor Joel Fluellen a significant and non-comic relief role. Also, the sound omitted by the giant wasps as they are being devoured by lava in the finale are creepy enough. It is a shame that we see so little of them and so much of the bored thespians on screen going through the motions, but that was the style at the time after all.
(1959)
Dir - Irvin Yeaworth
Overall: MEH
For their follow-up to the seminal drive-in hit The Blob, director Irvin Yeaworth and producer/screenwriter Jack H. Harris once again craft a talky, independent, Pennsylvania-shot sci-fi B-movie in color, granted with a less sensationalized premise than a huge extraterrestrial form of gelatin descending upon a small American town. 4D Man, (The Evil Force, Master of Terror), aligns with most other disposable genre movies from the period, meaning that little screen time is delegated to anything that a teenage demographic would actually want to see, but enough special effects and gnarly makeup shots are present to throw into a trailer to get butts in the seats. In this respect, one can watch that trailer, skip the actual movie, and get the full picture just fine. This marks the first non-television appearance from Robert Lansing, a deep-voiced character actor who does not have ideal leading man charisma yet nevertheless does just fine here as the title scientist who manages to grant himself the ability to pass through solid objects. Unfortunately, this does not happen until about fifty minutes into the film, starting off as a fun gag that Lansing's protagonist enjoys since the rest of his life is hardly going according to plan, (his girlfriend leaving him for his brother, and a cancer diagnosis will do that). It ultimately leads to deadly consequences where anyone he touches rapidly ages and dies, but the third act is the only one where anything memorable transpires.
(1959)
Dir - Tom Graeff
Overall: MEH
Notable and infamous as the only full-length from actor/director/producer/cinematographer/editor/screenwriter/special effects and music coordinator Tom Graeff, Teenagers from Outer Space, (The Gargon Terror, The Boy from Outer Space), is one of the cheapest of drive-in cheapies done in an era that was ripe with cheap drive-in cheapies. Graeff allegedly made it on a budget of less than twenty-thousand dollars, which even in 1959 was detrimentally meager. The proof is in the pudding, with bottom-barrel costumes, props, and toy guns, as well as a scant few special effects shots that are as piss-pour as they get. Graeff also had the asinine idea to prerecord the dialog and then have the actors lip-sync it, though at least he did not use this tactic throughout the movie's entirety. To be fair, Graeff gets around his lack of funds by shooting in real locations successfully enough since the script places some human extraterrestrials in the suburbs and little to nothing is required to spruce up any of the surroundings. While the plot has the allusion of being busy, it is a monotonous watch of an alien named Derek, (yes, Derek), getting chased by his more surly companions through various mundane spots around sunny California, all of the local yokels being overly-trusting and helpful. The stakes never seem high enough due to the talky and droll pacing, but there are far worse abominations of celluloid that came out around the time, this one at least being shy of incompetent.
No comments:
Post a Comment