Creature From The Haunted Sea
Written by Charles B. Griffith
Directed by Roger Corman
Renzo Cappeto...Antony Carbone
Sparks Moran...Robert Towne
Mary Belle...Betsy Jones-Moreland
Happy Jack...Robert Bean
A bumbling international man of mystery (whose idea of incognito is an expensive pair of Groucho glasses) embarks on an adventure of “robbery, double cross and murder,” and—lucky us—we’re along for the ride.
A treasure of gold has been stolen in order to fund a third-world revolution. Renzo Cappeto, the criminal who is charged with transporting both the treasure and the revolutionaries (as well as the undercover agent XK150), plans to murder his passengers one by one and keep the loot for he and his gang, blaming the deaths on a mythical sea monster. What he doesn’t realize is that the mythical sea monster is no myth at all.
If Roger Corman had been commissioned to direct The Creature From the Black Lagoon, this would very likely have been the result.
Let’s get this out of the way right here and now: there is nothing good about this film, except for the fact that it doesn't take itself much more seriously than we do. The script is laughable, the special effects are shoddy (the monster looks like a cheap Muppets knock-off), and the overall look of the film is rushed and shoddy--show me a Corman flick of this era that wasn't! However, from the awesome animated opening credits and history of the revolution, to the pseudo-hardboiled narration and mock hipster jive dialogue, to the random musical number in the middle of the movie and the bizarre characters (one man is the equivalent of a human See-and-Say), it’s painfully obvious why, if you’re in the market for a so-bad-it’s-great-‘horror’-movie, Roger Corman is the way to go.
File under “So-Horrible-It’s-Hip.”
1961
Not Rated
75 Minutes
Black and White
English
United States
"It was dusk. I could tell 'cause the sun was going down."
--J/Metro
