1950s Sci Fi/Creature B Movie Flicks HoF

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Trivia: the creature in The Tingler (1959) bore a remarkable resemblance to the creatures that Khan placed in the ears of Captain Terrell & Chekov in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

I always wondered if the ear-borers had been inspired by the Tingler?
It also bares a resemblance to the hellgramite in The Twilight Zone 'The Hellgramite Method'.




I watched Gog (1954) today. I think the film did a decent job of being reasonably intelligent and made the science sound somewhat believable. Performances were fine. There was quite a bit of exposition and not enough of the robots for my taste though. There were a couple effective, fun moments, but I felt they could have done more with the story. The film started off strong, but then dragged somewhat in the middle, but picked up towards the end. Overall, worth checking out.



ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS
(1957, Corman)



"Jim, you don't know what's down there!"
"What could be other than earth, water and few land crabs?"

After all, what can a few land crabs do? Well, that's what Attack of the Crab Monsters wants to answer. The film follows a group of scientists sent to a remote island in the Pacific Ocean to study the effects of nuclear tests. What they eventually find is that the island is inhabited by mutated giant crabs that take over the minds of their victims.

There is an undeniable charm to these creature features that were made during the time (which I suppose is the reason why this HoF is so appealing to some of us). Part of it had to do with the fears of the moment, i.e. radiation, nuclear power; but another big part of it has to do with the "low budget" approach to these films. There's obviously a bit of both in this one.

Most of the focus falls on biologist couple Dale and Martha (Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan), and technician Hank (Russell Johnson). There are even hints at a love triangle between them, but it all ends up being pointless. Like modern slashers, the rest of the cast are more or less disposable, with the real stars of the film being the giant crabs.

The goofy design of the crabs, with the almost "googly" eyes, just adds to that, uhh, charm. However, I really don't understand the purpose for having the crabs take over the minds of their victims, as opposed to have them be just "killer giant crabs". But putting that aside, Corman does a solid job keeping a nice pace to things, especially considering that the only thing we have here is earth, water, and a few land crabs.

Grade:



I watched The Abominable Snowman (1957) today. Honestly, this film didn't do much for me. The story didn't grip me. I appreciate what they were going for, but it didn't work for the most part for me. Acting was alright, but I wasn't invested in the characters. The film looks good and has some nice scenes. I felt like they could have done more with it and made it more thrilling or entertaining. It's an interesting idea, but I didn't find it compelling or engaging enough.




The Tingler (1959)

Gotta love the ballyhoo salesmanship of William Castle. Probably the best part of his movies are the unique way that he found to promote them by involving the audience in some sort of creative 'gag' tie-in. With The Tingler he introduced movie patrons patooties to 'Percepto'...aka an ass buzzer which was wired into the theater seats. Such a naughty boy Castle was

But wait...there's more! At select theaters 'shill screamers' would let out blood curdling screams, which if you've seen the film renders the Tingler num and limp. Such a fun concept that I wish I had a time machine and could see this first run on opening night.

Count me as a fan of William Castle. I've seen most all of his filmography and The Tingler is one of his best done films.
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The Tingler -


This is an odd little horror comedy that, if anything, deserves credit for how it made me believe that its very imaginary creature - and thank goodness that it is - actually exists. Vincent Price, who gets to be devious, silly, deceptive, threatening; in short, all of his modes that make him one of my favorite actors, has a lot to do with this, as does Judith Evelyn, which says a lot (no pun intended) given that her performance is completely wordless. Her "bathroom freakout" scene no doubt made audiences do what William Castle hoped they would in his prologue speech. Speaking of, if any movie knows the power of the color red, it's this one. The strong performances also go a long way in convincing me that the oversized rubber caterpillar that is the titular monster is real, with its moment in the sun - or dark, if you prefer - of course being the very fun movie theater invasion scene.

Despite delivering pretty much what I expected and the strong turns from the cast, I think it's a good movie, but not quite a great one. I didn't find the noir-ish plot involving Ollie's and Dr. Chapin's relationships with their wives to be all that interesting. Even though this may be intentional so that Dr. Chapin's Tingler obsession gets to be front and center - the cake to its frosting, in other words - it's pretty plain cake, not to mention a little stale. I still had a good time, especially since I thought I had already seen all of Vincent Price's best performances. Oh, and if this movie and House on Haunted Hill are of any indication, William Castle sure had a hang-up with wives, didn't he?



I think I'll be able to watch one more of these before the end of the month. It's been fun.
Oh, and someone else should give my movie (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) a chance. It's great. Trust me.



I think I'll be able to watch one more of these before the end of the month. It's been fun.
Oh, and someone else should give my movie (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) a chance. It's great. Trust me.
It's great all right. I've seen it several times so I don't think I'd rewatch it. It's probably the best example of stop motion animation done by the master Ray Harryhausen.




The Tingler (1959)

Gotta love the ballyhoo salesmanship of William Castle. Probably the best part of his movies are the unique way that he found to promote them by involving the audience in some sort of creative 'gag' tie-in. With The Tingler he introduced movie patrons patooties to 'Percepto'...aka an ass buzzer which was wired into the theater seats. Such a naughty boy Castle was

But wait...there's more! At select theaters 'shill screamers' would let out a blood curdling screams, which if you've seen the film renders the Tingler num and limp. Such a fun concept that I wish I had a time machine and could see this first run on opening night 1959.

Count me as a fan of William Castle. I've seen most all of his filmography and The Tingler is one of his best done films.
@Thief
Oh yeah, definitely agree that I would've loved to be on one of those theaters back then.



I still owe a couple of reviews for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The Deadly Mantis. I might also write something about The Blob and The Tingler, since I've already seen it. Before February ends, I might try to sneak in another one; maybe Destination Moon.





Gog (1954)

This is a bit of an odd duck of a film. It was originally shot for 3-D which doesn't really work. It's also basically a mystery film which is sadly underwritten and poorly delivered which had the film been better it could have really worked.

A group of scientists are in a bunker working on a satellite to beat the Russians. Gog and Magog refer to two robot helpers when shenanigans start happening the crew of the underground lab start dying one by one. It's a solid concept but the execution is lacking the robot effects don't really function that well and you see everything. The characters are very flat and the film dips into camp at several points.

It's a strange film to ask people to watch.






Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

In 1957 Roger Corman released 8 movies this was one of two he released in the same month. The man had chutzpah. It's almost a shame that he didn't do more with this project because the idea of a group of people trapped on an Island being stalked and murdered by a telepathic crab...it's a great idea.

The film has great effects for the era, underwater photography, the Crab moves pretty great and while the effects are cheesy they are effective. Hell the story isn't even half bad...the only thing that doesn't work...is the crab talks. Their is a way to do it and not make it dumb just kinda like keep it mysterious and it could have worked.

The pacing is also really good here, every scene feels like it would look great the trailer. Something that I think works for the genre.




Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

The pacing is also really good here, every scene feels like it would look great the trailer. Something that I think works for the genre.

This makes sense. Wikipedia says that, according to the writer, Corman told him: "I want suspense or action in every scene. No kind of scene without suspense or action."



I watched The Deadly Mantis. I love praying mantids, I've kept quite a few as pets, and currently have three, an adult Texas unicorn mantis (she's very cool looking), and two Australian rain forest nymphs, tiny now but will be quite big when they become adults. As for the movie, it's actually competently made. Decent actors and I found the special effects decent given the genre, but man, the movie itself feels like it was made from some very generic creature feature template, with "mantis" inserted. There's not one original second in the entire film. The characters are stock, and very bland at that. And I realize it's silly to nitpick these types of films, given we all know insects can't grow to 200 feet, but still, I fail to see how a prehistoric insect frozen for millions of years could thaw out in the friggin' arctic. Also insects are cold-blooded, but I guess the creature feature template had the setting in the arctic, so they couldn't be bothered to set the movie on, say, a tropical island or somewhere temperate. I'll give it a
to be nice and because it features a mantis.
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Out of the other nominated films, I've seen The Blob and Attack of the Crab Monsters. The Blob is a good one of the genre but I can't say Attack of the Crab Monsters is one of Roger Corman's better films.



Gog -


This is a fun and scary little '50s B-movie that's part hard sci-fi, part techno-thriller and part murder mystery, and it succeeds at all three without seeming overstuffed. First of all, talk about claustrophobic! Whether intentional, the result of budgetary limitations or because I'm a pretty claustrophobic person, I felt just as confined as the scientists. I would go as far to say that it has the same appeal in this regard as The Thing from Another World and its 1982 remake. The fact that the movie is so prescient is also why it held me interest and resonates so much, whether due to the mysterious entity wreaking havoc on the facility essentially being a hacker or the movie exposing the dangers of relying too much on AI. Since it's apparently going to be writing our literature and generating our artwork now, it's too bad the view count on IMDB isn't a little higher, huh? There's also that expertly edited nail-biter of a finale, which deserves bonus points and not demerits for its use of stock footage.

As is typical of '50s B-movies - at least the ones I've seen - it's as if there is more talk than action, which makes things tedious at times. Also, this may be due to the low budget or the technology being relatively new at the time, but the movie doesn't do a great job at showing the effects of radiation on humans. The talk is at least interesting - to this sci-fi lover, anyway - and I appreciate that it respects the audience's intelligence. Again, for how scarily prescient the movie is and for delivering so much fun and chills about the nuclear age on a peanuts budget, I can think of few better ways for hard sci-fi and/or claustrophobic thriller lovers to spend 80 minutes. I'm still holding out hope for a Half-Life adaptation, but in case we don't get one, we at least have this movie, which despite not having a dimensional rift sort of serves as a Half-Life prequel.