Trog (1970) -
Not much to get mad at with this one. Heck, aside from the design of Trog, there's not much to find campy or cheesy about it either. Rather, it's a fairly well-made film. It clearly knows what it wants to say and presents its themes relatively well. At its heart, the film is about the dangers of science when it's conducted at the expense of other people. Dr. Brockton wishes to look after the creature as, with the right care and trainers, she believes she can get the creature to not be violent, but barely anyone else supports her. This theme might've fallen apart if it was too one-sided, but fortunately, the characters are balanced enough so that you can see both sides of the argument. While it's clear that Trog behaves well under Brockton's care, the unpredictability of Trog and the damages it causes throughout the film are made as clear as day. Granted, I do think the writing of Murdock, the main person who was opposed to Brockton, could've been handled better as his sexism and constant interruptions during the courtroom scenes felt like ham-fisted attempts to get you to dislike him even more. Still though, the film gets more right than wrong with the characters. Also, some of the horror sequences were rather memorable. The scenes which took place in the caves looked really nice and came with some cool shots such as the cavers disappearing into the darkness in the opening. I also think the final act has some cool touches, like the presence of the young girl having parallels to an earlier scene of Trog playing with a doll (for the most part though, the final act is fairly unsatisfying since it takes a bit too much from Frankenstein to breathe). As I stated at the start, the design of Trog is the only cheesy thing I noticed about the film as you can clearly see it's just a person wearing a mask (also, was it wearing slippers?). However, I'd describe the design of the creature more as campy rather than bad. So, while this film doesn't break any new ground, I think it worked reasonably well and I could even see myself revisiting it sometime in the future.
Not much to get mad at with this one. Heck, aside from the design of Trog, there's not much to find campy or cheesy about it either. Rather, it's a fairly well-made film. It clearly knows what it wants to say and presents its themes relatively well. At its heart, the film is about the dangers of science when it's conducted at the expense of other people. Dr. Brockton wishes to look after the creature as, with the right care and trainers, she believes she can get the creature to not be violent, but barely anyone else supports her. This theme might've fallen apart if it was too one-sided, but fortunately, the characters are balanced enough so that you can see both sides of the argument. While it's clear that Trog behaves well under Brockton's care, the unpredictability of Trog and the damages it causes throughout the film are made as clear as day. Granted, I do think the writing of Murdock, the main person who was opposed to Brockton, could've been handled better as his sexism and constant interruptions during the courtroom scenes felt like ham-fisted attempts to get you to dislike him even more. Still though, the film gets more right than wrong with the characters. Also, some of the horror sequences were rather memorable. The scenes which took place in the caves looked really nice and came with some cool shots such as the cavers disappearing into the darkness in the opening. I also think the final act has some cool touches, like the presence of the young girl having parallels to an earlier scene of Trog playing with a doll (for the most part though, the final act is fairly unsatisfying since it takes a bit too much from Frankenstein to breathe). As I stated at the start, the design of Trog is the only cheesy thing I noticed about the film as you can clearly see it's just a person wearing a mask (also, was it wearing slippers?). However, I'd describe the design of the creature more as campy rather than bad. So, while this film doesn't break any new ground, I think it worked reasonably well and I could even see myself revisiting it sometime in the future.