A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

I had a Virgil Vogel triple feature this weekend, as one does.

THE MOLE PEOPLE (1956)

Ward Cleaver and his team climb a mountain and discover a race of underground dwellers and the less-than-attractive creatures that they use as slave labor. (The leader of this group is Alfred the Butler.) Mostly well-written, this one is notable for creature designs by Milicent Patrick.

I encourage everyone to research Ms. Patrick's fascinating but frustrating story. Short version: Designed the Gill-Man for Creature from the Black Lagoon, but was not given credit because the head of the studio's makeup department was jealous of the acclaim she was getting. She pretty much never worked in monster design again. (She also designed Fantasia's Chernabog, so....yeah. She was awesome.)
Lady From the Black Lagoon



THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957)

A research team heads to Antarctica for...research, and discovers an inexplicably not-frozen area which happens to be infested with prehistoric creatures. The dinos are a mixture of real lizards on miniature sets, and guys in T Rex suits. My standards are incredibly low, so I enjoyed this one too.



TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN (1959)

So apparently an American studio bought a pre-existing Swedish film and inserted some English-language scenes (a la Raymond Burr's Godzilla). There appears to be two American-ized versions, in fact. Invasion of the Animal People, with new scenes featuring John Carradine, and Terror in the Midnight Sun, sans-Carradine. It's my understanding that the latter is closest to the Swedish film, so that's the one I went with.

Is the monster dopey-looking? Yes. But I did like the way they managed to convey the size of the thing, through forced perspective and miniatures and camera placement, etc.

And when someone is about to get stomped they'd switch to the monster's POV which again gives you a sense of scale.
This is not a lost classic by any means, but we've often said that when you watch enough films from a certain genre you tend to appreciate the little things that make it stand out, and I'd file this one there.