Yep, here be the annual giant monster movies. And this time, they’re a trio of B&W flicks too? What a treat!
Anyways…
I have a funny history with spiders: one of my earliest
memories of horror films was being scared terribly by 1990’s Arachnophobia.
It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep even after the film was long over and my
dad kept insisting and stating that spiders weren’t going to crawl into our
popcorn or burst out of the walls. Even though the flick is (rightfully)
marketed as more of a horror-comedy, it got under 7-year-old Ryan’s skin more
than certified hood classics such as Alien or The Exorcist ever
did. And yet, less than a year later, the fear was all but gone and I went back
to loving them. Time is a strange thing.
That being said, I’m somewhat surprised that it took me over
thirty years to watch 1958’s schlockfest Earth vs. the Spider (renamed
to just The Spider at the last minute by the studio, but whoever edited
the opening credits must’ve missed the memo), as it is discussed in a staple
VHS tape of my childhood called “Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies.” I’ve talked
at length about this compilation in the past on at least two separate
occasions, but it is essentially a collection of assorted monster movie
trailers with everything ranging from classic pictures like Godzilla &
assorted Ray Harryhausen projects to pictures like At the Earth’s Core
and Son of Kong. Even as a kid though, I wondered “why does the titular
monster just look like a blown-up spider instead of an actual prop?” This was before I knew what “composite” films
were, and even if I had gotten around to watching this as a child, I think
seeing “spider handler” listed in the opening credits should’ve given away the
fact that this wasn’t exactly going to be of the highest quality.
Sure enough, I was 100% correct. However, that isn’t
necessarily a bad thing in the case of Earth vs the Spider, because it’s
almost so incompetent and cheaply made that it’s quite charming. Hell, I’d even
bet audiences at the time would’ve been laughing at this as much as I did. The primary
cast is full of people who are FAR too old to be playing teenagers (and some could’ve
had children of their own at that time for all I know), but not too young to
understand ‘B’ movie acting. The plot, for what it attempts to have, has a
couple of “teens” go in search of one of their missing parents, only to stumble
into the lair of a big spider that screams like an elderly woman yelling with a
stomachache because she ate too many enchiladas. They escape, and eventually
the spider gets out and causes trouble. I honestly couldn’t tell if the scenes
of panicked crowds were lifted from other films, but what I COULD tell while
watching this picture was how badly they treated the tarantulas used
throughout. I don’t want to sound like a buzzkill (and this might not mean much
to anyone who hates arachnids), but scenes of a “comatose” spider are clearly
that of an already deceased one flipped upside down, and a quick scene of
someone scooching a regular-sized tarantula off a table also bummed me out, as
they are surprisingly quite delicate creatures. Then again, I doubt that the
rules about animal cruelty during 1950s filmmaking applied to anything that sported
six or eight legs around that time. Oh well. On the plus side, the closeups of
the spider’s legs look like giant pool noodles covered with hay and hair. I
also learned that apparently rock and/or roll can revive a monster that’s close
to death. Can we try applying that to modern day science as well?
This is a perfectly fine and incredibly silly creature
feature. It’s nowhere near as solid as something like Them! or the Toho-distributed
bangers from Japan, but considering that it cost less than $150k to produce,
it’s a fun low budget monster movie to add to your monthly “bad movie nights”
that you may or may not do with your friends. If you lack the ability to make
newer friends like me though, there’s also a Mystery Science Theater 3000
riff out there for good measure as well.
Anyways, let’s get on to another flick from the
aforementioned Fantastic VHS tape. This one features an intimidating reptile
that up until February of this year, never had a single human fatality to its
name! Special shoutout to the “Tooth & Claw” Podcast for that fun little
bit of info.
The Giant Gila Monster was released around the end of
the 1950s when this kind of stuff was most likely burning out at a quicker pace
than expected. It’s directed by Ray Kellogg, who also helped give us the infamously
bad The Killer Shrews (of which this played alongside of as a double
feature in theaters). Both were shot back-to-back, which may explain why most
of this movie feels somewhat rushed and lacking in, well, everything. The plot initially
centers around a young couple who goes missing, and instead of wondering if the
two lovers could be in danger, the town sheriff is absolutely convinced that
they must’ve run off to get married. I have no clue as to how any person in law
enforcement (even from that period) would immediately jump to that conclusion
and why he’d have such a monumentally huge problem with that. Would he prefer
they were cutting one another into pieces or doing hard drugs? I politely ask
any of the older generation to give me an explanation about whether this was
normal or not. Anyways, regardless of whatever happened to the young lovers, a
giant lizard emerges from the far-off world of “Composite Island” to (very) slowly
terrorize the world.
So, I’ll get the good out of the way first: lead actor Don
Sullivan actually wrote all three original songs featured in the film. While
the songs aren’t particularly good, it’s kind of nice that he was willing to do
that for the sake of hopefully elevating the quality of the film. After all,
there have been plenty of below-average pictures with great songs in them, so why
not try at the very least? The Giant Gila Monster is also technically a
very short watch, clocking in at around the seventy-five minute mark.
As for the bad? Well, even for a short, bad ‘B’ movie, it is
HIDEOUSLY boring. If you were the watch the trailer for this online, nearly all
the “Gila Monster” footage was shown in there. Things don’t get particularly
fun until nearly an hour has gone by, which hurts quite bad when you remember what
the running time is. Also, it’s technically a Mexican Beaded Lizard being utilized
here, not a Gila Monster. Yes, they look similar, but it’s like when you stare
at a milk snake and a coral snake (though in this case, both lizards pack quite
a nasty bite).
While researching The Giant Gila Monster, I
discovered that filmmaking junkie and ‘Z’ movie connoisseur (yes, there are
grades in this field) Jim Wynorski apparently remade this in 2012. For those
unfamiliar with Wynorski’s filmography, he’s done everything from Chopping
Mall & The Return of Swamp Thing to nearly every bizarre porn
parody you’d catch on late night Skin-amax in the early 2000s. I’m not quite
sure if I’ll seek out his updated take (simply titled Gila!), but if I do,
there is no way in hell it can be as sluggish as this was. As was the case with
Earth vs the Spider, this was also infamously riffed in MST3K, and
the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew must be commended for taking on
something so uneventful and most likely turning chicken shit into chicken
salad.
If I were to wrap up this bizarre group of movies from the
past couple of days, I figured I’d venture outside of my comfort zone (or
rather, go for another 1950s creature feature that ISN’T featured on the VHS)
but stay in familiar territory. Thus, we get 1957’s The Black Scorpion, a
film about a group of kaiju-sized scorpions who emerge from beneath the earth
after volcanic activity disrupts their slumber. Plot-wise this is eerily
similar to 1954’s Them!, with the titular arachnids even sporting the same
chirping sound that the giant ants possessed. This cheapness isn’t terribly surprising
when you consider that both motion pictures were distributed by Warner Bros.,
who likely thought that general audiences would fall for anything. Given the legacy
and historical importance of both flicks, I’d say that they gambled and lost on
this one.
As for the cast and crew, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Lead actor
Richard Denning (also seen in Creature from the Black Lagoon and An
Affair to Remember) is strong, but everyone else around him is hit-or-miss.
I did feel very bad for leading lady Mara Corday though; in the same year as
this, she also starred in an all-timer of bad cinema called The Giant Claw (reviewed
right here!). Poor woman couldn’t seem to catch a break around this time. Hell,
two years prior to this and The Giant Claw, she starred in yet another
creature feature called Tarantula, which perhaps we’ll review on here
one day. The characters aren’t anything to write home about, but there are some
attempts at fleshing them out a bit when they’re not being terrorized by these
scurrying threats.
Oddly enough, The Black Scorpion marks the Unseen
Terror debut of stop-motion pioneer Willis O’Brien, who helped bless us with
influential projects such as King Kong, The Lost World, and Mighty Joe
Young (the latter also featured fellow legend Ray Harryhausen’s first
venture into animation work). It’s also one of the final pictures in O’Brien’s filmography,
as he would pass away five years after its release. Perhaps because of his
involvement, that may explain as to why we’re able to see some of the man’s
unused props from prior project King Kong in one scene inside of an
underground lair. During the first attempt at killing the monsters, a trapdoor
spider chases one of the side characters during its second act, and apparently
that creature was intended to appear in one of the most infamous bits of “lost”
footage from King Kong. That whole sequence (lovingly nicknamed “The
Spider Pit”) will likely never see the light of day unless someone gains access
to a time machine. As for the scorpions themselves? Well, the stop-motion effects
are quite solid, but the close-up shots of their drooling maws brought to mind
the giant spider from 1990’s It miniseries (and that is NOT a
compliment).
This is an overall very fun, if not dumb and slightly dated
monster flick from one of the genre’s pioneers. It isn’t one of Willis
O’Brien’s finest hours, but for fans of the old school creature feature stuff
and “natural” horror genre, this is one you can add to your collection. Come to
think of it, this could for a nice double feature with the aforementioned Earth
vs the Spider, all while you use a copy of The Giant Gila Monster as
a beverage coaster.
