Year Of Production: 1956
Running Time: 80 Minutes
DVD Released By: Retromedia Entertainment Inc.
Directed By: Dan Milner
Writing Credits: Dorys Lukather (story), Lou Rusoff
Filming Location: Unknown
Starring: Kent Taylor, Cathy Downs, Michael Whalen, Phillip Pine, Rodney Bell, Vivi Janiss, Helene Stanton, Pierce Lyden, Michael Garth
Tagline: Freezing Horror! ...as a nightmare strikes from the depths of the sea!
Alternate Titles:
I was unable to find any reference to alternate titles for this film.
Interesting Bits of Trivia:
Between 1931 and 1974, Kent Taylor, who played Dr. Ted Stevensin this film, appeared in one hundred and eighteen films throughout his career, and made numerous television appearances. Some of his better known film credits include, The Crawling Hand, The Mighty Gorga, Brain of Blood, Blood of Ghastly Horror, and I Spit on Your Corpse, which was his last film. Kent died on April 11, 1987 in Woodland Hills, California.
The Plot
A scientist who has been
performing radiation tests in the sea, not only manages to create
an ultra powerful death ray, but creates a hideous, mutated sea
monster in the process. Ted Stevens, a scientist, and Bill
Grant, a special investigator for the Department of Defense,
are sent to investigate when strange, radiation related deaths
begin to occur in the sea around the College of Oceanography.
Will Inspector Grant and Dr. Stevens be able to solve this
mystery and stop the creature before it kills again? Let's
read on and see...
| What The Hell??? |
| 1. Hey cool, this DVD starts out with one of those old intermission thingies saying how you should remove the speaker from your car and what not before you back out. Unfortunately, this is followed by an opening intro thingie by some schmuck named Fred. During this opening sequence, Fred is at a drive in where he introduces the movie. Now I'm going to warn you right here, there are several gratuitous boobie shots, (very nice boobies I might add), during this opening intro. If you got kids around and you'd rather them not see that, then I'd suggest you skip it and go straight to the movie. I'm really not sure why they would have an opening like that on what is basically probably a G rated movie. Now I'm not even the least little bit of a prude, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to include something like that with a B-Movie classic. On top of that, the opening little speech by Fred isn't even interesting. The whole thing basically has nothing to do with anything other than that he introduces the movie. Now when I say introduces, I don't mean that he gives us a lot of little factoids and interesting tidbits about the movie and it's history. Basically, he rambles on about nothing and then says that we're going to see The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues. Gee, no kiddin? Really? I thought I was gonna see Snow White and the Seven Freakin' Dwarves. Well now I'm disappointed. Basically, this was a stupid thing to throw on the front of this DVD. If they were really that desperate to have someone introduce it, they should have gotten someone cool like Elvira to do it. Not only does she have a great set of hooters, but she's way cool and has made an entire career out of doing stuff like that. So there ya go. They could have killed two birds with one stone right there. In the absence of someone like Elvira, having nothing would have been far preferable. Ok, I've vented enough about that now, so let's get on with the show. |
| 2. The movie opens with some dude in a stupid lookin' longshoreman's hat standing in a pretty small rowboat out in the middle of the ocean. He seems to be out fishing with a big net. I'm not really sure why he's out in a boat that size trying to fish with a net, but ok. So now we got this idiot floating around in a rowboat lookin' over the edge like he just dropped both his oars in the water or somethin', and oh my goodness gracious looky here, it's his lucky day. There's a goofy looking monster coming up to the surface to say hello to him! The monster is right up next to the boat now. Now the boat's capsizing. Now the monster had his nose in the guy's crotch. And I mean this thing was seriously nosin' the guy's crotch in such a way that it looked obscene. Now the monster grabbed the guy and is pulling him down under the water. Now it looks like the sea monster is trying to hump the guy's leg. Now the guy is dying. Now the guy is getting paid his five bucks for appearing in the movie for around two minutes. Now he's going home and laying in his bed in the fetal position and crying because he can't seem to get a movie part that will allow him to buy more than a can of Alpo for dinner. Um...what the hell was I doing? Oh right, the movie. I guess you'd probably like me to get back to it huh? |
| 3. Ok so now we get the opening credits, followed by a shot of the rowboat guy laying on the beach with his overturned rowboat laying there in the sand next to him. I'm not even going to get into how both of them not only managed to make it to the beach, but how they managed to land so close together, and with him all in one piece considering that he was just attacked by a crotch sniffing sea monster. Oh man, I can see right now that this is gonna be a fun review. There's two other people on the beach. There's one guy standing next to the body with his hands in his pockets, and another guy a little ways off who's coming over to see what happened. They show a shot of the guy with his hands in his pockets from a distance and from the back, and I swear to god it looks like he's taking a leak on the dead guy. I mean just the way he's standing there...it's hilarious. That guy turns around and spots the other guy and takes off down the beach. Now the guy that was approaching goes over to the body, and a third guy enters the picture at this point. Why, it's none other than William S. Grant, special investigator from the Department Of Defense in Washington. He comes up to the other guy and tells him not to touch the body. He's very insistent that the other guy stay out of it and not touch the body. The other guy stands up and looks at William's credentials and says, "Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants." No he doesn't actually say that. Actually, he tells William that his name is Ted Baxter and that he's staying at the local hotel. (Having bad Mary Tyler Moore flashbacks now for some reason.) He says that his occupation is beach comber and tourist and he says it in such a jaunty way, that you just know he's kidding around. Isn't he a silly goose? Finally he tells the truth and says that he's there to see Professor King from the College of Oceanography and that he was on his way to Professor King's house when he spotted the dead guy on the beach. Now isn't that convenient. Just like in Monster From The Ocean Floor where one of the main characters just happened to be a marine biologist. Go figure huh? |
| 4. Uh oh, there some guy named with a spear gun spying on them from the bushes on the side of the hill. Turns out, his name is George Thomas and he works at the College of Oceanography. He's Professor King's assistant. William grills him and then tells him to take off and forget that he was even there tonight. Now unless this monster is some secret government experiment that got away or something, I don't see how it's any business of this William S. Grant's anyway. Shouldn't someone call the cops or somethin'? |
| 5. So George takes off and now we cut to the guy who looked like he was taking a leak on the body. He's climbing up a few stairs and then walks into his house. He looks all nervous. Oh my god he was nervous. The bottoms of the legs on his sweat pants are all wet. I guess he did that when he was taking a leak on the body and the other guy came along and scared him. Some woman just walked in the room. Hopefully we'll find out who she is in a minute. She just told the guy that he's soaking wet. We'll just call that Brilliant observation #1 shall we? He tells her that he was wet because he found a wonderful marine specimen and went in after it. Sure, that's it buddy. Make up some excuse. We all saw what you were doin'. Anyway, she tells him that she's never felt him being so detached from her before and he tells her that they're working on wonderful things at the college. I'm assuming at this point that this is Professor King. Yes, the Professor King, or as his friends like to call him, P.P. King. I don't know if he plays the blues or if that's just some kinda inside joke his buddies have or what. Now he's telling the girl that he doesn't trust his assistant George or his secretary Ethel. I wonder if that's because they've been spreading rumors around the campus about his dirty little habit of leaking all over dead bodies on the beach? Or not. In any case, that joke as run it's course so I'll find something new to rip on him about now. Probably his hair by the looks of it, but only time will tell. |
| 6. Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. The professor tells the girl to tell whoever it is that he's asleep and to just get rid of whoever it is. Now this girl, is probably his wife although she's young enough to be his daughter. She was probably was just one of his students that wanted an A+ and ended up marrying the ol' coot just to get it. Anyway, he runs off into the bedroom and the girl answers the door. It's Ted Baxter at the door ladies and gentlemen, let's all give him a nice big round of applause. So he comes in and the girl says that Professor King is asleep and he has been for about an hour. Ted looks down at the floor and sees two wet footprints. We'll just call that the Don't have to be a rocket scientist observation #1. He tells her to go tell the professor that he's there and that he really needs to speak with him. She has this look on her face like she's a little girl and she's just been caught in a major lie. Finally she heads off to the bedroom to get the professor. |
| 7. Ok now at least that question has been answered. It's his daughter, because she's calling him dad while she knocks on the door. No answer. She opens the door, but he's not in there. I wonder if he's out getting his crotch sniffed by that leg humping sea monster? Ted took off by the way since the ol' professor wasn't around. |
| 8. Totally pointless scene alert! Mr. Grant was out on the beach during the evening hours by the looks of it, and he spots a turtle in the sand. Nothing special here, just a turtle. He picks it up and examines it and smiles. Excuse me while I fall asleep. What the hell did that have to do with the plot or his character development or anything. So he has a soft spot for little harmless creatures. Whoopie! I guess next we'll get to see him volunteering at the old folks home or something. Anyway, George Thomas is in the bushes again spying on him. He seems to be quite good at that. There's something quite perverted about this whole spying thing but I won't get into it here. So now the scene changes, and we got Ted listening in a set of headphones to some device that looks like a geiger counter. Mr. Grant comes over to him and starts harassing him again. An this time, he knows the truth. He tells Dr. Stevens, yes I said Dr. Stevens that he's famous in Washington and they know all about him and his work. Apparently ol' Teddy Baxter wasn't Teddy Baxter after all. Wonder why he would lie to the nice government agent man. I think he should get a good crotch sniffin' from the monster for doing that. It would serve him right. Apparently the good doctor created the first known death ray in the course of his research. Now lemme tell you something here folks. If I invented something totally cool like a death ray, I'd be seriously rich. Then I'd hire a team of animators to make an animated movie of me using my death ray to fight crime and evil. How cool would that be??? Then I'd go down to the local club and have them show it on the big screen and score chicks and...uh...um...oh movie, right. |
| 9. Now we're at the Pacific College of Oceanography. Professor King's secretary, Ethel, just came in and man is she homely. Andy the janitor started telling her about the dead body they found out on the beach and whining about how stuff like that never happened before they opened the school. Ethel don't wanna hear it and blows him off. Then Andy starts in on George saying how he's been following the professor around, hiding in the bushes and spying on him. I'm thinkin' maybe George just has the hots for the ol' professor or something. Maybe he saw him in his skin-tight wet suit or something and was just overcome with emotion. Or not... Anyway, the professor walks in and catches Andy going on and on about George. Andy shuts up at that point and the professor sets his books down on the desk. There's a piece of paper sticking out from between them, and while the professor's not looking, Ethel tries to snag it. Just as she reaches for it though, the professor turns around and she yanks her hand back just in time. I swear I was sitting here just screaming at the screen, "Yeah baby! Denied!!!" So the professor picks up his stuff and walks into his office as she just sits there lookin' all ticked off. Unfortunately, she wasn't denied for long because the nutty professor dropped the paper on his way into the office and little miss fisheye spotted it with a quickness. |
| 10. So Ethel pries her can out of the permanent butt cheek dents that I'm sure are in the seat of her poor old chair and runs across the floor, top speed, and grabs the piece of paper. Just as she picks it up and starts reading it, George walks in. She tries to hide the paper by sticking it in her breast pocket but he takes it out of her pocket and reads it. Man, I wouldn't get my hands within ten feet of this woman's breasts. That's just scary. Ethel gets all huffy and walks back to her desk while George starts comparing the paper with some chart in a box on top of the filing cabinet. George tells Ethel that he has to get into the professor's lab. Ethel says that she could tell the professor what he's up to and he threatens her with a spear gun and basically makes her think twice about it. At least it'd be an appropriate use for the spear gun. I mean after all, you are supposed to spear fish with it. |
| 11. So now we cut to Dr. Stevens going out scuba diving in some little rowboat. You know it's a little odd that living so close to the water, no one seems to have a real boat. Anyway, Dr. Stevens dives into the water and after we're treated to a scene that looks like it came straight out of Monster From The Ocean Floor, we're taken back to the professors lab where he's in a radiation suit and it looks like he's pelting some poor sea turtle with radiation. Man, that's just not cool. What'd this turtle ever do to him? Back to Dr. Stevens now. The creature's hanging out there in the water pretty near to where the good doctor is swimming around. I'd like to mention at this juncture, that Dr. Stevens has got on some seriously ugly, polka dot swim trunks. I guess that's what saved him though since the monster just spotted him and he was still able to swim back up to the surface and get away. I guess the monster had temporary polka dot blindness or something. |
| 12. Back up on the shore, Dr. Stevens finds Lois spreading out her blanket on the beach. He walks over to her, and asks her if when she left the house today, she did it through the front door or if she went out through the window like her father did last night. Snap! That was a sweet line. Not exactly a way to pick up a chick, but it was well deserved I think. Anyway, she says that she went out the front door and that she leaves the window exits to her father. Now somethin' just ain't right here. This guy seems awful calm for someone who just saw a radioactive sea monster. If it was me, I think I'd be thankful that the sea water had washed out my drawers by the time I got up to the surface. I mean, there's nothing more embarrassing than trying to score with some chick on the beach when you got messed up polka dot drawers on. A little chit-chat ensues between Ted (Dr. Stevens) and Lois. She wants to go for a swim, but he tells her she can't because it's not safe. She's touched because he cares about her and they end up on nice terms. |
| 13. Now we go back to the lab where we find the professor milling around looking for some ocean current charts. He couldn't find them so he comes out and sends Ethel down to the supply room to get them. Just then, Ted comes in and asks to speak to the professor. They go into his office, and Ted starts talking to the professor about the dead fisherman he saw on the beach and how he thinks that whatever killed him was manmade. He asks for some charts and what not of the ocean floor in the nearby area and the professor tells him that he can come by the house tonight to pick them up. So Ted goes to leave the professor's office. He opens the door, and they see a big shadow of a woman's head on the wall. Ted's all, "You can come in now miss." Then when Ethel comes walking in, he looks at her and he's all, "I hope you found the conversation interesting." Now you'll have to excuse me for a minute... Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Oh man, that serves the nosy ol' trout right. She totally deserved that. The professor's all ticked off now. He's all, "You're an inquisitive woman, aren't you Ethel?" Then get stomps off back into his office and pulls out a book written by Dr. Ted Stevens. He packs it in his bag and then gets ready to leave. |
| 14. Back at the professor's house, Lois is milling around getting ready for her shower. Ted knocks on the door and when no one answers, he walks on in. Lois is in the shower, so he just plops his can down on the couch and waits. After about the shortest shower in history, Lois wraps a towel around herself and comes out, only to be surprised by Ted and then jump back in the bathroom. Ted makes a face here that's just priceless. It's that, hmmm, nice! face with a jaunty little smile. It certainly got a good laugh out of me. I don't know why she's so freaked out. They'll probably hook up by the end of the movie and he'll end up seeing her naked anyway. Might as well get it over with now. She can't get the zipper up on her dress and she asks him to help her with it. Again with the jaunty little smile, and he helps her with the zipper. Man, there's some serious chemistry goin' on here. |
| 15. So at this point, the professor comes walking in. He gives Ted the papers he wanted and then tells him that he know's who he is. I don't know why Ted's so intent on trying to hide his identity from people. They never said and it doesn't seem to be working since everyone seems to find out who he is within a day or so. Ted starts going into how a few years ago, they found a deposit of uranium ore in the ocean. Now they found a beam of light coming up through the ocean and found out that it's radioactive. The professor asked him if he's investigated it, but Ted says that the spot is guarded by some hideous beast. What follows now is a bunch of boring scientific talk that I won't bother with because it would make this review way longer than it already is. Basically, the radioactive source material is mixed with heavy water to create a chain reaction of unbelievable destructive power. Someone who's working ont hat ray has offered it for sale to the highest bidder and I think Ted is suspecting the professor. Anyway, they got a call toward the end of their conversation. Inspector Grant is going to go diving and wants to borrow some equipment from the college. |
| 16. So Ted leaves and the professor comes out and tells Ethel to get the equipment ready for Inspector Grant. After he tells her that, he starts asking her what she thinks a just punishment would be for someone who would betray his fellow man for money. One who would take a discovery of monumental scope, and use it to line his or her pockets. Then he asks her if she would consider death a just punishment. She doesn't answer but I think it probably has something to do with the spear gun he was holding while he asked her that. He walks back in his office and she dives back behind her desk, grabs the phone, and calls Inspector Grant. And here, I was all thinkin' she was gonna be the bad one in all this along with George. Oh well, I still hope the monster eats her. |
| 17. It's night now, and George has hooked up with some hot blonde out by her car on the beach road. She's apparently a foreign agent and she's paying George a lot of money to deliver the info on the weapon. She tells him to do what he has to to stop Inspector Grant's dive tomorrow, which he's doing now in this next scene by sabotaging the breathing apparatus. I'm seeing several similarities here between this movie and Monster From The Ocean Floor. In that one, Pablo sabotaged Julie's diving gear as well, except in that movie he just released a bunch of air out of her tanks before she went down. |
| 18. Ethel is meeting up with Inspector Grant now at some cafe. She's gonna tell him everything he wants to know. Nothing funny there except that if I was sitting across the table from her, I don't think I'd be able to eat. |
| 19. Back to the professor's house now where Lois is waiting for Ted to show up for their date. The professor is talking to her now about how scientists sell their souls to science and blah blah blah... As Ted and Lois take off on their date, we see George sitting up on the roof spying on the whole thing. Man what a creep. Don't they have laws against that or something? |
| 20. Back at the cafe, Ethel is accusing the professor of treason. She's telling Inspector Grant that if she could only get into the professor's office, she could get him all the proof he needs. Inspector grant offers to show her how to make a wax impression of the lock on the door and she agrees to to it. See, apparently the professor sent her only son out on some little skiff to gather sea specimens for him and he got killed. That's why she's so bitter. Now why she looks like a fish...that's anybody's guess. Uh oh, that blonde that George was talking to earlier was there and overheard the whole conversation. They showed her as Inspector Grant was walking out with Ethel. |
| 21. Looks like Ted and Lois went scuba diving on their date. Now I don't know about you, but to me that seems like a pretty sweet first date. Too bad the monster is hanging around where they're scuba diving. Seems kinda odd that they'd be out diving knowing that that thing is out there. I sure as hell wouldn't. So they swim around and the monster just looks at them and doesn't do anything. At least, not while they're down there. Once they get back up to the boat, the monster comes up and tips the boat over and they both disappear into the water. Now, I'm not going to change what I said about this being Ted and Lois because I was mistaken and I want you to see why I thought that. After Ted and Lois walked away from the house, we see a couple in the water scuba diving. I assumed it was them because I had no reason to think otherwise since they hadn't shown any other couples in this movie. It wasn't Ted and Lois after all though, it was just some anonymous couple that gets killed by the monster. In fact, I'm not even really sure why they threw that in there except that it was a good reason to show the monster again. |
| 22. So Ted and Lois go for a walk on the beach, and they come across another overturned rowboat and the two dead people laying on the beach. Yes, once again they were laying next to the rowboat. I guess it's just one of the great mysteries of our time how that's happening. Anyway, George is up on the side of the hill in the bushes again with a spear gun. Ted tells Lois to go home and call Bill Grant and to tell him what they found and that he would wait there for his instructions. After she goes running off, George takes a shot at Ted and misses. Ted chases him, but he goes running off to his car and escapes. Ted goes back to the boat and carefully grabs the arrow with a handkerchief. Now that's smart. Most people would have just just grabbed it with their greasy ol' hands and totally blew any evidence value it may have had. Now if he had been smart enough to take Lois somewhere where their date wouldn't have been interrupted by dead bodies, overturned boats, and stray spears, he just might have had a chance to score tonight. |
| 23. Down at the county morgue, Bill and Ted... Oh man I just realized that. Their names are Bill and Ted. How funny is that? Anyway, Bill and Ted were checking out the bodies under a sheet and Bill's all like, "This is most heinous!" and Ted's all, "Yes, this is totally bogus!" No, they didn't really say that. Would have been funny if they did though. Anyway, Bill says that these bodies are burned worse than the other one was. On the way out, Bill says that he had a talk with Washington, and found out that they had put Ted on the case too. He didn't know that Ted worked for the government too, and now they're working on it together. So they're planning on going on the dive tomorrow morning together and Ted is all telling Bill how he'll need to draw the monster away so that he can examine the shaft of radioactive light. Man, I'd be like, "Say what?!?!?" Now that I think about it, there's something else I don't get. How come these guys keep diving down where they know there's radioactivity, and they just wear like a pair of swim trunks and diving gear? Shouldn't they arrange for some radiation proof diving suits or something? I mean jeez, not only is their a heavy duty radiation source down there, but there's a monster who can cook anything it touches. Come on guys, you gotta think about things like this before you go out doing this kinda stuff. |
| 24. Next morning now and Bill and Ted are heading out to the rowboat with their scuba gear. I'm still wondering why none of these boats have motors and why all there seems to be in this place is little rowboats instead of real fishing boats. Bill just about passed out when he put his gear on. Apparently, George stuck some kind of a pill in each of the mouthpieces that was supposed to knock them out. Fortunately, they found them before they went down and managed to avoid disaster. Ted has on his polka dot swim trunks again by the way. |
| 25. Dive, dive dive, swim, swim, swim, monster, monster, monster.... Bill shoots at the monster with his spear gun and then they swim back up to the rowboat with a quickness and row their way back to shore. Well now, other than seeing the monster, that seems like a pretty wasted trip. Back on shore, Bill and Ted make a plan to go to the professor's laboratory that evening and get the evidence. |
| 26. George comes into the professor's front office and tells Ethel that he has to get into that office today, otherwise he'll end up dead. She tells him that she has enough problems of her own without worrying about his. I mean, yeah I guess she does, what with all those horny fish chasing her around all the time. |
| 27. Ted goes and talks to the professor at his house. He tells him about everything they found on the dive and the professor tells him that he's the victim of an overactive imagination. Right after this, we see George on the beach talking to that blonde again. Her name is Wanda and she's pretty irritating. She tells George about spotting Ethel talking to Bill the previous night at that cafe. George is getting desperate now and the people that are waiting for him to give them the information they're after, aren't going to wait forever. Nothing really funny here either...just filler. |
| 28. The professor goes into his office and Ethel is on her way out. She's in a major hurry. The professor goes into his lab and finds a broken glass on the floor and gets suspicious. Ethel bails, and as she's walking down the beach on her way home, George shoots her in the back with a spear gun from his perch in the bushes on the side of the hill. Back at the professor's house, Ted, Lois, and the professor are talking when the police come in and tell them that they found Ethel murdered on the beach and that she was killed with one of the school's spear guns. |
| 29. Next day now, and Bill and Ted are talking on the beach when a cop shows up and tells them that they solved the case already. They found the spear gun in George Thomas' car with his fingerprints all over it. And to top it off, he didn't come home last night. The cop says that he called the college to tell the professor that he was in the clear, but he wasn't there. Ted said he was probably at home and that he'd go do it. He finds them sitting on a bench along the road by the beach. He tells them that George Thomas was the murderer and then asks to speak to the professor alone. It comes out that the professor knew about this uranium deposit all along and Ted wants to know how he activated it. He says that he started with one of Ted's experiments and took it farther than he ever imagined. Ted wants to know how to shut it down, but the professor doesn't want to. He says to give him an hour to think about it. Ted says he doesn't have a choice and gives him the time he asked for. You know, a swift blow to the head can work wonders in helping people make up their mind. |
| 30. Oh good, while the professor's off making his decision, a cargo ship floated over the light ray in the ocean and exploded. Ted and Lois saw it from in front of the professor's house, and the professor saw it from his lab. The professor is totally destroying his lab now. At least he was, until the janitor, Andy, interrupted him. The professor asks him to clean up and says goodbye to Andy. |
| 31. Out on the beach, the cops busted that wanda chick and when George came over to see her they busted him too. He told them that the professor was the one who planted that radiation thing out there in the ocean. Bill heads off to find the professor after this little illuminating tidbit of information. Ted and Lois and now Bill have all converged on the lab now. Andy's still cleanin' up the joint and tells them that the professor did it and then he took off. Sounds kinda like one of them rock star/hotel room kinda deals doesn't it? |
| 32. The professor's out on the water now in his little rowboat. He's loaded up this little metal box with a time bomb and he's diving down to where the radiation beam is so that he can destroy it. Well, he set the box down, but the creature grabbed him and held on to him before he could get away. The bomb went off just as Bill, Lois, and Ted got to the beach. Now if this was the movie Tremors, there'd be monster guts and human guts plastering these people right about now. But since it's only a cheap monster movie, we didn't get to see that. |
| 33. The movie's over now. You can all go to the bathroom now if you have to before we get to the conclusion. |
Ok, it's almost 2:30 AM and I've been working on this review for several days now. I'm happy to say though, that in this case, it's not because the movie was bad. It's only because of a lack of time and energy on my part. This movie itself was actually quite good in it's own way, but there were a few minor problems with it that kept it from getting a better rating.
First off is the title. This sea monster is not a phantom and it sure as hell doesn't come from 10,000 leagues. It's a mutated sea creature that comes from probably about twenty feet down at the most. Another problem relating to the creature is that it really doesn't do much. It's not overly vicious, and it doesn't even really brutally murder anyone. I mean sure it kills them, but it's basically the exposure to the radiation that the creature gives off that kills them. All the creature really does to anyone is grab them and hold them under the water, which I guess is another way to kill them, but whatever. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Another little problem I have with the script is how Ted Stevens tells people that his name is really Ted Baxter. Now first of all, I couldn't see any reason at all to hide his true identity in this movie, and secondly, every time he gave someone that bogus name, they always found out who he really was within like a day, so there really wasn't any point in him using an alias.
The last problem I had with this movie, is that although they showed the creature more than most movies of this type usually do, there really wasn't much action associated with it. This movie was good, but it was also boring on a lot of levels. There wasn't a lot of action from the creature or the actors, and basically, the plot ran in a straight line all the way through the film with only a very few side branches that didn't really mean much to the story as a whole. Like the Wanda character for example. Now here was a character that was not really thought out or developed during the writing process, and the actress that played her didn't make things any better. Ted was a likeable character and Inspector Grant ended up being kind of likeable as well. Both roles were well acted and made you actually care about the characters. Lois was likeable enough but ended up being mostly window dressing without a lot of substance. Her father, the professor, was kind of a mixed character. In some ways he was likeable and a good father to Lois, and in others he was kind of a sneak and let his ambitions run away with him. He kept switching back and forth between the two and it became kinda irritating on a minor level. George never really had much of a role in this, and I'm not really sure what they were thinking when they wrote this character into the script. He was supposed to be the professor's assistant, but I can't think of any time where I even saw them in the same room together. His character was just an unnecessary branch in the plot that was trimmed off at the end.
Although this film had it's share of problems, the cool monster and the good acting from all the characters made it totally worth watching. I've seen some reviews of this movie that were less than flattering, but in the final analysis, I think the question with any movie has to be, did you feel like you just wasted your time watching it. In this case, the answer is no. All in all, this is a pretty decent movie, and I'm very happy to give it...
No comments:
Post a Comment