The Crater Lake Monster

Rating:
Summary: "Steve, we're up against something that...
Review: ...goes against every natural law." Hmmm...that's exactly what I was thinking about this film as I watched it last night. The front of this Rhino DVD release for The Crater Lake Monster (1977) lists Stuart Whitman, Stella Stevens, and Tony Bill as the stars, but after watching the film last night, none of these three actors appear in this feature...a little research indicates they did appear together, in a film titled Las Vegas Lady (1975), which was also released to DVD by Rhino, so I suspect some sort of printing mix up (I kinda wish they had mixed up the films, as I feel Las Vegas Lady had to have been better than what I saw)...produced and directed by William R. Stromberg (gee his only film to date...big surprise), the film stars Richard Cardella (who also wrote this turkey), Glen Roberts (who looks quite a bit like George `Buck' Flowers), Mark Siegel (who would later discover his true calling behind the scenes, creating creatures for such films like Ghost Busters, Dune, and Poltergeist II), and Bob `Buster' Hyman (I'm speculating his nickname, given his last name).

As the story begins, a couple of paleontology students make a `startling' discovery in an abandoned mine of native drawings that, according to one of them, must be at least 1,000 years old (yeah, right...and I was looking for the `Fresh Paint' sign...seriously, the paint couldn't have been more than a day or two old). The (ahem) ancient paintings suggests that dinosaurs and man may have co-existed at some point...but alas, this amazing discovery is soon overshadowed by the arrival of a flaming meteor from space, which lands in nearby Crater Lake, causing the mine to collapse...but all is not lost, as the heat from the meteor warms the water to the point where a dormant dinosaur egg hatches, releasing a prehistoric relic that grows into a very hungry creature, whose diet seems to include fish, cattle, and the local hick population. After Sheriff Steve Hanson (Cardella) has a run in with the creature, the town seems split on what to do...there are those who feel the monster is bad for business and should be killed (the sheriff is inclined to agree after almost becoming `dino chow'...his words, not mine), but the scientific community (by scientific community I mean the two paleontology students and the local doctor, played by Bob `Buster' Hyman) believes a discovery of this magnitude needs to be captured and studied...I, myself, would probably opt for the former over the latter, especially since the creature's killed a number of people, including a senator who had gone fishin' (don't you think the disappearance of a senator would have sent a whole lot of federales into the area? I suppose he probably wasn't that popular). This all leads up to a rather unspectacular final confrontation between the creature and the townsfolk...will creature be victorious, turning the town into its' own, private larder? Or will the sheriff have one hellava trophy to mount on his wall? Will Arnie (Roberts) and Mitch (Siegel), owners of the boat rental/bait and tackle shop, ever commit and consummate their thinly veiled homoerotic relationship? Most of these questions shall be answered...

I've seen a lot of creature features, some good, many mediocre, and some just downright bad. The Crater Lake Monster falls to the left of just down right bad. The main reason for this is the inclusion of some of the worst comedic elements committed to film I've ever seen. In terms of on screen comedic duos, many would probably agree Abbott and Costello are among the tops, with Martin and Lewis following a close second. The characters played by Roberts and Siegel were written apparently to try and emulate these pairings, but the key to success is having one character being the straight man, while the other the buffoon. Two moronic buffoons do not a comedy duo make...the direction lacked, well, direction...the continuity was awful (the film was supposed to take place over a number of months, but there was no indication of this other than the characters telling us this), often we were supposed to believe it was night, but it was obvious this was not the case as the sun was still up (check out the scene where the magician, with one of the worst English accents I've ever heard, is out on a boat with his girlfriend, both commenting on how lovely the stars are when it's obvious the middle of the day), and seemingly meaningless plot points would appear out of nowhere...this is perfectly illustrated by the cut to scene featuring the guy in some city who robs a liquor store, killing the cashier and a customer, stealing only a bottle of booze (this scene was really a bummer, as it killed whatever humor the director cultivated to this point, and given my earlier comments, you'll know that wasn't much). Much later on the character does re-appear and ends up getting devoured by the creature...as far as the creature...the stop motion stuff was pretty bad (the credits later reveal the work was done in `Fantamation', whatever that means...I've only seen that process here, so it must not have been that successful), but when compared to the prop work, it looks award winning. The props of the creature's head were so bad they could only be shown either underwater or in a bunch of frantic, quick cut shots...it didn't matter much as the poorness came though regardless. I will give the film credit for at least showing the creature more than I would have expected. I can't tell you how many creature features I've seen where the creature rarely makes an appearance, and the audience is meant to piece it together on their own.

The full screen print here looks pretty good, and the audio ain't half bad. Included is a 35 second trailer for the film. The DVD case indicates a R rating, but it's really PG.

Cookieman108


Rating:
Summary: Warms on you.
Review: A group of scientists find cave-drawings of cavemen fighting a dinosaur-like creature (proof all those old movies were right after all and man did live alongside the big growling ones?). However, they barely have time to speculate before a meteor crashes into the nearby Crater Lake. Okay, so it's all pretty silly, but it's still entertaining, and at least the monster is stop-motion rather than a man in a rubber suit.
4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Sorry, but this one's just boring
Review: A group of scientists find cave-drawings of cavemen fighting a dinosaur-like creature (proof all those old movies were right after all and man did live alongside the big growling ones?). However, they barely have time to speculate before a meteor crashes into the nearby Crater Lake. Despite a promising opening, this film is just tedious. For a start, the monster is hardly ever seen, the special effects are laughable (the close-up full-size model of the beast's head have very little resemblance to the stop-motion thing that looks as though it's made of plastercine). There are a couple of stereotype 'comic' hillbillies whose purpose seems to be to pad the film out with their varied uninteresting exploits (getting drunk, bickering, babbling on about absolutely nothing). Oh, and 'Crater Lake' is completely the wrong shape to be a crater.

Rating:
Summary: A must have for Stop-Motion & Sea Monster collectors
Review: I've given it 5 stars not because it's a great movie , but it sort of completes the set of Stop Motion Sea Monsters by the best in the field.If you already have Harryhausen's Beast From 20,000 Fathoms , O'Bie's Giant Behemoth as well as the Suit-imation Godzilla and Gorgo then your collection just isn't complete without this early work from David Allen.

Rating:
Summary: Train wreck. Makes Ed Wood look superb by comparison.
Review: OK, first thing - why is this the "Crater Lake" monster? The lake is OBVIOUSLY not THE Crater Lake of Oregon. It's a long, narrow lake, nothing remotely "crater-ish" about it. But that's nit-picking compared to the rest.

Ed Wood on his WORST DAY didn't have continuity problems like this. It isn't just the old "day/night" problem, either - at one point, a character mentions that SIX MONTHS have gone by since the beginning of the film! (It looked more like 2-3 long days - at most.) But yes, we do have people staring up at the sunny sky and commenting on all the beautiful stars. Over half of the film is devoted to two complete imbeciles and their "funny" antics. Believe me, you will BEG for the monster to eat them both. Soon. You will never, EVER, see acting as wooden and clueless as this - the entire cast is totally, hopelessly inept, untalented, clueless and painful to watch. Oh, and all of the men in the movie are going bald, and they seem to WANT to show you their bald pates. What the...?

Scared yet? No? OK, we have a completely pointless diversion with a derelict of some sort. He's sitting in his decrepit, rancid home, and decides to make a booze run. He goes to the local Quicky-Mart and takes a pint to the register, pulls out a gun, and shoots the cashier and a customer. Why? And he just takes the pint! Later, there's a slo-mo "O.J.-style" chase so the killer can be eaten by the monster. By then, you will probably have forgotten who this guy was, but that's alright, because he has NO OTHER ROLE to play than monster-chow. Pure padding.

The monster may be one of the last of the stop-motion dinosaurs, but it's a long long way from Harryhausen. Downhill, that is. And the NON stop-motion shots of the head are side-splitting - it's just absolutely eye-rollingly pathetic.

BELIEVE me, I could go on and on. So why 2 stars? I simply can't recall ever seeing SO many problems with a movie. It isn't PAINFUL (much), and if I were teaching any film classes, I would certainly insist on showing this as a comprehensive, all-inclusive omnibus of scripting, directing, acting, and filming shortcomings, bobbles, knee-slappers, howlers, wildly excessive padding, musical mis-cues and general incompetence. I'd say it has a very high MST-ability quotient, but the cheese-movie neophyte is warned - this MAY result in permanent damage.

Rating:
Summary: Worst movie I ever saw... No, Really
Review: This movie is ecthed in my mind as a movie so bad that it is fun to watch and make fun of. The acting is worse then a bad military training film on STD's.



Rating:
Summary: No stars for this garbage
Review: What a waste of good plastic. I can say nothing good about this one at all. Its not scary, there are no good special fx to speak of, it's not sexy... it has no redeeming values whatsoever. Save your money, or spend it on a good monster flick like Humanoids from the Deep or something.