The Hideous Sun Demon

Rating:
Summary: Man Unable To Control Him-SSSssself...
Review: Some whacko gets a dangerous douse of gamma rays while working in his laboratory. The effects - A Virus is able to infect his Blood. Now, every time he ventures out into the SUN, it trans-forms him into The Hideous Sun Demon (A Demonic HUMANOID - REPTILIAN Being.) Whenever he becomes the reptilian creature, for some reason or other, he runs around and accidentally kills animals and people. Of course, by doing this he becomes, not only a Hideous Sun Demon, but a WANTED Hideous Sun Demon! No Best Actor/Actress award nominations here....by far! A rather buxom Marilyn Monroe look-a-like and a Demonic Reptoid on the loose......What more could you ask for in a movie!

Rating:
Summary: cross between film noir and horror that just doesn't work
Review: T....h....i.....s i....s s....l....o....wwwwwwwwwwwwwww......

The sympathetic feelings we are urged to feel for the "victim" are mitigated by his obvious misguided set of priorities. Save your money and get either a real good film noir or a really good horror movie (or one of each).

About as satifying as a flat glass of softdrink......

Rating:
Summary: Don't forget the sunblock!
Review: THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON is a few steps above most drive-in horror features of its genre. Well, maybe just one step. Shot on a minimal budget, director and star Robert Clarke creates some brilliantly directed moments. There is also a pleasing eerie atmospehre, even though its quite obvious many of the nighttime sequences were shot during the day! The actual Sun Demon's raison d'etre is rather clumsily explained (the actors "tell" the story of how Clarke became the sun demon than actually showing it, another budget constraint). Many of the cheap elements of bad movies are here: cheap costumes, particularly bad actresses that look like big names (check out the Marilyn Monroe lounge singer and the Vivien Leigh look alike girlfriend!), minimal sets and local actors. There is a lot to recommend about this movie and it won't disappoint most B-movie fans. As for the actual DVD itself...The film print source at times suffers from somre wear and tear. In some areas, the picture is pelted with scratched both vertical and horizontal. Other than that, the movie has some nice contrasts and the soundtrack is particularly impressive. It has a wonderfully designed menu and a scratchy preview. All in all, worth every penny!

Rating:
Summary: So hideous it shouldn't have seen the light of "sun"!
Review: The story in this cheezy atom-age film, a man is involved in a radioactive accident, the doctor then tells him not to go into the sun or drink any alchoholic beverages, so then he does what he was told not to do. When going out into the sun for a "tan", he turns into the Hideous Sun Demon, it's a kind of Jekyll and Hyde tranformation in the sense that when he turns into this monster he starts to lose it. This movie is boring, trust me I have seen enough classic horror films and I have the right to call this one boring(I am not saying classic horror films are boring if that the impression you got). This movie just doesn't have that creepy atmosphere that the Universal classic horror collection had, not at all, nothing ever really sets the mood in this film either, it could have been great, I loved the idea and the design of the monster still remains one of my all-time favorites but I just didn't find myself enjoying this, maybe Robert Clark shouldn't have tried to do too much at once. I loved the design of the navigation menu, it looked really classic, there is a trailer for your viewing pleasure, enjoy at your own risk. The Hideous Sun Demon! Hideous indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Anyone smell cheese??
Review: This one is kind of a werewolf in reverse. Due to a dose of radiation, a scientist turns into a lizard man when exposed to sunlight. I kept waiting for something to happen. The monster looked ok for a rubber suit type creature but the movie moved pretty slowly to a predictable ending. A couple of cuties were the decoration and love interests (yes two of 'em)in this hollywood effort. The picture quality went from ok to terrible,then back to ok, as did the sound.

Rating:
Summary: Sun Demon soars in solar DVD!!
Review: Using a reverse-vampire mythos of monstrous transformation via the sun's rays, writer/producer/director/star Robert Clarke sizzles as a solarian stalker in this sappy, sexist, yet sumptuous sci-fi horror classic that will singe your senses and send you to the nearest Walgreen's for a pair of ray-bans. Add a scorchingly unsultry would-be-lounge-singing siren, a dotingly dutiful dumb dame girlfriend, and a suburban mom who puts June Cleaver to shame, and you have the quintessential late 1950's fiend fodder that is THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON.

Rating:
Summary: Half film noir, half "b-movie" monster, a real winner!
Review: Well, now, from the cover of this one, you'd think that this was lower down on the evolutionary scale than plankton. Actually, it falls somewhere between the whole-heartedly "serious" sci-fi flicks of the 50s (like "Them!" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still") and the **real** bottom-of-the-barrel stuff like "The Amazing Colossal Man" and "Beast From the Haunted Cave". True, true, you do have to have a taste for cheese to really enjoy these things, and this one doesn't disappoint. Our hero is quite the booze-hound, but that didn't keep his friend from recommending him for his current job (somewhat unclear - apparently it involves unloading isotope bars off of a toy railroad...! ) One day, he shows up to work with a hangover (his loyal assistant insists it was "just a headache"!), and the next thing he knows - he's been exposed to "5 or 6 minutes" of radiation. That's enough - remember, this was made back in the days when anyone capable of using the words "isotope" and "radiation" in the same sentence was definitely some kind of Poindexter.

The interesting thing about this film (besides the rubber-suited lizard man) is that it doesn't seem to matter to anyone that, hey!, we have this guy who turns into a Hideous Sun Demon, and they don't keep him around for observation. "Just stay out of the sun." Okie-dokie! Good news is that he's still very much the booze-hound, and therefore we get to spend time following him around, looking for bars at night - looks downright noirish for a while, and by all means stick around for the stacked blonde singing the "Love Song From Hideous Sun Demon", aka "Strange Pursuit" (what a title! What a song! What kind of piano is that woman playing, anyway? )

Still, our director and star did his best with this one - some of the scenes are really well composed (there's one scene near the beginning that looks as though Ansel Adams could have shot it) and it has a far more polished feel to it than SO many of these movies. (Ugh - if you haven't sat through a Francis Coleman movie, you have no right to pass judgement on THIS one!) The DVD transfer is completely acceptable (what, you're waiting for the widescreen edition? I don't think so....) even if it doesn't really have any extras (other than the liner notes, which put the whole thing into perspective). There's some film scratchiness but mostly it's pretty decent B&W - not too washed out, not too contrasty. It even has the usually-deleted "rat scene" (you'll know what I'm referring to as soon as you see it).

All in all - I recommend it to ANY fans of the genre. Not as well known as a lot of the familiar turkeys, better than most of them if not overly-ambitious or special in any way. A prime slice of the genre, best enjoyed with a rainy Saturday afternoon or a couple of friends for riffing purposes. Have fun!