Endearingly silly Stop-Motion Dino-Horror, from schlock-meister BLOB producer Jack H. Harris, opens underwater as a pair of dinosaurs (plus a side order of Neanderthal Man) are discovered in the frozen ocean deep and hauled out to defrost on the beach. Great idea! They’ll keep better thawed. Hit by lightning, the prehistoric beasts come back to life and are soon terrifying the little island community. Only the film’s entrepreneurial baddie thinks otherwise, hoping to turn Mr. Neanderthal into a money-making freak show. Stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen had nothing to fear from the light/rubbery articulated dino-beasts used here. But since this one mostly plays for comedy, it’s not a problem. Pretty good comedy, too, not the painfully unfunny stuff usually passed as comic relief in these bargain basement terror travesties. (Like the Irish drunk in this one.) Most of the gags work, even have a bit of charm to them. Especially Gregg Martell’s Neanderthal Man, inspired playing whether he’s meeting a middle-aged gal in a hideously frightening ‘beauty-mask,’ discovering the joys of modern refrigeration, investigating a full-length mirror or riding a Brontosaurus with the film’s cute-as-a-button local smart-ass kid. The guy’s really funny! And somehow, producer Harris got the great Stanley Cortez (of MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) as D.P. And he seems to be enjoying himself with odd tint-like washes of color on bare bones soundstage sets. But then, everyone's in on the joke. Including director Irvin Yeaworth, who did THE BLOB, and manages a legit scare or two via shock cuts. No doubt 12-yr-olds raised on JURASSIC PARK will be too sophisticated to enjoy this. But smaller tykes and their irony-wise high school brothers should like it, bad acting and all. Ironic adults, too.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Exploitation producer Jack H. Harris may have received the biggest scare of all when he saw the U.K. poster slapped with a Not Suitable For Children rating. Yikes! Who the hell did they think this was made for?
No comments:
Post a Comment