Microreview [film]: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

Look! A creature that survived 90,000,000 years! Kill it!

In some ways, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is the perfect 1950s creature feature. It’s not great, but it’s certainly not terrible, and it checks all the boxes:

• Military shenanigans? Yep.
• Atomic bomb? Indeed. 
• Cheesy sets? Covered in snow, no less. 
• Stop-motion monster? We wouldn’t be here talking if it didn’t. 

The plot’s pretty standard fare. The military tests an atomic bomb above the Arctic Circle — Why? Who knows? — and unwittingly unleashes a dinosaur that had been frozen in a sheet of Arctic ice for 90 million years. The only survivor of an avalanche caused by the dinosaur isn’t believed after he recovers from his injuries, but finds an unlikely ally in a lady paleontologist from “the university.” Just in time, too, as the dinosaur begins making its way down to the States, snacking on lighthouses and fishing boats along the way. Naturally, the response to discovering the sole surviving prehistoric creature of its kind is to blast it to smithereens. It's a 1950s American sci-fi movie, after all. There is a bit of a rationale thrown in, cribbed from War of the Worlds, in reverse. But still. There isn't a character in the film who advocates, even just to play devil's advocate, not blasting this dinosaur into the stone age. See what I did th— yeesh. That was a bad idiom/pun combo, even for me.

Where the movie shines is in the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. Sure, his masterwork was much later, arguably the skeleton army in Jason and the Argonauts or Medusa in Clash of the Titans, and perhaps his greatest character animation was in 20 Million Miles to Earth, but the animation here is still breathtaking, particularly in the finale — which inexplicably takes place at a roller coaster. Yep. At a roller coaster. This sequence alone is worth the price of admission.

Just a couple more things I'd like to point out with this one. The first is that yes, Lee Hunter (played by Paula Raymond) is a woman and actually a paleontologist. She is Dr. Elson's assistant, but his research assistant, not his personal or executive assistant. Yes, she brings out the coffee when she and the hero, Nesbitt, are trying to identify the dinosaur from sketches of known extinct species, but she's really a scientist. She gets a small monologue about it, even. This is remarkable in a 1950s sci-fi film. There are always women present, but they're wives, or girlfriends, or helpless stowaways, or occasionally a reporter. And it's not a trivial matter that I bring this up. My daughter walked through the room while I was watching this and asked what was going on in the aforementioned dinosaur sketch scene, and what followed was something like this:

Me: That guy there saw a dinosaur and the paleontologist there is trying to help him figure out what kind.
My daughter: She's a paleontologist?
Me: Yep.
My daughter: Huh. I'm going to need to watch this one.

"Did the monster look like this concept drawing our art director made?"

 The second thing I'd like to bring up is the predominance of the military in almost all of these movies. I had always assumed the prevalence of the military and military exercises in the whole 1950s sci-fi scene had to do with a) the prevalence of inexpensive military stock footage, and b) Cold War fears about The Bomb, but this movie was just uninteresting enough in parts for my mind to wander. I wondered if it didn't also have to do with the residual effects of World War II, where the lives of the vast majority of the audience for these films were directly and profoundly shaped by military action. This movie went into production about seven years after VJ Day. Not enough time to forget, and not enough time for a new generation to be the primary driver of movie ticket sales. I don't know the answer, and probably scholarly books have been written on the topic, but since the main character, Nesbitt, was clearly a foreign-born, non-military scientist who was along on this mission for scientific, rather than tactical reasons, the rub there was a little closer to the surface (only a very little closer) than in most of the contemporary genre films where every male lead looked like some All-American quarterback who had just missed going pro.

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to the TCM Greatest Classic Films collections. The version of this film that I have is part of a "Sci-Fi Adventures" set released under that banner. These collections, if you haven't seen them or have skipped past them in the stores, feature four classic films bundled together for about $20. I have this collection and a Cary Grant collection. There are many, many others — Astaire & Rogers, Musicals, Horror, Best Picture Winners, collections built around particular actors, etc. These are all good-quality transfers and discs with special features (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has three mini-documentaries about the film, Ray Harryhausen, and Willis O'Brien), and they're really a gem if you're into classic films.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for that sweet Ray Harryhausen animation; +1 for a female lead who's actually a scientist;

Pentalties: -1 for, let's say charitably, a "lack of self-awareness" regarding the knee-jerk decision to just straight-up try to kill something older than the human race

Cult Film Coefficient: 7/10. It's not the best 50s sci-fi movie you'll see, but it'll scratch the itch.

Posted by Vance K — cult film reviewer and co-editor of nerds of a feather, flock together since 2012, Emmy-winning producer, no-good musician, and sometime animator.

Cult Films 101: The Worst Movie Ever Made

So far in our survey of cult films, we've tried to zero in on films with merit, however modest. But there's a cottage industry out there -- and let's be honest, it's far more mainstream than most actual cult films -- built around the idea of The Worst Movie Ever Made.

Strange there hasn't been as much debate about
The Worst Chair Ever Made.

But what does "The Worst Movie Ever Made" even mean? The most inept? The least coherent? Something that advances a morally repugnant ideology (the highly praised Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, for instance)? The most insulting to the audience's intelligence? It's a fraught question I'm not entirely sure I know the answer to, but let's jump in.

Best-Loved Worst Movies

Troll 2
The subject of the documentary Best Worst Movie, Troll 2 is not the sequel of Troll, nor does it actually feature any trolls. But while bad, it ranks low on the utter incompetence scale. It had a decent budget and was shot by film professionals. They did not, however, tend to speak English, so the resulting dialogue spoken by the non-professional actors is pretty stilted and unintentionally laughable. It's not so much that it's inept, it's just that every single creative decision made in the movie was terrible.

Plan 9 from Outer Space
I talked about this Ed Wood movie as an example of the "Guilty Pleasure" variety of cult films. It's a bad movie, particularly in the acting and set-decoration departments, but it gets a lot of unfair knocks against it, such as day and night continuity errors when a lot of films in the 50s still used the time-honored day-for-night photography trick because of slower film speeds. It's my favorite film on this list.

Manos, The Hands of Fate
Also the subject of a documentary, this time called Hotel Torgo, Manos, the Hands of Fate was made on a bet by a fertilizer salesman, was forgotten after a single screening in El Paso, Texas, but rose to prominence after receiving the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, earning distinction as one of the worst movies the crew had ever seen. But there are some memorable elements, like Torgo, the weird satyr servant of The Master, the Master's ceremonial robes with giant, red hands on them, and a protracted fight between ladies wearing granny panties. Look, I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying you won't forget watching it.

The Room
This train wreck has been a fixture in Los Angeles ever since I moved here, but much like the Springfield Tire Fire, its stink has spread. It ranks high -- so, so high -- on the utter incompetence scale, and gained notoriety for it. For years now, it has regularly sold out midnight screenings, and has even been shown at the American Film Institute. It just goes to show, kids, if you make your movie, and make it bad enough, people will take notice.

Only slightly less offensive than seeing writer/director
Tommy Wiseau naked in The Room.

Maybe Actually the Worst Movies

There are only two movies I would not willingly endure again due to their utter and complete awfulness. There are other movies I'd rather not see again because of their content, but these two movies are the cinematic equivalent of that single tear that leaks out of your eye while the dentist scrapes your gums to shreds with that little metal hook they have.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies 

They continue to arm-wrestle in my brain over which is the worst movie I've ever seen.

They Really Should Have Known Better

Hollywood, bless its little Botoxed heart, will occasionally line up its utterly unparalleled storytelling, production, marketing, and technical skills behind a pile of poo that somebody along the line should've smelled, scooped, and disposed of way before anybody had a chance to buy a ticket to the thing. Usually, these movies result from an actor/producer's inflated ego, a contract with a star that has to be honored with a movie release, no matter how bad the finished product, or just terrible, terrible luck. As Bill Murray told Elvis Mitchell, nobody wants to make a terrible movie. Even the terrible ones require long hours and tremendous amounts of work. When it comes to Hollywood misses, the end product often looks beautiful and is technically excellent, but the story, script, utterly uncharismatic acting, or confounding direction make it largely unwatchable. I personally find these the least enjoyable "bad" movies because they are often dishonest and cynical money-grabs by people capable of much, much more. But to each his or her own...

The usual suspects in this category are too numerous to mention, but include Battlefield Earth, Catwoman, Freddy Got Fingered, everything by Uwe Boll, and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

I believe that, ultimately, the Worst Movie Ever Made is one in which you can find no enjoyment whatsoever. And to be honest, that's hard to do because when it comes right down to it, we're still watching movies. Things could be worse.

Microreview [film]: Corman's World

The Meat

"Roger will just say exploitation pictures don't need plots. They need sensational things like girls shooting Filipinos out of trees. That works."

I wonder, do people still look down their nose at Roger Corman? For a long time, I'm sure they did, what with his making movies like Attack of the Crab Monsters, Ski Troop Attack, and Teenage Cave Man. But I would think that having launched the careers of Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, and Peter Fonda, crafting arguably the most perfect expression of Vincent Price's horror legacy, and giving Boris Karloff a worthy send-off in a handful of films in the 1960s, Corman has earned the respect of fans across the entire spectrum of film-fandom.

But just in case he hasn't won somebody over yet, we have Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, which is a full-tilt, unapologetic celebration of the man's work. From his early black-and-white sci-fi D-movies, through his late-50s/early-60s heyday as a producer/director, the radical shift in aesthetics, storytelling, and subject matter he helped spark and reinforce in the late-60s through the 1970s, and even up to his recent work for SyFy, this documentary hits all of the important points and does a nice job of putting everything in a larger context -- either in strictly Hollywood terms, or in broader social terms, where appropriate. It may not break any new ground in terms of how it presents the information (it's a very traditional, talking-heads-and-movie-clips approach), but there's a vibrancy and joy to the entire affair that more than makes up for any stylistic shortcomings.

What is perhaps the most appealing about this documentary, though, is the time spent with Roger Corman, himself. As he suggests (and is said about him) in the trailer, Roger may be a quiet, funny, erudite man of exceptional personal taste, but he has a roiling, tumultuous subconscious that has resulted in 60 years of notoriously un-classy movies. Roger's success means that, somewhere, and no matter how faint, there may be hope for Hollywood yet.

The Math

Objective Quality: 7/10

Bonuses: +1, for the scene where Jack Nicholson breaks down in tears talking about what Roger means to him; +1, for the fantastic array of interviewees.

Penalties: -1, for playing so safe in a documentary about such a subversive and non-traditional filmmaker (but this is a quibble).

Cult Movie Coefficient: 8/10. (for Corman fans like myself -- I'd go 7/10 if you're less enthusiastic about him)

[See explanation of our non-inflated scores here.]

Microreview [film]: Black Water

Get it? Australia is down under! DERP.

The Meat

Not long ago I reviewed Andrew Traucki's minimalist Australian shark-horror flick THE REEF. I liked it, so it seemed natural to take a look at his debut movie, the minimalist Australian croc-horror flick BLACK WATER. Since it's basically the same movie, only set amongst mangrove swamp instead of the deep blue sea, with the human cast needing to swim 300m across a river rather than 8 km to land, it helped me come to some very important conclusions:

1. Sharks are scarier than crocs.
2. Sharks inspire better soundtracks than crocs do.
3. Crocs are, however, better actors.
4. Crocs make this hideous crunching sound as they eat your friends, whereas sharks spare you this indignity.
5. Your chances of survival in these two scenarios is about the same.

The Math

Objective quality: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 for using awesome croc actors instead of stupid CGI or animatronic crocs; +1 for the cap'n crunch moment

Penalties: -1 for it's like THE REEF only not as interesting

Cult film coefficient: 6/10

Microreview [film]: The Reef

The Meat

I love shark films. Or, rather, I would if there were any good ones other than JAWS. But I was in a sharkey mood last night, so I figured hey...I can watch one of these just long enough to see the first person eaten, right? Wrong. Turns out I found a shark film worth watching all the way to the end!

I wasn't expecting much from THE REEF, a low-budget, small cast film about some people lost at sea. Things don't start well either. As the film begins, we're introduced to boring Luke, his boring love interest Kate, and their boring friends, who have gotten together to sail to Indonesia. Along the way they stop at a little island to go snorkling and have awkward conversations about relationships that aren't convincing. After this little interlude, the gang returns to the boat to set sail, only once they're 10 miles out from the island, they scrape bottom and capsize! Now they've got a decision: stay on the boat, in the hopes they see a plane before it sinks; or try to swim to shore, knowing that there are probably sharks out there. Four of the five decide to swim for it. At first it seems like a good decision. Then a dorsal fin appears. Uh-oh...it's shark time!

I have to say, THE REEF is surprisingly good. It's not particularly well-acted, and dialogue is as stilted as it gets. But director Andrew Traucki does a great job trying viewers in knots--as it happens, the shark doesn't even show up for ages, but you just know it's out there. When it does appear, it's an actual great white, in all its hideous glory, not some ridiculous looking animatronic or CGI stand-in. The shark just oozes prehistoric malevolence, a soulless killer methodically stalking its prey. The intimate cinematography and a deeply evocative score heighten the tension, which barely lets up to the closing credits.

Bottom line, this is a must-see for shark fans, or fans of creature feature horror generally. It's not the second coming of JAWS, but it's one of the the best shark films released since JAWS, even if that's not necessarily saying much.

The Math

Objective quality: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for using an actual shark; +1 for I just bought the soundtrack; +1 for making the most of a small budget; +1 for being literally the only good shark movie I've ever seen other than JAWS

Penalties: -1 for everything up until the point where the boat capsizes; -1 for the unconvincing and unnecessary relationships between the characters (I mean, who cares? Bring on the shark!)

Cult film coefficient: 8/10. I'll definitely be watching this one again.