Tag: Monster Flick

Earth vs. the Spider, aka The Spider

Earth vs the SpiderThe October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow carries on! Today’s film is the sixth this month featuring b-cinema auteur extraordinaire Bert I. Gordon. The man made giant monster flicks his own cottage industry. That’s not too far off of the mark, considering Gordon would shoot effects in his own garage.

Today’s film is Earth vs. The Spider, also released as just The Spider. Released just a few months after War of the Colossal Beast, Earth vs. The Spider switches up the formula for giant monster flicks. Most of the films featured this past month have featured scientists and doctors as the main protagonists, or maybe a military man or two. This film does have those characters, but they’ve been relegated to supporting roles. In this flick, the heroes are teenagers. That’s right. By 1958, shitty filmmakers recognized that it was teenagers that were pumping large amounts of dollars into their coffers, and someone came up with the bright idea to make movies featuring teenagers in the leads. Continue reading “Earth vs. the Spider, aka The Spider”

Matango, aka Attack of the Mushroom People

Forget the original title of Matango. It was the Americanized title of Attack of the Mushroom People that grabbed my attention. People that look like giant fungi on the attack? Sign me up. I’m not naïve about movies like this. I know, before ever seeing it, that a title like that promises more than it can deliver, but I’m okay with it. Should the film be dragged out and the mushroom people only make significant appearances during the last few minutes, that’s just fine by me. I wanted this movie to be bad, after all. And it is! Continue reading “Matango, aka Attack of the Mushroom People”

War of the Colossal Beast

War of the Colossal Beast movie posterThis is the fifth review this Horrorshow featuring a film from giant monster auteur Bert I. Gordon. It’s only fitting, then, that Missile Test makes it official. Bert I. Gordon, I declare thee the unofficial official filmmaker of this year’s October Horrorshow. Keep an eye out for a certificate in the mail.

War of the Colossal Beast, released in June of 1958, is the sequel to Gordon’s The Amazing Colossal Man. Gordon not only directed this film, he produced and shared a screenwriting credit with George Worthing Yates (who penned an amazing six b-movies in 1958 alone).

In the previous film, Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning was exposed to a nuclear blast, resulting in him growing to about 60 feet in height. A finale at the Hoover Dam wrapped that film up nicely, but with a little more cash to be made from the idea, Gordon resurrected Manning for another film.

The action moves to Mexico this time around. A young Mexican man, Miguel (Robert Hernandez), is seen fleeing from something in a truck. He runs the truck into a deep puddle and it bogs down. The young man tries to run away, but doesn’t get far before succumbing to panic. Later, he is found and taken to a local doctor, but he is in shock. He can’t describe what it is that terrified him so. Continue reading “War of the Colossal Beast”

The Amazing Colossal Man

No sea beasts, dinosaurs, giant arachnids, or skyscraper-sized gorillas in today’s flick. The monster in today’s entry in the October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow is a gigantic man.

The Amazing Colossal Man is the fourth film of this year’s Horrorshow, and the third released in 1957, from ’50s b-monster auteur Bert I. Gordon. The man found a niche, and stayed there until the box office returns started to dry up. From a screenplay by Gordon and Mark Hanna (who would pen Attack of the 50 Foot Woman the following year), The Amazing Colossal Man tells the tale of the unfortunate Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan), an army officer who is exposed to a nuclear blast during a test in the Nevada desert. Continue reading “The Amazing Colossal Man”

The Black Scorpion

The Black ScorpionThe poor performers in films like this. They come to a production, ready to put in enough work to make some mortgage payments, maybe dig a pool in the backyard, and they do a decent enough job. But then they go to the premiere of the film, with not the highest of expectations (after all, it ain’t John Ford or Howard Hawks they were working with), and they find the audience howling with laughter at the monster effects. Take a moment to appreciate the plight of the bad movie actor.

The Black Scorpion, the 1957 film from director Edward Ludwig and screenwriters David Duncan and Robert Blees, opens, as so many of these monster films from the ’50s do, with stock footage. But, for once, it’s not footage of Air Force jets or Arctic wastes. This time it’s footage of volcanoes oozing lava over the land. The expository voiceover informs the viewer that a new volcano is rising out of the ground in Mexico. In little over a month it has grown to gigantic size, threatening the surrounding ranches. Continue reading “The Black Scorpion”

The Cyclops

Exactly one month after Beginning of the End was released in 1957, another epic Bert I. Gordon schlock-fest hit theaters. Both written and directed by Gordon, The Cyclops is about as worthless a film as this terrible filmmaker ever made…for half of its Spartan 65-minute running time. But then the titular cyclops finally appears onscreen, and all is forgiven. Continue reading “The Cyclops”

Beginning of the End

The b-monster flick Beginning of the End marked the start of an epic year for filmmaker Bert I. Gordon. He directed not one, not two, but three giant monster movies in 1957. I’m impressed, but would be even more so had any one of these films looked like it took more than a week and a half to shoot.

Beginning of the End, from a screenplay by Fred Freiberger and Lester Gorn, tells the tale of a plague of giant locusts that descend on Chicago. For you readers in the American Midwest and points nearby, that’s ‘locusts’ as in real locusts, aka grasshoppers — not the colloquial locusts, aka cicadas. Either way, the bugs are about the size of city buses, with murderous appetites. Continue reading “Beginning of the End”

The Giant Claw

The Giant ClawIn the Arctic, vigilant eyes watch the skies. America is in a mortal conflict with communism. In order to protect the free peoples of the west, early warning stations have created an impenetrable net across the Arctic. Should the commies try anything, we’ll be ready. But, it’s not spy planes or ICBMs that menace the nation in this film. A giant monster from places unknown has appeared, and is wreaking havoc. If this sounds at all familiar, that’s because the setup to The Giant Claw is basically the same as yesterday’s giant monster film, The Deadly Mantis. The only major difference is in the monster. The Deadly Mantis featured a giant praying mantis, while The Giant Claw features…well, I’ll get to that.

Released in 1957, The Giant Claw comes to us care of writers Samuel Newman and Paul Gangelin, and director Fred F. Sears. This is the ninth giant monster flick of this year’s Horrorshow, and the pattern established by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is getting somewhat wearying.

Something terrorizes isolated communities. Some dashing military officer or other authority figure is on hand to take charge of the situation. A scientist or doctor is also present to form wild, yet ultimately correct, hypotheses about what could be happening. Said scientist has an attractive assistant, who catches the eye of the square-jawed lead. Monster continues to attack, leading to a final confrontation in a major city in which the beast is dispatched. Make some cosmetic changes here and there, pick out some reels of stock footage that Bert I. Gordon overlooked, and one has a 1950s giant monster flick. Continue reading “The Giant Claw”

The Deadly Mantis

The October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow returns to the land of giant insects with today’s flick. From 1957, The Deadly Mantis is an early directorial effort from Nathan Juran, who had an Oscar-winning career as an art director before becoming a director. It was written by Martin Berkeley, who also had a screenwriting credit for the execrable Tarantula. Continue reading “The Deadly Mantis”