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1977 was a good year for dinosaur movies, and lake monsters had a bit of a heyday in this period as well (of course, all things odd and ‘paranormal’ were of great interest in the 70’s, leading to movies and documentaries about flying saucers, Bigfoot, and “Nessie”). THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER was a regional independent about a living dinosaur that rises from a secluded lake to munch on the locals. Though the comic relief characters are given far too much footage, the film is actually pretty solid. The stop-motion dinosaur is a delight. Happily, the film is widely available in a beautiful scope transfer these days.
THE LEGEND OF DINOSAURS is legendary in bad movie circles. Filmed in 1977, it was Japan’s answer to JAWS. The plot (if it can so be described) tells the discovery of an ice cave near Mt. Fuji. There’s a heatwave hitting Japan, and this has caused the cave to begin melting, which naturally exposes some viable dinosaur eggs. From one egg comes a massive, flesh-hungry water monster that takes up residence in one of the local lakes. From another egg hatches (twice, apparently) a pterodactyl. For some reason, the reviving dinosaurs cause natural disasters, including massive earthquakes and the eruption of Mt. Fuji! Nothing here makes sense, and the dialog is astoundingly bizarre. The film didn’t hit the States until about a decade later, when Sandy Frank imported the film as part of Celebrity Video’s Just For Kids line (which included a number of Japanese genre films, including a few of the Gamera movies and the infamous TIME OF THE APES). THE “LEGEND OF DINOSAURS” was a bit rough for the supposedly kid-friendly series, including as it does some mild gore and even a tiny nude scene. The film has recently been released on DVD under the title “The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds” -a direct translation of the Japanese title. This presents a nice scope transfer, which helps greatly and gives the film a tad more polish. It’s still literally insane, of course, but it’s prettier than it was when I saw it as a kid!
MONSTER! aka MONSTROID was supposedly based on a true story. I’m guessing the true part comes from the subplot in which native rebels sabotage an industrial facility and place the blame on a legendary lake monster. In the movie, there really is a lake monster, and it likes to eat people. A simply amazing cast in this one, including Jim Mitchum, John Carradine, Anthony Eisley, and Philip Carrey! Too bad it’s a grainy, listless affair that’s more endurance test than monster movie! The film came along in ’79, and was released under a couple of other titles for video.
In 1980, the most famous lake monster of them all finally starred in a horror movie. THE LOCH NESS HORROR saw director Larry Buchanan offer a rather impressive mechanical Nessie that went on the warpath after her egg is stolen by treasure-hunters. Not a great film, by any means, but it’s fairly fun stuff. Buchanan isn’t stingy at all with the Nessie prop, probably because it was the best monster prop he ever had access to. Not quite as toy-like as it appears in the photo. The Nessie prop (or one so similar is must’ve been made by the same source that made the first one -though it looks smaller) surfaces in a particularly funny bit in the sketch-comedy AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON come 1987 or so.
Gillmen had a bit of a Renaissance in the early 80’s. ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN was ultimately released as SCREAMERS. In story, it bore resemblance to WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP, with undersea treasure and a colony of aquatic monsters under the thumb of a madman. If any film requires a Criterion treatment, it’s SCREAMERS. Including the original non-English voice track, we’re looking at about four different versions! There was the European version, the ISLAND OF THE FISH MEN cut, SCREAMERS added a prolog but promised gory scenes that didn’t make it into the film, so another cut was finished in which the promised gore was added. The SCREAMERS cut may’ve even had a different dub track as well!
Bill Rebane opened the 80’s with his rural gillman epic, RANA, THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE aka CROAKED: FROG MONSTER FROM HELL. The monster looks a little better than the pic below indicates. This yarn involves some sort of an intelligent frog-man standing guard over ancient Indian treasure hidden at the bottom of an isolated lake. For what it’s worth, one of Rebane’s better films (though still a far cry from his best one, THE ALPHA INCIDENT).
A bit better was ISLAND CLAWS, about an uprising of large crabs on a island paradise. I could describe the climax, but I dare not spoil it… Very much like a 70’s TV movie, if you go for that sort of thing. I do.
Somewhat infamous was HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, starring Doug McClure and Vic Morrow. The plot concerns fish-men who rise from the sea in search of human females for reproductive purposes. The film had graphic footage of this shot by another crew and added prior to release, a move which has been generally judged tasteless and pointless. The film itself, though, isn’t bad. With that cast, it’s well worth a look if you like monster movies. Stronger than expected script also helps.
BLOOD BEACH was a sort of TREMORS by the shore. Bodies are being pulled under the sand by some sort of plant creature. Pretty obscure (a lot of these films are) but not bad as I recall. More police drama than horror film, from what I do remember. The always-welcome John Saxon is also on hand.
DEMON OF PARADISE had a gillman/dinosaur thingie running around Hawaii or someplace. Despite a nice poster, the film was pretty dull. Another one of those where all the right elements were in place, but the execution was so listless that the film never rises above Mildly Distracting. In addition to being dull, it seems like it was also pretty stupid… Still, nice poster!
Now we reach a dividing line of sorts. I don’t off hand recall a lot of beach-monster fare coming in the 90’s, though I’m sure there were some (seems like GARGANTUA, the TV cash-in on the ’98 GODZILLA, was set at a beach resort. But bland CGI monsters tend not to leave a very strong impression). I think it was around 1990 that Andy Sidaris made HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987), which included along with it’s abundant action movie silliness a killer, dog-fanged, poisonous, semi-intelligent, armored, giant snake slithering around the beaches. Probably because it’s so goofy, the film remains one of the more watchable Sidaris Skin-and-Explosion offerings.
The boom in direct-to-video fare in the new century has revived the genre with full force. Given the dreary quality of these “films” however, I am loathe to give them any press. Killer sharks have particularly enjoyed new life through these cheapies, though the results are rarely anything but boring. The boring ones are the better ones, however, as the worst ones are simply infuriating. To think that a generation will one day look back at these products with the same warm nostalgia one sees old drive-in movies through, well, that’s just depressing. For my own sanity, I think it best to finish our list with the close of the 80’s.
That’s a rough list, but how far do we carry this? What about THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS? ISLAND OF TERROR? ATTACK OF THE BEAST-CREATURES? MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND? Which films completely escaped our attention? No telling how many Filipino movies we should’ve included here! Do THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and REPTILICUS really belong on this list? Possibly not, but we’d already found the pix and we wanted to use them.
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