A jet aircraft from an unidentified country (we never find out where it is from) is shot down by an American jet fighter in the Arctic. The crashing aircraft turns out to have been carrying a nuclear payload, which explodes, and the atomic explosion cracks the ice and awakens a massive, tusked turtle: Gamera!
Yikes!
Gamera, it is surmised, is a very, very ancient beast from a time when Atlantis still existed. It soon transpires that Gamera can fly like a spinning, flame-expelling UFO, and the huge turtle starts wrecking things around the world, feeding off flames, electricity, and so on.
Gamera breathes-in fire for sustenance
Meanwhile, a boy called Toshio, who has been ordered by his father to let his pet turtle (terrapin) go, believes that the gigantic Gamera is, in fact, his pet: now grown very large!
Gamera in the ArcticBye, bye Arctic vessel…
As Gamera carries on destroying stuff, so that it can imbibe the energies created by man’s industries, an international scientific conference is held and it is decided that the ‘Z Plan’ must be used to deal with the titanic turtle…
I think Daiei Film’s kaiju movie still looks great, with very eye-pleasing B&W photography and lots of smashing and wrecking.
I like the look of this film
Gamera remains a very left-field monster creation, even to this day: it’s a giant turtle that likes children, smashes things and can retract its limbs & head so it can zip through the air like a living, flying spinning top, via some kind of natural jet power!
Is it a UFO? Of course not, it’s Gamera!Gamera can even fly upside down!
Gamera, in the movie, has very contradictory urges regarding mankind…
First the beastie sinks a shipload of people, but it later saves Toshio when he falls from a wrecked lighthouse, but then the raging reptile purposefully fries lots of victims alive with its flame breath!
Gamera saves a falling child by catching him in his big, scaly paw!Gamera wrecks stuff!On the rampage!Gamera likes to break things in this film: fact
The film handles the ‘Z Plan’ well: we’re never allowed to know what this plan entails, until we see the rocket revealed… as Gamera is blasted into space!
Clever plan!
GAMERA: THE GIANT MONSTER remains a very entertaining, watchable kaiju movie, which launched its turtle-tastic star upon the world and many colourful, fun Gamera films followed.
A scientific expedition, financed by a circus owner, goes in search of a humanoid octopus mutation in Mexico.
Horror heap from the nuclear trash!
Written and directed by Harry Essex, who wrote IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) and CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954), this cult flick’s major (only!) selling point is the fun creature costume created by Rick Baker and Doug Beswick. The rubbery, tentacled critter is often shot and lit in less than dynamic ways, but it is on screen a LOT!
Octaman confronts Pier AngeliDon’t mess with Octaman!In the film the fire ‘sucks’ the air from around Octaman, even though this is taking place outside: great science!
Earlier in the movie we get to see a small mutant octopus that can crawl on land and apparently likes to live in fresh water. Later, there’s a sequence where the characters trap Octaman in a circle of fire, sedate it and imprison it under a net, which is silly but cool. But there’s a very tedious sequence towards the end of the film, focusing on the protagonists crawling endlessly around a cave, that is far, far from cool.
As Travis J Hill Cartoonist (a moderator for the Monster Zone Facebook group) says: What’s more fun than a barrel o’ cephalopod?
For the most part, however, if you’re a creature feature fan you’ll probably find this is a fairly watchable, low budget, cheesy, painless time-waster with a very shaky grasp of scientific principles. It stars Kerwin (7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD) Mathews, Jeff (THIS ISLAND EARTH) Morrow and Pier (SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME) Angeli, who gets carried off by Octaman at one point.
Kerwin Mathews and Pier Angeli
On a sad note, Pier Angeli was found dead in her Beverly Hills home (apparently from an accidental barbiturate overdose) before production on the film was completed.
Getting carried away…
Behind the scenes shot of Read Morgan, who wore the costume
A family has learnt to survive in a post-invasion world where alien creatures attack anyone who makes a noise. After the loss of one of their children, the husband and wife await the arrival of their new baby, but giving birth in a place where you need to keep really quiet isn’t going to be easy.
Poster
As the sequel is currently out in cinemas I thought I’d relook at the 2018 horror-science fiction original…
The premise for A QUIET PLACE is what made this movie stand out when it was released: imagine having to ALWAYS be silent because super-aggressive alien creatures will launch an attack on you almost immediately?
Toothy…
It is, however, a concept that you can pick apart if you think about it too much. Surely scientists, somewhere, could’ve come up with the sound/feedback solution that deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) stumbles upon when her juiced-up cochlear implant starts repelling aliens that get too close to her? When the father (John Krasinski) takes his son Marcus (Noah Jupe) for a trek to a loud river and noisy waterfall, he informs Marcus that they can actually speak freely here because the noisy surroundings drown out their voices, so the creatures can’t track them: this, of course, immediately got me wondering why the family didn’t set up camp in this area? Also, if they can improvise a soundproofed basement, as they do later in the story, why don’t they hang out here more often, where they can even have whispered conversations?
Chatting by the waterfall
But if you don’t overthink the overall concept, there’s a lot to enjoy with this film. Krasinski directs the film effectively, building up the tension as the story progresses, with gripping moments including the scene where mom Evelyn (Emily Blunt) stands on a nail with her bare foot and has to keep quiet as an alien critter roams the building. The pressure intensifies for Evelyn when she finds herself having to give birth alone in a bath, knowing that the nearby creature will strike out at her if it hears anything.
Not the best time to have a baby…
The final act ratchets up the stress-levels further, as Regan and Marcus are menaced by one of the monsters whilst ALSO trying not to drown in a grain silo and Evelyn has to dodge creatures and get herself and her newborn baby out of the basement that is now filling with water. And things only get more critical for everyone as the survivors of the family have a final showdown with one of the critters in their home.
That sinking feeling…
Showdown
The alien creatures are an interesting addition to the world of cinematic monsters: they are slim, armour-skinned critters with extended forelimbs and eyeless faces. The armour-like casing surrounding their heads can hinge open like multiple flaps, presumably to help them properly locate the source of any sound they hear (they kinda resemble the Demogorgon from STRANGER THINGS when they do this), and their ears are massive organs (almost resembling a slimy, open oyster) that we see several times in close-up.
One of the creature’s ears seen in close-upAn angry, upset alien beastieAnother view of an alien ear!
With very little dialogue, A QUIET PLACE works well thanks to Krasinski’s visual storytelling and confident grip of the plotting and character development.
A U.S. spaceship returns from a secret mission to Venus and crashes into the sea near the Italian coast. The only survivors of the trip are pilot Colonel Bob Calder (William Hopper) and fellow crew member Dr. Sharman, who soon dies from a disease contracted whilst on Venus. Meanwhile, a small creature washes ashore in a cylinder and is discovered by a young boy called Pepe (Bart Bradley). The kid sells the gel-encased critter to zoologist Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia), who is extremely intrigued by this creature, which soon hatches and begins to grow.
The sinking spacecraft
The newly hatched Venusian critter…
‘Out-of-space creature invades the Earth!’
The reptilian-looking Venusian beast escapes from Leonardo and the hunt begins: Calder, who explains that the creature was a specimen brought back in his spaceship, wants to capture it alive, whilst the Italian police want to kill it before the continually-growing thing can do any harm to the populace.
Colonel Bob Calder captures the Ymir before it can be killed by the Italian cops… so does this mean he’s partly responsible for the death and damage caused by Ymir later in the movie?
Calder’s plan to catch the creature using an electrified net works and the beast is taken to Rome to be studied. Later, an accident allows the creature to escape its restraints and the very large alien goes on the rampage through the streets of Rome.
The captured Ymir will soon be on the loose again…
20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH’s main selling point is the Venusian creature itself, which most people refer to as the Ymir, though it is never called such a name in the film (the original title for the movie was going to be THE GIANT YMIR). The fact that the Ymir is goaded and prodded by humans to begin with in this movie makes him a creature we can sympathise with to a certain extent, stopping him from merely being seen as a monster.
Don’t prod the Venusian creature!
Brought to life by Ray Harryhausen, the Ymir is a reptilian creature with a long tail and human-like torso. Ray’s stop-motion talents mean the beast is agile, expressive and interacts effectively with the people around it, doing things onscreen that many other 50s-era B-movie critters could only dream of. There’s a moment, for instance, where the Ymir scoops up water in its hand and drinks it: it’s a wonderful little gesture that the monsters of flicks like IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST, etc, could never, ever do.
Ymir rubs his eye: this is a great little touch to add ‘reality’ to the character
Let’s face it: even a classic like THEM! (1954) had creatures far less mobile and fluid in their movements. But where the giant ant movie scores far higher is in its plot and dialogue, which are superior to 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH’s rather by the numbers script – and it’s the perfunctory plotting and dialogue that means this Harryhausen movie lacks what’s needed to enable it to rub shoulders with the likes of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and THEM! in the upper echelon of 50s science fiction cinema.
But this movie is a fun watch nonetheless, with such involving moments as the Ymir attacking a pitchfork-wielding farmer in a barn and the now-giant creature’s rampage through Rome, including its fight with an elephant from the zoo and a showdown atop the Colosseum.
Rampage through Rome!
Don’t get in Ymir’s way!
Fight!
Pachyderm vs Venusian
Ymir roams about the Colosseum
Though I was initially wondering why the Venusian disease (that killed the rest of the spacecraft’s crew) didn’t spread to Calder and others who came into contact with the dying Dr. Sharman, I soon forgot about this quibble as I was too busy enjoying watching the Ymir face-off against Italian cops with flamethrowers, smash through the Ponte Sant’Angelo bridge and knock over ancient Roman columns!
The dynamic sequence where Ymir smashes up through the bridge!
The bottom line is that 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH is an enjoyable B&W fifties sci-fi film, boasting a creature that is one of Ray Harryhausen’s best-loved and memorable stop-motion creations.
Posters for the movie
I love how Ymir is lit here!
The Ymir stop-motion models were cannibalised for their armatures for Ray Harryhausen’s next film, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, to be used for two Cyclops models. The primary 12” Ymir armature was used for the 12″ two-horned Cyclops model that fights the dragon and the armature of the 6” Ymir model (used for long shots) was re-used to make the smallest Cyclops model (seen in the long shot atop the cliff as it stumbles, blinded, to the edge).
This isn’t a review of SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, which is a fun superhero movie full of FX, action, teen romance and humour: this is a quick look at the ‘Elementals’ that feature in the movie.
These massive beings, supposedly from an alternate reality Earth (you find out their true nature later in the story) are pretty cool to look at.
There’s a brief teaser moment showing an Earth Elemental that appears in front of Nick Fury in Mexico…
Nick Fury and Maria Hill take aim…
…and then the first one we get a really good look at is a Water Elemental that attacks Venice. This flowing, fluid creature forms a roughly human shape and causes havoc in and around the Venetian canals.
Water Elemental makes a splash
The next Elemental we encounter is a burning, molten creature, which rampages around Prague, putting Peter Parker’s friends in jeopardy again.
Things get hot when the Fire Elemental attacks
The final one is a massive fusion of all Elementals (part lightning storm cloud, part water, part lava, etc) that rises from the River Thames and starts wrecking Tower Bridge.
The huge fusion of all Elementals takes chunks out of Tower Bridge
SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME is an enjoyable flick, with these Elemental set-pieces adding spectacle and excitement to the story. They also remind me a little of the kind of creatures drawn by Jack Kirby for Marvel’s pre-superhero monster comics.
In a cave-like tomb some mercenaries and an archaeologist have to deal with a red-eyed, naked, bearded humanoid who transforms into a large, demon-like monster after feeding on a young archaeology assistant.
Dracula is initially human-like……but he starts getting bigger after feeding……until he becomes a toothy-faced monster
The creature is actually Dracula, who halts momentarily in his attack when he sees a cat, allowing the survivors to flee, regroup, and leave an explosive device that blows Dracula up. The team runs down a tunnel that opens-up into a large chamber, where other monster-like vampires await…
There are more of them!
SUCKER OF SOULS, an episode from season 1 of the Netflix animated anthology show Love, Death + Robots, has a pleasing, sketchy animation style reminiscent of comic strip illustrations, zips along at a brisk pace, and portrays Dracula as a being capable of becoming a completely non-human beast.
He’s a beast!
Made by the Paris-based Studio La Cachette, SUCKER OF SOULS has a pretty simple plot, includes some obvious, not that funny pussy jokes, but is an entertaining 13 minute short.
I liked the hand drawn styleCue the pussy jokes…Run away!
SATANIC RITES was the eighth film in Hammer’s Dracula series and it was the seventh (and final) one to feature Christopher Lee as the undead Count. The film was the fourth one to star Peter Cushing as Van Helsing: he played the original Van Helsing twice and a descendent of Van Helsing twice in the Dracula series (and he played the original Van Helsing in 1974’s THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES too, which wasn’t part of the Lee series).
UK poster with artwork by Tom Chantrell
This film takes place two years after the events featured in DRACULA A.D. 1972 and deals with Van Helsing helping the Secret Service to discover why a group of elite members of the British establishment are performing satanic rituals at a large mansion. The trail leads to the mysterious property developer D. D. Denham, who turns out to be Dracula…
D.D.D… is Dracula!
As with DRACULA A.D 1972, I think this Dracula-in-contemporary-times flick is a fun viewing experience!
Let’s face it – THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA is an outlandish, pulpy yarn. It involves biker henchmen, the Secret Service, blood squib gunplay, a secret cabal of senior UK figures taking part in occult ceremonies, Scotland Yard, female vampires chained in a basement, death by fire sprinkler and Dracula planning to wipe out all of mankind with a weaponised strain of bubonic plague!
Black magic rites!
Sheepskin-waistcoated biker with shades and a silencer!
Blood squibs!Vamps in the cellar
A biker gets blasted!
Many Hammer fans dislike this eccentric mix of disparate elements, but I like this bizarre brew! Dracula’s demise is usually the butt of jokes because he ‘just falls into a thorn bush’, but I think the way the Count ends up with his own ‘crown’ of thorns (in this story the thorn bush is disliked by vampires due to its link with Christ’s crown of thorns) is effective visually and, anyway, it is actually Van Helsing who offs Dracula with a handy fence post.
Crown of thorns!
With Joanna Lumley replacing Stephanie Beacham as Van Helsing’s granddaughter Jessica, Michael Coles returns as Scotland Yard’s Inspector Murray, seen previously in DRACULA A.D. 1972. Freddie (FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED) Jones plays a mentally unstable scientist, Valerie Van Ost is a Secret Service secretary who falls victim to Dracula and William Franklyn, famous in the UK for his lighthearted commercial voice-over work, is quite effective as Secret Service agent Torrence.
Dracula comes calling…Secret Service secretary Jane becomes a vampire!Joanna (THE NEW AVENGERS) Lumley is Van Helsing’s granddaughter Jessica
Plague victim!
Cushing has a cross!
About this movie’s copyright issues: Warner Brothers released the film under its original title in the UK, but they didn’t distribute it in the U.S. The film was eventually released in America years later as COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE. In the 1980s the film was falsely believed to be in the public domain in America and released on video tape by several companies, using a transfer culled from a worn 35mm print. The rights reverted back to Hammer Films in the 1990s, however, and Anchor Bay acquired the video rights. THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA was then released officially on VHS and DVD.
Original US poster
One thing I can say is that I’m really pleased Hammer didn’t go with its original title for the movie: DRACULA IS DEAD AND WELL AND LIVING IN LONDON (!)
Dr. Mercer Boley teams up with local cops and some dirt bikers in the southwestern USA to take-on cave-dwelling gargoyles to save his kidnapped daughter (Jennifer Salt) and prevent all the gargoyle eggs from hatching, which could mean them spreading around the world.
They’re coming for you!
GARGOYLES was originally broadcast on Tuesday, November 21st, 1972 in The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies slot. For a made-for-television production that runs a brief 74 minutes, it boasts lots of on-screen time for the creatures, which were created by Ellis Burman (who designed and built the lead gargoyle), Stan Winston (who did all the background gargoyles) and makeup supervisor Del Armstrong (who oversaw everything).
A gargoyle lurking at the bottom of the bed!
Gargoyle vs biker!
The winged leader
The gargoyle creatures are a varied-looking bunch: the leader and his queen have wings, the others don’t, and they have different facial features (beaks, horns, fur, etc). I think they look best when shot in slow motion, which is what director Bill L. Norton does quite often in the movie.
Fight!
Cornel Wilde and Jennifer Salt, playing father and daughter, look meaningfully off-camera
A youthful-looking Scott Glenn plays James Reeger, one of the motorcycle dudes, and Cornel Wilde is anthropologist Dr. Boley, a man who wants to prove that the legends of creatures like gargoyles have a basis in truth. After Boley is shown a winged skeleton by the owner of an out of the way New Mexico gas station, and then physically encounters some of the beings, it is eventually discovered that gargoyles have a five hundred year incubation period: and now is the time for the large eggs to start hatching…
Big gargoyle eggs…
…beginning to hatch
This TV movie impressed me a lot when I first saw it way, way back as a kid. I thought I’d give it a rewatch recently, and I’m glad to say that I still enjoy it, thanks to the use of the desert locations, its 70s-era telefilm vibe and, of course, Burman and Winston’s nice-lookin’ titular creatures.
Here’s some more GARGOYLES background info and pics…
Concept art by Wes Cook
Gargoyle masks sculpted by Stan Winston for background characters
Close-up shot of one of the background gargoyles from the film setStan Winston applies dark camouflage makeup to a background actor on-setThe costumes for the background gargoyles were by Ross Wheat (the bodies were neoprene wetsuits covered in fishnet and small pieces of rubber). The heads were created by Stan WinstonJim Phillips (on the left) & Ellis Burman do an early makeup application of the lead gargoyle (played by Bernie Casey)
This was Stan Winston’s first real professional job (he had only just finished a three-year Walt Disney Studios makeup apprenticeship program), but he still had the guts to insist that he get a credit in the movie (which was seldom done at the time). After Stan threatened to leave the production, the producers relented and the gargoyle-creators received their credits. GARGOYLES was then nominated at the Emmys in the category of makeup… and Stan Winston, Ellis Burman and Del Armstrong WON the Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in makeup! Only those with screen credit could be nominated for an Emmy, so it’s thanks to Stan’s stubborn demands that they were eligible!
Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde), a college psychology professor who lectures about choosing reason over superstition, must finally accept that witchcraft does exist when his life goes off the rails after he forces his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) to destroy the good luck charms (a dead spider, animal skull, graveyard earth, etc) she has used to protect him from a college rival who is using conjure magic against him.
UK poster
NIGHT OF THE EAGLE (aka BURN, WITCH, BURN! in the US) was directed by Sidney Hayers, with a script by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and George Baxt, based on Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife. The novel’s New England setting was moved to rural Britain.
Witchcraft in suburbia
I really like this film, which is subtly handled and well shot. It’s a kind of companion piece to NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957), in that both feature clear-headed protagonists who must concede that dark forces exist.
At first Norman does not believe…
…but Norman finally does believe!
A nice touch involves the use of a reel-to-reel tape to attack Norman: this is done by sneakily adding the recording of a black magic ceremony onto what was meant to be a speech on neurosis. As the tape plays, it summons some unseen thing that shrieks outside Norman and Tansy’s front door.
Nice witch
Nasty witch
We later see what this shrieking thing is when the same tape is played through the college loudspeaker system, causing a stone statue to become a huge live eagle that chases Norman around the grounds and halls of the college in the night. Once the tape is switched off the giant eagle disappears, and is seemingly just an illusion, but the film ends with the heavy eagle statue toppling from above the main door to crush the evildoer. The director’s decision to repeatedly include the stone eagle statue in various shots as the story progressed to this finale was a good call.
The stone eagle
The statue becomes a real eagle
The great eagle takes flightThe giant eagle swoops down!
With good use of close-ups and editing, this B&W tale of witchcraft in middle-class suburbia, with university wives using hexes and effigies, deserves to be as well known as NIGHT OF THE DEMON in my opinion.
Compelled to kill!
In the US theatre audiences were given a special pack of salt and words to an ancient incantation
The stone eagle looms in the foreground
Oh yes, Reginald Beckwith, who plays a college colleague in NIGHT OF THE EAGLE, was also featured in NIGHT OF THE DEMON, as Mr. Meek in the seance scene.
Reginald Beckwith, standing in the doorway, appears in both EAGLE and DEMON!
Danielle St. Claire (Cerina Vincent) is a forest ranger based in a remote ranger station, who is drinking herself into a stupor on a regular basis so that she can handle her memories of the car crash that killed her friend. She has to pull herself together, however, so that she can take on a murderous demon creature.
The heroine deals with a headless corpse
It’s a shame that far too much time (pretty much the first half hour of the film) is given over to the main character’s back story, because the winged, humanoid monster is quite effective when we do finally get to see it after all the forced histrionics.
The creature has wings!The monster gets up close and personal
The film would have benefitted from better plotting too: why didn’t the ranger heroine just trek away from the ranger station rather than stay there night after night, knowing the creature will attack? Why does the creature endlessly toy with the heroine but immediately kills every other character it encounters?
Monster alert!
Filmed on location in British Columbia, director Steven R. Monroe’s movie also features a very irritating parrot, various montage sequences, an origin for the monster that’s linked to a vague Native American legend and some gore moments.
Ouch!
The creature was the best thing about this film, that’s why I’m showing another pic of it!
A dangling corpse
Devoted to every kind of movie and TV monster, from King Kong to Godzilla, from the Blob to Alien. Plus monsters from other media too, including books and comics.
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