Written and directed by Jirí Barta. Music by Vladimír Merta. Art direction by Lenka Kerelová. Cinematography by Jan Vycítal. Edited by Helena Lebdusková. Produced by Krátký Film Praha and Studio Jirího Trnky.
This short film from Czechoslovakia uses a mixture of live action and stop motion.
The movie begins with close-up shots of an axe chopping into logs. One log splits into multiple pieces of wood, some of which have faces. These wooden sticks rush about the landscape, seemingly elated that spring is coming, with the stop-motion footage intermixed with time-lapse photography of seeds germinating and the ice receding.
This stick has a woman’s face
The wooden stick with a maiden’s face is attacked by a crow, which pecks the stick to pieces and swallows the splinters.
The crow attacks the lady-stick!
The stop-motion crow now turns into a creepy, skull-faced, winged piece of wood. This weird log-thing flies over the countryside, enters a cavern lit by candles, and roosts upside down like a bat, becoming an icicle. Sunlight enters the cave and the icicle becomes the death-faced stump again, which fights a wooden carving of a knight on a horse. The knight wins!
The crow turns into this evil stick!
The winged stick-monster flies over the woods
This heroic piece of wood is shaped like a knight on a horse!
The other sticks carry the winged, skull-headed piece of wood aloft and place it atop a bonfire on a hill. Then, instead of burning the bonfire, a stick with the maiden’s face uses a newly-grown leaf to make the bonfire burst into a flurry of spring growth, with long blades of green grass consuming the monster-branch, transforming it into a normal piece of wood once more.
The crow-stick is engulfed by a ‘bonfire’ of fresh grass
Jirí Barta’s sweet-and-sinister short is inspired by Vesna, a female character from Slavic mythology, who is associated with rituals conducted in rural areas during springtime. Here she is represented as the wooden stick with a maiden’s face that is consumed by the black crow, then returns anew to ignite the return of spring, as symbolised by the bonfire of rapidly-growing grass.
The branch-of-badness is swamped by the blades of grass.,..
…and it becomes a normal piece of wood again, which sprouts fresh leaves
The yarn, which possesses a typically surreal Eastern European folktale vibe, begins in an upbeat manner, turns darker with the arrival of the crow-stump-creature, then seemingly becomes upbeat again after the (ritualistic-looking) ‘burning’ of the winged branch transforms it into a regular stick again, which starts to grow fresh leaves. This would be the happy ending, right? But Barta chooses to finish the story by showing the sticks being collected by a villager to be used as firewood. The final shot is of smoke issuing from a chimney! The end!
The stop-motion animation of the sticks and the puppet crow was done outside, on location in the Bohemian Forest, the High Tatras, and the Koněprusy Caves.
The animation was filmed on location in the outside environment
Barta’s other short films include THE VANISHED WORLD OF GLOVES (1982), THE PIED PIPER (1986), THE LAST THEFT (1987) and THE CLUB OF THE LAID OFF (1989).
Starring Juliet Mills, Richard Joseph Paul, Leon Russom, Walker Brandt, Tai Thai and Eric Steinberg. Written by David Allen and Randall William Cook. Directed by David Allen. Produced by Charles Band, Vlad Paunescu, Debra Dion, Albert Band, Danny Draven and Wendy Grossberg. Full Moon Features and Castel Film Romania.
After the body of a huge yeti is discovered and displayed at a university, a small team of scientists head to Nepal to learn more about this amazing creature. With the help of grizzled adventurer Rondo Montana, the group makes its way into an isolated, hidden, forested valley that is kept free of snow thanks to the ancient machinery of an alien race. Soon the protagonists discover that these aliens still exist…
The yeti’s body is displayed at a university
I can’t believe THE PRIMEVALS has finally seen the light of day! This is a film project I have read about and followed the progress of for decades! It seemed destined to be one of those legendary projects that never got made.
Alien lizard-men fight a giant yeti in an arena! Woot!
Back in the late 1960s David Allen (stop-motion animator on THE DAY TIME ENDED, THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and more) developed a fantasy film treatment called RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING. He then filmed a promo reel for it. Hammer Films eventually got to hear about it (at the time Jim Danforth and David Allen were working on WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH), the idea momentarily morphed into a concept called ZEPPELIN VS PTERODACTYLS (now that’s a title!), and Hammer put out a ‘coming soon’ ad for the project that boasted a striking illustration by top Hammer artist Tom Chantrell. But funding wasn’t found and the project stalled.
Hammer Films would’ve added a zeppelin and pterodactyls into the mix!
David Allen continued to return to the project, hoping to expand on the treatment, and he finally co-wrote a screenplay with Mark McGee. The concept’s title continued to fluctuate, with it being called THE GLACIAL EMPIRE and, later on, PRIMORDIUM: THE ARCTIC WORLD. A new outline was written in the mid-70s by Allen, who now called it THE PRIMEVALS. Allen would then go on to write a script with Randall William Cook, who had a potential financial backer, but, yet again, the funding disappeared. The script for THE PRIMEVALS would continue to be tweaked, altered and updated over time, and it finally became the foundation for the film that was eventually made.
The explorers approach a skull-faced cave entrance in THE PRIMEVALS
Producer-director Charles Band was shown the promotional reel for the film and he agreed to fund the production through Charles Band Productions. But, once more, THE PRIMEVALS project ground to a halt after just a few months of preproduction. Then, in the early 1980s, the project was heavily advertised as part of Charles Band’s Empire Pictures slate of upcoming movies… but (you guessed it) THE PRIMEVALS failed to go beyond the preproduction stage at the studio. Damn it!
A stop-motion alien lizard-man with a ray gun, as seen in the finished film. What’s not to like?!
THE PRIMEVALS concept was revived again when Charles Band started Full Moon Entertainment. This time the project did move past the preproduction stage! In 1994 much of the principal photography was shot in Romania. Other footage was filmed in the Dolomites mountain range in Italy. But then (there always seems to be another ‘but’ in this story!)… Full Moon got into financial difficulties, which interfered with the completion of the production, though Allen did continue, between other projects, to work on the film at irregular intervals.
David Allen and Chris Endicott pose with stop-motion puppets
Then the ultimate tragedy occurred… when David Allen passed away, aged just of 54, in 1999.
David Allen had left the film elements, stop motion puppets, the storyboards, and all of his equipment in the care of his colleague Chris Endicott. Finally, in 2018, Charles Band launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to obtain completion funds for THE PRIMEVALS, and this resulted in enough money being raised to allow Chris Endicott to team-up with stop-motion animator Kent Burton and other talented visual effects artists to work on getting David Allen’s passion project finally finished. In 2023 the completed film was premiered at the Fantasia festival and it is now available for us to watch.
A crowd of reptile-aliens sit above the arena, watching the combat below
I must say I was over the moon when I eventually got to view THE PRIMEVALS and discovered I was about to be immediately treated to an opening mountain fight scene between sherpas and a big yeti. This is such a great stop-motion set piece! Honestly, this is as good as the creature sequences in Ray Harryhausen’s fantasy films. The yeti hominid creature is definitely a wonderful creation: it looks so good! In fact, this marvellous, massive yeti is so fine, the creature is a joy to look at even when it is displayed as an unmoving exhibit during the scenes at the university.
The amazing yeti roping scene that occurs at the start of the film!
The film moves into explorers-on-a-quest mode next, as the protagonists trudge through cave systems and discover a lost valley. THE PRIMEVALS really exudes an old school adventure-fantasy vibe here, reminiscent of such productions as THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974) and JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1959).
I love scenes where characters explore caverns!
Once in the valley, through which a river runs, the group run across primitive hominid humans (actors in man-ape costumes) living in nicely-designed huts that are held aloft by stilt-like arrangements of branches. The scientists concur that the future-tech towers they’ve encountered must be part of a warming system that allows this hidden world to remain free of snow and harsh Himalayan weather.
The group approaches one of the alien towers
Soon our heroes discover a parked flying saucer, and this leads them to an encounter with alien reptile-people who live in a barbaric domain within the valley! The explorers are taken prisoner and placed in an arena, where they witness crowds of reptilian beings cheering on as a yeti is goaded (via fiendish implants) until it fights captured hominids! Can our heroes escape their predicament?!
A lizard-dude gunner zaps the yeti to make the creature fight in the arena
This film, for me, is like the cinematic equivalent of a well-made dish of comfort food: it has all the ingredients I adore, including characters journeying into a lost world, nice-looking stop-motion critters, a rousing orchestral score (by Richard Band), and a no-nonsense, pulpy adventure plot.
Another shot of the yeti on display in the university
I would’ve liked to have seen at least one more stop-motion sequence in the mid-section of the film, but I understand that the filmmakers were constrained, needing to build on what was already shot and what they could achieve with the crowdfunding budget and the time that was available. There is one scene in the movie where characters talk about creatures they’ve spotted in the valley that are not normally-evolved animals, but we never see these beasts. So I assume this dialogue relates to scenes that were never completed. I remember seeing a concept drawing of a massive, horned River Lizard attacking a raft in an old issue of the magazine Cinefantasique, and this was definitely going to feature in the film, but, alas, the filmmakers were not able to complete the stop-motion for this part of the film. However, on the ‘David Allen Version’ disc (which is part of THE PRIMEVALS 3 Blu-ray Collection) the River Lizard sequence is presented with animatics based on Ron Lizorty’s design. (There’s more info on the River Lizard in a feature at the end of this review…)
The issue of Cinefantasique that featured the river lizard preproduction drawing
But, hey, I’m not here to quibble. I appreciate what everyone (including those who contributed to earlier iterations of the project) did to help get this David Allen love letter to fantasy-pulp-adventure yarns onto the screen.
One of the protagonists, Matt Connor (played by Richard Joseph Paul), is held prisoner by the alien reptile folk
The main selling point of THE PRIMEVALS is obviously the effects: the stop-motion animation, plus the miniatures, the optical effects, the props, the makeup effects, the hominid body suits and the matte paintings. They all help make this such an entertaining film. The creative people (who toiled on the final revival production and others who were part of the 1978 crew) include David Allen (of course), Chris Endicott, Kent Burton, Kim Blanchette, Mark Sullivan, Trey Thomas, Wes Caefer, Ken Ralston, Paul Mandell, Dave Carson, Jena Holman, Brett White, Dennis Gordon, Phil Tippett, Randy Cook, Jim Danforth (who was a VFX production consultant), Kevin O’Neill, Doug Beswick, Andrea Von Sholly, Peter Kermode, Steve Neill, Dave Matherly and many more talented folks. Thank you all!
An angry lizard alien
The stop-motion animation in THE PRIMEVALS is such a delight!
The long-armed lizard-men aliens are varied in their looks, wearing different bits of clothing, headgear and armour – and all of them have big-eyed, mean, scowling expressions. Their animation is wonderfully smooth, and the puppets are exquisitely detailed. They’re meant to be the cruel, savage descendants of the original reptile alien visitors, and the animators manage to convey the leering lizard-folks’ spiteful natures well.
The reptile-men always look a bit pissed off!
The yetis are simply awesome. I presume the same puppet was used for the different yetis, and it is a stunning model. The yetis in THE PRIMEVALS are so fine-looking and impressive they will definitely become top fan-favourites with many stop-motion animation aficionados.
I love the yetis!
The cast, including Juliet Mills, is decent, though Richard Joseph Paul, playing Matt Connor (the student who predicted the existence of yetis), tends to have an open-mouthed expression that unfortunately makes him look a little vacant some of the time! Leon Russom, however, is great as the magnificently-named Rondo Montana, contributing an old school, manly presence to the movie.
Leon Russom plays Rondo Montana
But as I’ve said already, I’m not here to complain: if you want to watch a movie with they-don’t-make-them-like-that-anymore vibes, that boasts extremely professional stop-motion animation, apemen suits, skull-faced cave entrances, retro sci-fi tech, stone arenas and medieval weaponry… then this is definitely the film for you!
‘A civilization lost in time… invaded one million years ago.’
THE RIVER LIZARD
Ron Lizorty, Production Designer on THE PRIMEVALS, put lots of work into redesigning the original River Lizard, because David Allen had never cared for some of the anatomy choices on the earlier, original version of the reptile (made for RAIDERS OF THE STONE RING). Lizorty co-designed the armature with Allen, did most of the armature tooling, then did the build-up of the beast with a detailed skin he sculpted and stretched over the muscles, using a puppet-building approach similar to the techniques sculptor and model-maker Marcel (KING KONG) Delgado utilised on his films. Lizorty’s model was truly magnificent-looking, and it would’ve been an astounding stop-motion addition to the movie, that is for sure.
The wonderful River Lizard stop-motion puppet!
Chris Endicott confirmed that this horned lizard was definitely intended to be in David’s finished film, but, for various reasons (the original camera negative for most of that sequence was lost by Full Moon, and Full Moon was never prepared to allocate the money nor the time to complete the film entirely, and so compromises had to be made), the reptile wasn’t included in the released movie. However, because Full Moon had created all the promotional artwork for THE PRIMEVALS long before the film was released, the River Lizard does feature in much of the promo art…
Details from two promo illustrations, showing the horned River Lizard, even though the beautiful brute never made it into the film. Shame!
I’ve always been very intrigued by the accounts I’ve read of films that were never ultimately made. And when it comes to monster movies, I really feel a twinge of ‘if only’ regret when I see preproduction concept artwork, test footage or maquette models that show beasts that might have featured in these productions but failed to find their way onto the silver screen.
The creature featured in CGI test footage for Guillermo Del Toro’s unmade adaptation of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
Here’s a whole menagerie of marvellous monsters that didn’t make it into a movie…
Curse of the Demon
CURSE OF THE DEMON
There were plans to produce an extremely low budget remake of CURSE OF THE DEMON. Makeup FX maestro Chris Walas did a whole bunch of stuff for the project, but, for him, the demon was the most enjoyable, fun part. As Chris admits, the demon was a low-cost creation: “Cheap as anything, sisal fiber for hair, etc. It was a two person puppet/suit. It was meant to only be shot waist up, high contrast and in smoke.”
Chris says that shooting did begin for the film, out at the Trona Pinnacles at China Lake, but then the funding fell through. It was never finished, unfortunately. Chris has said that he would have loved to have seen this one on screen. Oh well, such a shame that isn’t to be…
Above: five behind the scenes shots of Chris Walas’ demon creation!
GIANT HORDE BEAST NEZURA
After the success of Toho’s GODZILLA, rival company Daiei Film Co. wanted to produce their own creature feature. It was going to be called… GIANT HORDE BEAST NEZURA.
The plot focused on a new high-calorie superfood called S602, which is dumped after it seems human test subjects reacted badly to it. Rats eat the dumped superfood, they begin to grow larger, they attack people and livestock, then the killer rodents head for Tokyo… and a super-large rat called Nezura leads this vicious rat-swarm! In the plot the rats and Nezura are finally beaten when the rats become so aggressive they turn on each other in a cannibalistic feeding frenzy.
GIANT HORDE BEAST NEZURA actually started production in 1963, but it was eventually halted, and Daiei instead made GAMERA: THE GIANT MONSTER.
Nazura would’ve been played, of course, by a man in a creature costume. Here are two rat-tastic publicity stills that were created for the flick before the production was shut down…
Peter Berg’s DUNE
In the late 2000s, Paramount Pictures attempted to make their adaptation of DUNE for the big screen. They chose Peter Berg, director of THE KINGDOM (2007), HANCOCK (2008) and BATTLESHIP (2012), to helm the project.
British comic book artist Jock was brought on by Berg to do some concept art, and he did a series of pieces, including, of course, designs for the famous sandworms.
Above: five sandworm concepts by Jock (Mark Simpson)
But by late 2009 Peter Berg and his production company had dropped completely out of the DUNE project. Then, in January 2010, it was revealed that Pierre Morel, director of DISTRICT B13 (2004) and TAKEN (2008), had been hired, but he too would finally exit the director’s chair. Finally, the rights expired and Paramount’s four-year journey to adapt Frank Herbert’s novel came to an end.
Paul Blaisdell’s ALLOSAURUS
Special effects artist Paul (INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN) Blaisdell and editor/actor/super-fan Bob Burns teamed-up in 1962 to publish a short-lived magazine called Fantastic Monsters of the Films. They shot a 16mm short called THE CLIFF MONSTER, featuring a model creature that Blaisdell had built. This clockwork humanoid beast could be wound up and ‘programmed’ to make certain movements. This home movie was available for purchase (in both 8mm and 16mm editions) via the pages of their magazine. Blaisdell also created an eighteen-inch mechanical model of a carnivorous dinosaur, which could also be programmed to perform some independent moves. Blaisdell took some photos of this prehistoric predator but, unfortunately, he never got around to shooting any footage of it in action.
A photo of Paul Blaisdell’s mechanical Allosaurus
LA LECHUZA
What an awesome bird-critter!
This film would have focused on the Lechuza (the Spanish word for owl): this is a myth popular throughout northern Mexico and Texas, and the plot would have featured an old woman who shapeshifts into a giant owl: La Lechuza! The beaked creature would have taken revenge on the people who had wronged the old woman during her life.
The talented special effects artist Joe (TERROR TOONS) Castro built an amazing-looking Lechuza monster head for this project, but the film remains on hold, and Joe has said that he doesn’t know if it will ever be shot. Man, I wish this movie would go into production: I’d love to see Joe’s beaked owl-beast rampaging across the screen!
Joe sculpting the Lechuza
THE PIKE
Cliff Twemlow’s ill-fated UK-set killer pike project, based on his own pulp novel, would have starred Joan Collins and Jack Hedley. The opening scene of the film would have involved a lone fisherman sitting on a pier with his legs dangling over the jetty side. The camera was to be the eyes of the giant pike looking at the dangling legs. The camera would have moved faster and faster to its prey, and the music (a la JAWS) would have speeded up too. There would have been a great swirl of water, utter silence… and all that was to be seen on the bloody surface of Lake Windermere was the fisherman’s hat.
The film never finally happened, unfortunately, due to technical difficulties and lack of funding. Before this monster fish movie floundered and died, two large model pikes were designed and created by Charles Wyatt. One was a 12 foot pike with a radio controlled motor installed inside it to propel the fish on the water’s surface. The other pike was a rigid fibreglass model.
In May 1982 Joan Collins even did a press tour, wowing the journalists and photographers by posing with one of the pike models!
Joan and the Pike!
Severin Films will soon be releasing a Blu-ray box set centred around the documentary MANCUNIAN MAN: THE LEGENDARY LIFE OF CLIFF TWEMLOW. A featurette, which will cover the full, fascinating details behind THE PIKE, will be included in the box set!
A recent shot of the life size fibreglass model!
A shot from the early 80s, showing the two large fish models
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s DUNE
Producer Michel Seydoux offered to bankroll director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel DUNE. The director made substantial changes to the source material and planned to cast surrealist artist Salvador Dalí as the Emperor.
Scriptwriter Dan O’Bannon and artist H.R. Giger, who would both go on to work on Ridley Scott’s ALIEN, were attached to this project, but the production was destined never to be made. The documentary JODOROWSKY’S DUNE (2013) tells the story of this ambitious but ultimately doomed film project.
H.R. Giger’s design for a giant sandworm
THE CURSE OF THE SPONGEMAN
Spongeman on the loose!
THE CURSE OF THE SPONGEMAN would have been a full length film about a humanoid creature named Spongeman. The creature’s origin would’ve occurred during the hurricanes of the 1920s, when the wind and currents stirred up local spongebeds and formed an elusive being that has been mysteriously living in the waters off the Florida Keys ever since.
Quincy Perkins, a director of a bunch of short films like THE TRACKS (and who was a location assistant on THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON), had dreamt of making a Spongeman movie since he was a child, when he grew up in Key West and was obsessed with the old Spongeman statue in the centre of town. This original Spongeman figure was created by an artist in the 1920s as a monument to the sponge fishermen of Key West.
The original Spongeman statue
The idea of this magical sponge creature captured Quincy’s imagination and, many years later, he eventually shot an 8-minute film – then he decided to expand the project into a feature length movie. Quincy wanted to make a film that was true to the spirit of the creature feature films of the 1950s, but was consciously adapted to the present day, creating a modern fairy tale of sorts.
Above: Three shots from the original 8-minute film
Quincy tried to raise funds via a Kickstarter campaign, promising a movie that would’ve starred Herschell Gordon Lewis, Oscar Torre, Tom Frank and Jessica Miano Kruel. Quincy hoped to raise £15,466 to make this small, independent film, but only £4,625 was pledged and the project was canceled in 2015. This is a shame, because I would’ve loved to see the Spongeman stomping around the Florida Keys!
Spongeman and lady friend!
Vincenzo Natali’s IT
Here are some Pennywise designs from director Vincenzo (SPLICE) Natali’s pitch for a version of Stephen King’s IT.
The drawings of Pennywise below are by concept artist Amro Attia…
Above: concepts by Amro Attia
These drawings are by Vincenzo Natali himself…
Above: Pennywise drawings by Vincenzo Natali
As this article is all about unmade films, you won’t be too surprised to find out that Vincenzo Natali’s IT movie failed to get produced.
Clive Barker’s THE MUMMY
Detail from a Mummy concept drawing
Back in the 1980s Universal was planning to use its Mummy monster character to relaunch its horror franchise. Universal hired George A. Romero initially, and he was attached to write and direct the revival of the 1932 Universal monster movie, but he was limited to a budget of $10 million. The project just seemed to lose momentum, Romero left, and then Clive (HELLRAISER) Barker came onboard.
Barker, along with Mick Garris (who wrote several drafts of the script), pitched their Mummy movie idea to Universal in 1989, and it would’ve included the Mummy becoming a transgender character: starting off as a little boy, the character would become an ‘exquisite woman’. Barker was also going to make his Mummy flick more sexual and dark, focusing on the owner of a museum, who is attempting to revive the mummies.
Special effects expert Steve Johnson offered to help Barker create a visual proof-of-concept for his Mummy idea, to be shown to the Universal producers. Johnson financed the production of concept drawings and models entirely out of his own pocket, to help Barker sell the project to Universal, but Barker’s pitch was rejected outright by the studio, and THE MUMMY (1999), directed by Stephen Sommers, was eventually made instead.
Above: concept work created for Clive Barker’s unmade Mummy movie
Neill Blomkamp’s ALIEN 5
This film project from Blomkamp was set to be another ALIEN sequel and it was going to explore the Xenomorph genome. The plot would’ve involved experiments being performed on captive Aliens. All types of genetically-altered Xenomorphs would have been created by meddling Weyland-Yutani scientists!
See below for lots of concept art visuals produced for this unmade ALIEN sequel…
Above: various cool examples of concept artwork for the unmade ALIEN 5…
Here’s a sculpture of the four-armed genetically modified Xenomorph that would have featured in Neill Blomkamp’s ALIEN 5…
Above: shots of the cool maquette that was made for the ALIEN 5 project, which was shelved indefinitely by 20th Century Studios and Disney
Vincenzo Natali’s PREDATORS
Vincenzo Natali, the writer and director of sci-fi horror films SPLICE (2009) and CUBE (1997), did a pitch at 20th Century Fox for PREDATORS. This was some time before Robert Rodriguez produced his own version of PREDATORS (2010), which, of course, starred Adrien Brody, Topher Grace and Laurence Fishburne.
Cool concept painting by Dan Milligan
Vincenzo Natali said that, at the time of his pitch, there was no script, just a logline, so he was free to do whatever he wanted. Natali himself produced some storyboards for the pitch, and he also had concept art created by Dan Milligan and Amro Attia.
Above: four examples of Vincenzo Natali’s storyboard art
Natali’s version of PREDATORS did not go into production, but, by the look of Amro Attia’s concept drawing, it seems that if the film had been made… the Predators would have looked sleek, metallic and angular!
Concept art for a lithe-looking predator by Amro Attia
THE TOURIST
Screenwriter Clair Noto’s THE TOURIST, which she wrote for Universal studio executive Sean Daniels, was a hot script back in the early 80s, focusing on a group of exiled aliens living among us humans. The plot included the Manhattan Grief Clinic, which was actually a front for the extraterrestrials’ hideaway, otherwise known as the Corridor: here various aliens lurked in cubicles, living out their useless lives.
H.R. Giger’s work is very distinctive
Producer Renee Missell and director Brian Gibson became attached, and soon Clair Noto was booted from the project, which became a bigger and bigger mess, until it faltered and Universal pulled the plug. After that Noto took her script to United Artists and then to Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studio. But events always went against her, and although Dino DeLaurentis and other folks tried to get THE TOURIST produced, it never ultimately got made, even after the script found its way back to Universal.
What is interesting is that H.R. Giger was brought onto the project for a while, and he conceptualised lots of very evocative, memorable alien designs for the Corridor sequences.
Above: six awesome concept paintings for THE TOURIST by Giger
THE NATURAL HISTORY PROJECT
This unmade dinosaur-focused feature film was conceived by Jim Henson in the mid-80s and would have featured special effects by the Jim Henson Creature Shop.
William Stout’s design for a Tyrannosaurus Rex character
William Stout’s concept for two Pachycephalosaur characters
The super-talented William Stout wrote the screenplay (he actually wrote two versions of the script, one with a narration and one with no voice-overs whatsoever: a totally visual telling of the story). This serious muppet dino movie, which was given the generic title THE NATURAL HISTORY PROJECT so that (hopefully) nobody would make a similar film, was to be directed by Henson.
Stout’s concepts for three types of villainous raptor
Warner Brothers committed to a budget of 25 million dollars for production, plus 5 million dollars for character research and development. Stout began designing the characters and painting key scenes from his script. However… the project was scrapped when Warners discovered that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were making a similar project called THE LAND BEFORE TIME.
Stout’s concept art showing one of the main dinosaur characters: a gruff old parasaurolophus
All I can say is that the cancellation of this Henson project was a damn, damn shame!
BABY KONG
This is an ad for the Mario Bava project BABY KONG, which was announced in 1976 but was never made…
Baby Kong! Blimey!
This film was obviously planned as a cash-in to ride on the coattails of the ’76 version of KING KONG. Did this movie have any chance of being any good? Who knows, but it was going to be directed by the great Mario Bava, so I, for one, would definitely have watched it! Maybe it would’ve been chimp-tastic!
DRACULA – character designs by Frank Frazetta
Count Dracula concept – mixed-media on paper
Dominic Orsatti, president of Orsatti Productions Inc., announced in April 1976 that he would begin production on a feature‐length animated version of DRACULA.
An original screenplay, supposedly based very closely on the original Bram Stoker novel, was written by George Greer. The film, which was budgeted at around $3 million, was going to base the look of the characters on designs by illustrator supreme Frank Frazetta.
Van Helsing concept – mixed-media on paper
Orsatti was going to serve as executive producer on the production, with Emil Carle producing the film and acting as technical director. Andrew Chiaramonte and George Greer were slated to be the joint directors of animation. Damn it! Why wasn’t this film made?!!
Frazetta heard that the film got postponed almost immediately after he started work on it, so he didn’t send any of his art off, which is why it is still around for us to look at…
Count Dracula concept – mixed-media on paper
Study for female vampire ‘Faith’ – oil on board
Character study for Mina – oil on board
ILSA MEETS BRUCE LEE IN THE DEVIL’S TRIANGLE
Yes, somebody planned to have Dyanne Thorne’s infamous antiheroine Ilsa meet up with Bruce Lee!
Wow!
In a 2011 interview Thorne confirmed that the project was actually discussed, but a script wasn’t written. Thorne was told to study martial arts, which she did, and she got herself into good physical shape. Thorne said that money was going to be raised for it, but, shortly after, Bruce Lee died. So the filmmakers were then going to use top Bruceploitation actor Bruce Li. There was a conflict in their schedules, unfortunately, and the script was still not ready, so the project faded away. The Washington Post did publish a full page article with pictures publicising the possibility of the film, making the unmade flick look pretty legitimate.
Now, there’s no way that Bruce Lee, had he lived, would’ve chosen to make this movie. But I definitely think a movie starring Dyanne Thorne and Bruce Li could’ve been produced and it would have been great, exploitative fun. But it didn’t happen, though a promotional ad was created… and it featured Ilsa, Bruce Lee, a shark and what looks like a gill-man or a zombie! Wow!
DOCTOR WHO’S GREATEST ADVENTURE
During a special event held at London’s British Film Institute (where the two 1960s Peter Cushing Doctor Who films were screened), there was a Q&A session. One of the people on stage was Sergei Subotsky, the son of Milton Subotsky, who was the original Doctor Who movie screenwriter. Sergei revealed that, in the 1970s, his dad Milton wrote a script for a third Doctor Who movie… DR. WHO’S GREATEST ADVENTURE.
Crabby critters vs the Doc!
Now, this 3rd cinematic outing for the Doctor was not going to feature the Daleks again as the antagonists. Oh no, forget your usual Doctor Who foes… instead… the plot would have involved giant crabs!!!
According to Sergie, the screenplay for this planned 70s movie was actually a redrafting of a script that already existed. What happened was that Milton inserted Doctor Who into the existing script… and the original script was called KING CRAB. And, before it was called that, the script was titled NIGHT OF THE CRABS. Yes, you read that correctly! It seems that the original script was an adaptation of Guy N Smith’s creature-horror novel ‘Night of the Crabs’!!! And now Doctor Who was part of the tale, battling the killer crustaceans!
Guy N Smith’s novel
There’s no way that DR. WHO’S GREATEST ADVENTURE would have featured the kind of gory, visceral killings depicted in Guy N Smith’s original novel, but, hell, I would’ve loved to have seen the Doctor take on these pincered monsters with his sonic screwdriver! The film, of course, never got made, but the script was written. No concept drawings were produced, unfortunately, but here’s a faux poster that was created by Andydrewz (Andrew-Mark Thompson) for an article on this unmade film that was published in the Telegraph newspaper…
What a fun, fake poster!
AXA
In the early 80s Steven Archer, the stop-motion animator who worked on CLASH OF THE TITANS and KRULL, did a couple of concept drawings to show Milton Subotsky, the producer who was thinking of making a movie based on a UK newspaper fantasy-sci-fi comic strip called AXA.
Steve kept in contact with Subotsky, who had a script for AXA, but it never got made.
Steven’s drawing of a giant mutant spider, with warrior woman Axa placed beside it to show the scale
GODZILLA VS GHOST GODZILLA
Yes, you read that title right! This film would have seen a 90s-era Godzilla facing off against the spirit of the original 50s Godzilla!
Also known as GODZILLA VS GODZILLA, Toho toyed with variations on a story that would’ve had the modern Godzilla threatened by an incarnation of the first Big G.
Ghost Godzilla concept art
One idea had Godzilla Junior going back to 1954 to fight against the original Godzilla, then later story versions dealt with the conflict between Godzilla and the restless spirit of the first Godzilla, set in the present.
Concept art for the Ghost Godzilla character was created by Shinji Nishikawa. Conceptual art was also produced that showed a newer version of the kaiju Anguirus. The whole ‘spirit Godzilla’ idea was eventually dropped and, after several other unmade concepts were considered, GODZILLA VS DESTOROYAH was made instead, in 1995. (The concept of the ‘soul’ of the original Godzilla being reawakened was finally used in GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA in 2002)
The updated Anguirus design
Rob Zombie’s THE BLOB
Rob (THE DEVIL’S REJECTS) Zombie planned to direct a new version of THE BLOB. The abandoned project would have starred Rob’s wife Sheri Moon Zombie (surprise!)
As you can see from the concept art drawn by the talented Alex Horley, Rob’s take on the plot moved away from the idea of just one large, gelatinous blob and focused on swarms of victims becoming purple blobby-zombies…
Some mutated blob-beings in a graveyard!
Would this gun-toting character have been played by Sheri Moon Zombie?
A soldier opens fire! A nurse shows off her cleavage!
It seems a monolith and a rock music festival would’ve featured in the story
The monolith… and lots of corpses!
THE GOLEM
Producers at Cannon in the 1980s took out an advertisement in Variety announcing pre-production on a movie called THE GOLEM… which would have seen the supernatural clay being coming up against… Charles Bronson!!!
Unfortunately, the proposed budget was high compared to the company’s usual output, so the film was put on hold until finances improved, but box office flops like MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and LIFEFORCE left the company rather skint, and so the film was never made. What a shame!
WAR EAGLES
Boy, this is definitely a movie I wish had got produced!
Willis O’Brien’s unmade project involved a hidden world of dinosaurs and members of a lost Viking tribe that ride giant eagles! The finale would have seen these raptor-riders fighting Nazi zeppelins over New York City! Just let that description sink in: Vikings on giant prehistoric eagles fighting Nazi airships over modern day Manhatten!!!
A stop-motion armature for one of the giant eagles
An eagle armature’s head seen in close-up
Three of the WAR EAGLES bird armatures are now owned by Peter Jackson
KING KONG producer Merian C. Cooper planned this as an epic Technicolor production in the late 1930s. Storyboards and illustrations were produced, as were multiple versions of the script, including a final draft written by Cyril (FORBIDDEN PLANET) Hume. Detailed models and sets were built and Technicolor test footage featuring stop-motion animation by O’Brien and Marcel Delgado was shot… but the harsh reality of an impending world war put a stop to the production in 1940. Jeez, I would’ve loved to have seen this flick!
One of the dinosaurs that dwells in the lost world of the eagle riders
Here’s some exquisite WAR EAGLES art…
A giant bird of prey! I repeat: a giant bird of prey!
A dinosaur stalks through the prehistoric lost world
A tribe of viking descendants and giant eagles: what’s not to like?!
An eagle rider flies overhead
A war eagle on its perch
B&W test footage stills…
Dinosaur versus giant eagle!
A warrior and his eagle
Okay, I’ve already said that I wish this film had been made. Well, I’ll say it again: I wish this film had been made!
Technicolor frames from the animation test footage…
Drool…
Here’s the cover for a novel, published in 2008, that was based on the WAR EAGLES screenplay…
Written by Carl Macek, with a foreword by Ray Harryhausen (who also tried to get companies interested in making this movie)
Finally, here’s the cover of the book ‘WAR EAGLES – The Unmaking of an Epic – An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters’, written by David Conover and Philip J. Riley, which takes an in-depth look at this unmade fantasy epic…
This book includes the final draft of the WAR EAGLES screenplay, written by Cyril Hume
Jan de Bont’s GODZILLA
Gorgeous concept art by Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery
In November, 1993, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, successful scriptwriters responsible for the likes of THE MASK OF ZORRO and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, submitted the first draft of their GODZILLA screenplay to TriStar. In their story Godzilla would be pitted against a monster known as the Gryphon: a huge beast with the body of a cougar, the wings of a bat and a tongue of snakes. There were also creatures called Probe Bats in the plot. Interestingly, Elliott & Rossio had originally wanted to feature King Ghidorah in their screenplay, but Toho’s three-headed space dragon was, at that time, off-limits. (Later, after various drafts, Elliott & Rossio’s script would be rewritten by Don Macpherson)
Directors who were considered for this Godzilla project included Tim Burton, Joe Dante and Joe Johnston. Eventually Jan De Bont became attached. De Bont, the director of SPEED, was a big Toho fan, so he certainly was a good fit.
Joey Orosco sculpted the Godzilla maquettes. He was assisted by Scott Stoddard
Jan De Bont saw GODZILLA as a world famous movie monster icon primed for an update with modern Hollywood special effects technology. But there were movie executives who saw Big G as a campy, overly-kitschy character that would not appeal to an international audience without a complete overhaul. This attitude was what eventually forced De Bont off the project. De Bont also said that the studio just wanted the film to be made cheaper and faster. De Bont signed on for the disaster flick TWISTER instead, which became a big financial hit.
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin then came on board the GODZILLA project, but they were only willing to take on the film if they were allowed to completely reinvent Godzilla into something wholly their own, including a design for the great reptile that included a distinctive underbite and a lither physique. They also did not want any other giant monsters in the story for Godzilla to fight. And so this was how the divisive 1998 GODZILLA came into being.
Anyway, back to the De Bont version: lots of concept art, storyboards, sculpts, etc, were produced before this iteration of the GODZILLA project withered and died. These are shots of the (unfinished) maquette of Godzilla designed by Stan Winston Studio, under the direction of Jan De Bont…
Side view
Front view (note the missing foot-claws)
Back view
Here’s a pic of a finished Godzilla maquette…
Stan Winston Studio’s Godzilla maquette
Storyboard panels by David Russell…
The Gryphon rises!
Close-up of the Gryphon
A Probe Bat attacks!
Some Big G concept art…
Early Godzilla concept design by Ricardo Delgado
Godzilla-vs-jets concept artwork by Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery
A running Godzilla, drawn by Ricardo Delgado
Ricardo Delgado concept drawing shows how this Godzilla would be capable of sudden bursts of speed when it was required
Talented artist Carlos Huante’s concepts for the Gryphon…
A wingless version of the Gryphon
Check out the Gryphon’s ‘snake tongue’!
Nice illo!
Some Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery concept art for the Gryphon…
This is a great illustration!
Side view
Stan Winston Studio’s large Gryphon maquette…
It’s a pretty big maquette
Niiiiiiiice!
Front view
Side view
Designs for the Probe Bats by Carlos Huante…
A Probe Bat swoops down at a victim
This Probe Bat design was really liked by Jan De Bont
Yet more marvellous Probe Bat concept work, this time by Bruce Fuller…
Probe Bat scale chart by Bruce Fuller
People fall victim to the Probe Bats!
Fuller’s stonkingly good Probe Bat maquette
Front view of the Probe Bat maquette
Here’s an industry trade ad announcing TriStar`s GODZILLA for 1994…
But GODZILLA never did come out in 1994 as promised!
Lastly, here’s a close-up of the Godzilla maquette’s well-detailed face…
Roar!!!
THE LEGEND OF KING KONG
Kong!
In 1975 Universal approached RKO Pictures and offered them $200,000 (plus five percent of the film’s net profits) for the rights to make a new King Kong movie. There was no written contract, but Universal was confident that they received verbal approval from RKO, but… they would soon learn that RKO had actually signed a deal with Dino De Laurentiis and Paramount Pictures to produce a remake of the film. Universal hired Joseph Sargent to direct their film and Jim Danforth offered to produce the effects for the film using stop-motion animation. Eventually, however, a federal judge ruled that Paramount did have the rights to produce a KING KONG remake, and that RKO had exclusive rights to the 1933 film, which forced Universal to drop its plans for THE LEGEND OF KING KONG. It got shelved forever. Such a shame!
Along with the titular great ape, the film would have featured an Arsinoitherium, a Baluchitherium, a centipede creature, a giant amphibian, a huge vulture, a Parasaurolophus, a reptilian eel, a fictional dinosaur called a Triclonius and pit scorpions.
Here are some of Jim Danforth’s preproduction concepts…
The reptilian eel and the centipede creature, which has a tail-pincer
Danforth’s out of left field design for Kong, which, facially, resembles an apeman more than an ape
The prehistoric mammal Arsinoitherium
Giant amphibian
The Triclonius
Top and side view concepts for the centipede creature
Giant vulture
DINO-RIDERS
The (now-defunct) animation company Vanguard Animation boasted an interesting slate of upcoming projects before the outfit folded. John Stevenson (co-director of KUNG FU PANDA) was attached to either produce and/or direct six of these projects… and one of them was… DINO-RIDERS.
Dinosaurs armed with powerful future weapons! Woot!
This animated movie would have been based on the Mattel/Tyco toy property from the late 80s. The story focused on the Valorians, a future race of humans who are at war with the humanoid-frog-ish Rulons. To escape the assault on their home, the Valorians use a Space Time Energy Projector machine, but this zaps them (and the pursuing Rulons) all the way back to prehistoric Earth during the age of the dinosaurs. The heroic Valorians find that they are able to telepathically communicate with the dinosaurs, which means they befriend the great reptiles and start riding them! But Vanguard Animation folded before this fine-sounding animation flick could be made, their collapse aided, no doubt, by the poor reception Vanguard received for the films they had just released (such as HAPPILY N’EVER AFTER). Oh well.
Here are some of the (pretty awesome) concept artworks for the animation project…
Parasaurolophus riders concept art
All guns blazing!
Tyrannosaurus-in-body-armour concept art
Why wasn’t this film made?!
SUPERMAN LIVES
On paper this Superman movie project looked kinda promising: it had a light, fun, action-packed script written by comic book fan-boy Kevin Smith, it was going to be directed by Tim Burton and it was set to star the Oscar-winning Nicolas Cage as Supes. But it all started to go wrong…
Tim Burton’s early sketch for Superman
First Burton removed Kevin Smith from the project. There was not much in Smith’s script that could be described as typically ‘Burtonesque’ and it didn’t really contain the themes that the director wanted to address, like Superman’s outsider angst, etc, so Burton brought in Wesley Strick to write a new draft.Dan Gilroy also did another draft of the script. And yet more drafts were to follow. Expensive preproduction progressed but, in late 1997, Warner Bros decided to cancel the film, partly because BATMAN AND ROBIN had become a commercial and critical disaster, which made the studio very, very nervous about SUPERMAN LIVES. Warners Bros had had several flops in the mid-90s and they just couldn’t afford to take such a big risk. Burton made his SLEEPY HOLLOW project instead.
SUPERMAN LIVES would certainly have been a quirky big budget movie if it’d got produced, with some strange creatures and character-designs added to the mix.
Here are some colour concept drawings, by Jacques Rey, that he created for Tim Burton’s unmade superhero film…
Superman and some Burton-style oddness: the head-on-a-cone is actually a concept for villain Brainiac
Kryptonian character ‘K’ in the Fortress of Solitude
Another concept for the Kryptonian AI guardian called ‘K’
Two creature studies by Jacques Rey…
Tentacles!
I love this one!
And here are concepts for the villain Doomsday…
Idea roughs by Jacques Rey
Some more concept art for SUPERMAN LIVES…
Brainiac with a Dracula-like cape
Yet another concept for the AI guardian ‘K’
Brainiac’s battle suit concept by Rolf Mohr
Doomsday concept drawing by Kerry Gammill
Pete Von Sholly’s fun concept art for a monster in Brainiac’s intergalactic zoo
John Carpenter’s CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
John Carpenter was approached to remake CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON in 1992, with Rick Baker creating designs for the new look of the Creature. In the script for this project, which I read many years ago, the Creature dwelt in a submerged pyramid-temple and could transform itself so that it could resemble a human. I presume this idea was included to provide the FX crew with an excuse to do some prosthetic transformation scenes, but, for me, it was a concept that I didn’t really like.
Anyway, this project, which was going to be pretty violent and gory, was cancelled due to the failure of Carpenter’s MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN at the box office the same year.
Rick Baker’s concept for the gill-man
Creature maquette sculpted by Rick Baker
NIGHT SKIES
This unmade movie would have been produced by Steven Spielberg, written by John Sayles and directed by Ron Cobb. The project was shelved and eventually evolved into E.T.
Here are some of Ron Cobb’s alien concept drawings…
Above: Ron Cobb concept drawings for NIGHT SKIES
John Carpenter’s DARKCHYLDE
Writer/artist Randy Queen, the creator of ‘Darkchylde’, a comic book which focused on Ariel Chylde, a heroine who could transform into the creatures of her nightmares, teamed-up with Weta Workshop to produce some digital test footage of Ariel transforming into her winged, demonic side and fighting a monster. John Carpenter then came onboard to help bring the nightmarish tale to the silver screen. At one point a producer mentioned that Chloë Grace Moretz, Elizabeth Olson and Elle Fanning were ‘being thought of,’ though there was never any indication that any of the actresses had actually been approached regarding this project. Finally, as is often the way, DARKCHYLDE simply stalled and died.
Teaser poster
Shots from the DARKCHYLDE test footage…
Monster in the kitchen!
Fight!
Roar!
HOSTS
A sci-fi-horror script called HOSTS was written back in the 90s and, for a short time, an executive from a film company was interested in the development of the project. Concept designs were created for the aliens, which were referred to as Swarmers: these eel-like critters could group together with a central Queen body to become a Colony Creature.
Brett Piper (director, FX man & stop-motion animator of A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL, TRICLOPS, QUEEN CRAB and many other films) built a posable model of a Swarmer, to help sell-in the project.
In the end, HOSTS never happened, but these drawings and photos of Brett’s model creature are worth checking out…
Above: concept designs for the Swarmers
Above: concept drawings for the Colony Creature
Above: various shots of Brett Piper’s articulated model of a Swarmer
MOTHRA VS. BAGAN
This 1990 Toho movie concept would have seen Mothra appearing on-screen for the first time since DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. The plot involved a monster called Bagan for Mothra to battle.
However, due to the poor box office performance of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, the film was cancelled. The great moth would eventually return in 1992’s GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA.
The horned monster Bagan eventually made its debut in the 1993 Godzilla game ‘Super Godzilla’
Bagan zaps a hole in Mothra’s wing!
LOST PATROL
This is the uber-talented Charlie Chiodo’s concept illustration for an unmade lost world movie called LOST PATROL, which the Chiodo brothers were hoping to make…
Soldiers chased by a hungry carnosaur!
Detail from my print of the illustration (which I got the Chiodo brothers to sign!)
WAR OF THE WORLDS
Stop-motion king Ray Harryhausen produced evocative B&W concept drawings and made a 16mm test reel in order to sell-in his version of H.G. Wells’ alien invasion story THE WAR OF THE WORLDS , which would have boasted stop-motion tentacled extraterrestrials and Martian tripods.
Harryhausen took his project all around Hollywood, but, back in the 1940s, nobody was interested.
Here’s a bunch of his fine drawings…
Dying Martians!
A house gets scorched by a tripod’s heat ray!
Tripods on the march!
Malevolent martian!
Here is Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion Martian puppet, as seen in his 16mm test reel…
A tentacled Martian crawls into view
Artist Graham Humphreys painted this wonderful illustration to accompany the book ‘Harryhausen: The Lost Movies’, published by Titan Books…
Graham Humphreys nicely conveys what Harryhausen’s version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS might have been like
GRANDMA LUCY
Ken Barthelmey created some concept designs for this unproduced film project in early 2011. It was planned to be a post-apocalyptic horror movie featuring an old creepy female creature as the main antagonist…
Look at those elongated fingers!
Grandma Lucy ain’t very pretty
NESSIE
Hammer Films planned to collaborate with Toho to make a giant creature feature about the Loch Ness Monster! Yay! But it didn’t get made. Boo!
Concept drawings were done and ads were released, claiming the movie would be ready for world release in 1977. That, obviously, never came to pass (sob).
Here’s concept artwork of Nessie…
Nessie is depicted as a bumpy-backed, finned beast that is coloured green with orange spots
Here’s a two-page advertisement that Hammer put out…
‘Ready for world release Easter 1977’. Yeah, sure!
This is a commissioned piece from artist Lenny Romero, showing Nessie wrecking Gibraltar…
This cool illo was commissioned by Greg Noneman for his 2019 Gfest panel ‘Nessie: The Kaiju that Hammer Loched Away’
This is another Greg Noneman commission, titled ‘Terror at Tower Bridge’, which was created by Matt Frank for the G-Fest panel ‘Nessie: The Kaiju that Hammer Loched Away’. This illustration was inspired by a piece of concept art from the unmade Toho/Hammer Nessie film…
As you can see: this is Matt’s own design for the Toho Nessie, featuring cool axolotl-style gills on the sides of the critter’s head
Guillermo del Toro’s CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Guillermo del Toro, who was a huge fan of the original version of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, planned a remake. A conceptual Creature maquette was designed by Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery and sculpted & painted by David Grasso, for Mike Elizalde’s creature effects studio Spectral Motion.
Guillermo del Toro’s vision involved the story being seen from the Creature’s point of view, and the film would have ended with the gill-man and his human love interest getting together. Universal, however, was not open to these ideas and the film was eventually scrapped. Guillermo, of course, would go on to make his own distinctive gill-man tale, THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017), which became an Oscar-winner.
McCreery’s take on the gill-man is much more sinuous and reptilian
Close-up of the maquette’s face
WHEN THE EARTH CRACKED OPEN
This is another unmade Hammer film! It would have been a Ray Harryhausen/Hammer Films collaboration, akin to ONE MILLION YEARS BC.
Harryhausen created some concept art featuring dinosaur-type reptilian beasts emerging from the ground. The movie would have contained swamp creatures, giant stag beetles, a giant armadillo and giant soldier ants.
Ray Harryhausen’s concept shows a huge lizard-creature bursting from the ground
Regular Hammer poster artist Tom Chantrell did some promotional artwork for this project, which remained a rather unfocused affair, resulting in some imagery looking futuristic whilst other images looked prehistoric…
Chantrell’s promotional painting depicts a cave girl and a spike-faced monster…
…while this Chantrell illustration boasts an underdressed sci-fi woman with some kind of disaster happening behind her
GODZILLA – KING OF THE MONSTERS in 3-D
Back in the 1980s an American Godzilla project, with a script written by Fred Dekker, looked set to go into production, with Dave Allen lined up to do the stop-motion animation to bring the great reptile to life . Steve Miner was attached as director and William Stout produced lots of concept art and storyboards. The movie, which was set to feature a more dinosaur-like Godzilla, never got made, maybe because it was obviously going to be full of special effects and would be very costly. Stout has said that he also thought that Steve Miner might have been an issue. Miner had directed a couple of high-grossing FRIDAY THE 13TH movies, but perhaps the Hollywood studios wondered if he had the directing chops to do this big scale film justice. Whatever the reasons were, this 3-D take on Big G stalled.
These are some of the many storyboard panels created by William Stout, which were done so that Steve Miner could come up with a realistic effects budget…
William Stout storyboard panel
William Stout storyboard panel – this helicopter is getting too close!
William Stout storyboard panel
William Stout storyboard panel – boom!
William Stout storyboard panel
William Stout storyboard panel (Stout ended up storyboarding about 85% of the film)
In the script Godzilla attacks San Francisco and ends up dying on Alcatraz. Here’s William Stout’s illustration of Godzilla at Alcatraz…
Showdown on Alcatraz
This is the preliminary charcoal drawing William Stout made prior to creating a presentation painting…
Godzilla zaps the Golden Gate Bridge!
Stephen Czerkas sculpted the fully articulated foam rubber animation maquette, based on Stout’s Godzilla design, which Dave Allen would’ve animated…
William Stout posing with the large Godzilla stop-motion puppet and a Godzilla toy
FORCE OF THE TROJANS
With a script by writer Beverly (JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) Cross and a studio deal set up by producer Charles H. Schneer, Ray Harryhausen’s fantasy adventure project looked like it was going to get made, but it was never, sadly, given the green light by MGM.
The plot would have involved a plethora of mythical characters. Here are some of Ray Harryhausen’s concept drawings…
Octo-reptile creature Charybdis clings to the rocks in this awesome drawing!
Charybdis sketch by Ray Harryhausen
Harryhausen’s concept drawing for the crab-legged Scylla
Here’s a sculpture Ray Harryhausen did of the head of the creature known as Scylla…
Scylla has a dinosaur-like face here
TIMEGATE
Stop-motion animator and ace matte artist Jim Danforth’s famous unmade film, TIMEGATE, was going to be a time travel tale that owed some of its plot ideas to Ray Bradbury’s short story ‘A Sound of Thunder’. Danforth would have been the writer, co-designer, director and co-producer of this sci-fi-adventure film.
Here’s some artwork created by Danforth…
Cool publicity poster painting
Nice concept drawing showing the multi-legged vehicle the time travelling hunters would use to get close to the dinosaurs
Monoclonius drawing shown next to human figure to illustrate scale
Jim Danforth stands next to some of his preproduction drawings
Phil Tippet built this Triassic therapsid resin maquette. It was hand-painted in shades of green…
Tippett moulded it around a static metal armature
Phil Tippett’s maquette of a Wolf-Lizard…
The Wolf-Lizards would have attacked and bitten the characters in the film
ELEPHANT RUSTLERS
Legendary special effects pioneer Willis (KING KONG) O’Brien had the idea to make an adventure feature film concerning an exotic hunt for elephant thieves in Burma, where the expedition is threatened… by giant lizards that resemble Komodo Dragons! As with many of O’Brien’s concepts, the project, from 1960, was unfortunately left unmade…
Lizards attack elephants!
O’Brien’s concept illustrations were accomplished in pencil and gouache
HAG
Also going by the name SHUT-EYE, this horror-creature-feature would have been about a night hag intent on killing everyone at a sleep disorder clinic. The supernatural she-thing would have been able to contort itself to slither through pipes and vents, and enlarge its mouth to give its victims a ‘kiss of death’ to suck away their breath. The script was optioned, special effects master Steve Wang came on board to direct the film, but the project ultimately ground to a halt.
Here are some visuals produced by Steve Wang…
Early concept sketch of the Hag’s face
The Hag’s face would often be obscured by long, black hair
A detailed full-body maquette of the Hag was sculpted by Steve Wang, showing the unsettling mix of scrawniness and loose, drooping flesh…
The Hag’s coming for you…
Steve Wang’s awesome Hag maquette had scrawny arms
This concept of the Hag portrayed the being as fairly human-like, akin to a witch
Some later Hag visuals…
This version of the Hag, drawn by Ken Miller, was a leaner, skinnier being with a larger head and a mass of black hair that hid a lot of its physique as it lurked in shadows
The Hag in the script was a supernatural creature with various abilities: it could dislocate its jaw bones to open its mouth very wide. Ken Miller’s sequence of sketches explored how the Hag would look as it enlarged its mouth to give its ‘kiss of death’
MONSTERS OF SHADOW LAKE
William R. Stromberg, who directed THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER, planned to make another movie about aquatic beasts, called MONSTERS OF SHADOW LAKE.
Jim Danforth produced a concept painting to help promote the project, but the flick didn’t get made…
Cool critter!
CENTAURI III
This is another unmade movie by Jim Danforth, that would’ve, of course, featured stop-motion creatures. Here’s Danforth’s concept art showing a tentacled alien critter…
It’s a shame CENTAURI III never got produced
THONGOR IN THE VALLEY OF DEMONS
Back in the 1970s producer Milton Subotsky considered making a Conan the Barbarian movie, then decided to try and bring sword and sorcery hero Thongor to the screen instead. The film’s highlights would have included giant flying spiders, huge serpents, magical swords, a flying metal boat, princesses and Lizard-Hawks.
Promotional poster
United Artists was allegedly going to foot the bill, but pulled out and Subotsky’s production stalled permanently. This is a real shame, because this could’ve been a fun sword and sorcery yarn with sci-fi elements and stop-motion monsters!
Concept sketch showing Thongor confronted by giant serpents
Modeler Tony McVey, who’d worked on SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, built a stop-motion model of a Lizard-Hawk. The animation of the film’s creatures would have been handled by Barry Leith, an animator of British kids shows like THE WOMBLES (1975). Here are some shots of the Lizard-Hawk model…
Cool!
Shots of the Lizard-Hawk sculpture and armature
KRANGOA
Jim Danforth tried to get a giant ape movie made in the 90s, called KRANGOA, but, as so often happens, the project failed to get traction, despite the fact Danforth painted this wonderful concept artwork…
The giant ape family that live on the island of Krangoa
THE BUBBLES
This unrealized early 1960s Willis O’Brien project would have been about massive, tentacled jellyfish-type creatures appearing in Baja, California, where they start eating up everything in their path.
Here’s some concept artwork O’Brien produced to illustrate his ideas…
I don’t think that little knife is going to hurt that blobby beast!
The concept art was accomplished in pencil, ink and gouache
A ‘bubble’ critter starts wreaking stuff!
A quicker, looser concept drawing showing the attacking blob-things
KING KONG VS. FRANKENSTEIN
This was yet another unmade Willis O’Brien flick (and there were many more, such as WAR EAGLES, etc). This project, also known as KING KONG VS. PROMETHEUS, was conceived by O’Brien as a sequel to KING KONG (1933), with the big ape coming face to face with an equally enormous Frankenstein Monster.
O’Brien’s story idea was stolen by producer John Beck, who sold it to Toho, who ultimately made KING KONG VS. GODZILLA instead, in 1962. O’Brien contemplated suing Beck for intent to defraud, but he did not have enough money for a protracted legal battle. On November 10th, 1962, Willis O’Brien died of a heart attack in his home. His widow, Darlyne, would later cite “the frustration of the King Kong Vs. Frankenstein deal” as a contributing factor to his death.
Here are some of the pencil, pen & ink and gouache illustrations that Willis O’Brien created for the project that was stolen from him…
Study for King Kong
Study for the golem-like Frankenstein Monster
The Frankenstein Monster holds a tightrope as a woman balances upon it
The concept art depicts a huge arena with the audience staring at a stage with King Kong and Frankenstein’s Monster on display
Battle of the behemoths!
I would’ve loved to have seen this stop-motion creature showdown!
Here Willis O’Brien’s detailed sketch depicts six panels with different concepts for Frankenstein’s Monster, with human figures drawn in-between the panels for scale comparison…
Pencil, pen & ink on illustration board
I AM LEGEND
Ridley Scott planned to make his version of I AM LEGEND in the late 90s. This take on the Richard Matheson story would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was going to be a sophisticated, dark, artsy and psychological film with minimal dialogue but, unfortunately, the $100 million budget kept climbing and the studio, Warner Brothers, shut it down and Scott went off to direct his hit film GLADIATOR instead.
One of the artists Scott worked with on I AM LEGEND, to help visualise the film, was Sylvain Despretz. Here are some of his concepts for the Hemocytes: humanoid creatures that resembled zombies…
Two Hemocytes
Scott told Despretz that he wanted an emaciated look for the Hemocytes
The Hemocytes were clothed in rags
HIERO’S JOURNEY
Yes – this is another never-made Jim Danforth project! This would have been a Columbia film, based on a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written by American writer Sterling Lanier, but it was not put into production.
Here we see a beautifully-painted piece of concept art depicting a lizard-riding huntress…
Danforth titled this painting ‘Tracking the Quarry’
Okay, let’s finish this article with two more examples of concept artwork from Ray Harryhausen.
This is his drawing for an unmade adaptation of H.G. Wells’ FOOD OF THE GODS…
Giant chickens!
And here’s Ray Harryhausen’s concept drawing for the unproduced lost world movie VALLEY OF THE MIST, from 1950…
A gorgeous example of Ray Harryhausen’s style of drawing!
Directed and written by Brett Piper, starring Michelle Simone Miller, Kathryn Metz, Richard Lounello, A.J. DeLucia, Steve Diasparra, Danielle Donahue and Ken Van Sant.
Michelle Simone Miller
A massive crustacean on the rampage!
A girl rears a giant crab as her pet in a local pond, feeding it special food linked to her scientist father’s growth experiments, but, years later, the time comes for the crustacean to spawn and its existence can no longer be kept a secret…
Our young heroine feeds the crab special grapes
The girl bonds with the fresh water crustacean
Nothing to see here, just the heroine riding around on the back of her giant pet crab…
Brett Piper, the king of low budget stop-motion monster FX, is the man behind this production, which is maybe too talky at the start, requiring some filler scenes to pad out the running time, but the flick does boast a very fine-looking crab creature!
I’m not anti-CGI, okay, but I just love the look of a nicely-animated stop-motion monster – and this killer crab looks pretty damn great.
Richard Lounello is attacked by Queen Crab!
Here comes the big pinch!
Along with the huge queen crab we get a bunch of baby monster crabs too. The stop-motion shots of these crab offspring were achieved by utilising the same stop-motion model used for the momma crab.
A smaller but just as nasty crab!
There’s a scene with baby crabs being run over by a car. These splatting crab shots were achieved by Brett using models, about a foot across the back of the shell, made of plaster and filled with pudding. They go splat real nice in the film!
A baby crab skitters across the road
I enjoyed the movie and, as I probably always say when reviewing a Brett Piper film, though this production is really super low budget, you do get a lot of lovingly-animated creature hijinks as compensation.
Here’s a shot of Michelle Simone Miller and the stop-motion crab…
…and here’s another shot of the killer crab…
…and here’s yet another pic of the stop-motion crab because, well, why not?
Also known as CLAWS, this flick, which is full of barely passable performances, multiple stop-motion scenes, pincer attacks and a shoot-out near the huge crustacean’s pond, is a crab-tastic viewing experience best enjoyed with your brain switched off and a beer in your hand.
In the UK the film is known as CLAWS
Finally, here’s a behind the scenes shot of the stop-motion crab puppet and a nicely-detailed miniature wrecked building that features in the film…
Brett Piper’s sweet-lookin’ ruined building scale model
Directed by Brett Piper, starring Matthew Crawley, Steve Diasparra, Richard Lounello, Ken Van Sant and Erin Waterhouse.
‘Hideous mutant giant rules a lost world!’
A creature in a cavern!
A low budget homage to 1950s creature features, this is the fun tale of a crater in the USA that is crammed with creatures and plants mutated by a glowing meteor in a cavern.
Killer plant!
A nice shot of a stop-motion horn-nosed creature
The film features a large variety of bug-beasts, a horned reptile monster and the titular three-eyed giant (who seems to be inspired by the big mutant dude from Bert I. Gordon’s 1957 movie THE CYCLOPS). The Triclops is played by a guy in makeup but most of the other monsters, including a cool giant scorpion, are stop-motion.
Being chased by the giant Triclops!
Triclops gets the girl!
Who’s a pretty boy then?
The animated critters are the creations of director-animator Brett Piper, who has almost singlehandedly been keeping the art of live action stop-motion filmmaking alive with such productions as A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL (1990), ARACHNIA (2003) and QUEEN CRAB (2015).
Bug-beast!
The horned creature!
A bug-faced beast bursts from a dirt bank!
Monster fight!
Brett produces his movies on tight budgets, so don’t go expecting a multimillion dollar epic with famous actors, but, if you’re a stop-motion monster fan, this is going to be a diverting, critter-tastic way to spend 80 minutes. And the film also features some lava, which, in my opinion, all lost world-type movies must have!
Bug-beast alert!
Finally, here’s an illustration by Jamie Chase, inspired by this movie…
Starring Yuen Biao, Hiroshi Mikami, Wong Siu-Fung, Narumi Yasuda, Gloria Yip, Eddy Ko, Gordon Liu and Philip Kwok, directed by Nam Nai-Choi for Golden Harvest.
It goes without saying that various people in this flick have special powers
Gordon Liu!
Two young monks, Peacock (Biao) and Lucky Fruit (Mikami), must prevent the Hell King from destroying the world. Supernatural forces are able to enter the world via four holes to Hell, and the bulk of the tale concerns the hunt for these entrances. In fact, the film’s main weakness is that too much time is given over to whizzing to Japan, Hong Kong and Tibet, fracturing what chance there is of linear plot development.
Poster
However, the movie’s fun special effects more than compensate…
Early on we see small, many-eyed crawly thingies called ‘womanising ghosts’, which resemble more interesting versions of the stop-motion models crafted for the hologram chess game in STAR WARS.
These lil’ critters run around a sidewalk, chased by a dog.
Stop-motion ‘womanising ghost’ creatures peer out from a discarded fast food burger box
Thai poster for the film
Another animation model comes into play when Hell’s Envoy Raga, played by Wong Siu-Fung, gets injured. Raga arches her back, develops telescopic, insectoid forearms and claws, and then, best of all, causes her now reptilian, elongated face to split lengthwise into a gaping, vertical, toothy maw!
Stop-motion puppet version of the split-faced monster
Animatronic model of the monster, used for close-ups
This very cool monster acrobatically leaps around the place as it battles the protagonists, with full-scale props and animatronics used in conjunction with the stop-motion puppet to bring this beast to the screen. This is definitely the standout sequence in the movie!
A look inside the Hell’s Envoy Monster’s mouth
Peacock (Yuen Biao) gets pinned down by the beast!
Poster
Other special effects moments include a dinosaur model coming to life at a prehistoric exhibition, a genie-type giant and a flaming phoenix of light.
The full size dinosaur model at an exhibition…
…which is brought to ‘life’ by evil magic!
Roar!
Also known as Legend of the Phoenix, this modern day Hong Kong fantasy-action flick is flawed but great fun!
Also known as LEGEND OF THE PHOENIX
Okay then, one more look at the Hell’s Envoy Monster…
The split-faced creature loses an arm, but it keeps on fighting
Directed by Nathan (THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD) Juran, starring Edward Judd, Lionel Jeffries, Martha Hyer, Miles Malleson and an uncredited cameo by Peter Finch.
US one sheet poster
When a team of astronauts land on the moon, they discover an old Union Jack flag and a document, which states that the moon has already been claimed… for Queen Victoria!
Cavor with his Cavorite
Back on Earth, an investigation team locates the last of the original Victorian crew, a very old Arnold Bedford (Judd), who tells them the story of how he and his girlfriend Katherine (Hyer) met up with an idiosyncratic inventor called Joseph Cavor (Jeffries). As the story unfolds, we see that Cavor has invented a gravity-defying substance called Cavorite, which allows them to fly a sphere all the way to the moon. Once there, the intrepid trio discovers a lunar civilisation composed of various types of intelligent, insect-like beings, referred to as selenites…
A stop-motion selenite looks on
This light, comedic slice of Victorian-era science fiction, shot in Panavision, features fine performances from Lionel Jeffries and Edward Judd. I think Jeffries is especially good as Cavor, who is the standout character in a script written by Nigel (THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT) Kneale. The story is, of course, an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel.
Lionel Jeffries is wonderful as Cavor
Together with this film, Edward Judd was in several other sci-fi flicks that I like: THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, INVASION and ISLAND OF TERROR
Selenite versus human!
The Grand Lunar and several higher-status selenites are stop-motion creations courtesy of Ray Harryhausen, while the worker selenites are children in costumes, which I think works okay as they aren’t focused on in detail.
Worker selenites (kids in costumes) dismantle the sphere
A worker selenite
The stop-motion Grand Lunar: leader of the selenites
The giant mooncalf is also created via stop-motion by Ray Harryhausen: its attack on the heroes is my favourite moment in the movie.
The giant, caterpillar-like mooncalf is ace!
Bedford is attacked by the mooncalf!
The movie boasts some pleasing moonscape sets, subterranean vistas, plus a clever modern day wraparound plot device, which all add to the enjoyment of the viewing experience.
One of the cool underground vistas
One of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion selenites
Cavor prepares to meet the Grand Lunar
Some posters for the movie…
UK quad poster
French poster
US one sheet poster
West German poster
Turkish poster
US insert poster
West German poster
Italian poster
US half sheet poster
Here are some Italian Fotobustas (lobby cards)…
Fotobusta
Fotobusta
Fotobusta
Fotobusta
Cover for the Gold Key comic adaptation…
Comic book cover
Some colourful art…
Illustration by Daryl Joyce
Okay, let’s focus on the lovely mooncalf…
In the movie the mooncalf gets zapped!
The selenites strip the mooncalf of its flesh, leaving a skeleton
The special visual effects for the film were provided by Ray Harryhausen, who worked alongside British special effects expert Les Bowie at his Slough studio to produce the complicated travelling matte sequences that combined live action footage with the miniatures. Ian Scoones, who frequently collaborated with Bowie, drew the concept artwork for the mooncalf skeleton. Here you can see Scoones’ skeleton drawing on the top right, next to Ray’s initial concepts for the look of the mooncalf stop-motion model’s face and body…
Cool concept work
Finally, here’s a publicity shot of Martha Hyer…
Martha also appeared in the killer bear movie NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY
Directed by Jim O’Connolly, produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen, written by William Bast and starring James Franciscus, Richard Carlson, Laurence Naismith, Gila Golan, Curtis Arden and Freda Jackson.
‘Cowboys battle monsters in the lost world of Forbidden Valley’: how can any self-respecting monster movie fan resist that tag line?!
THE VALLEY OF GWANGI is a dino-tastic story set in Mexico at the turn of the 20th century. It follows the adventures of rodeo circus owner T.J. Breckenridge (a dubbed Gila Golan), her former beau Tuck Kirby (Franciscus), a British paleontologist (Naismith), a Mexican boy called Lope (Arden) and various cowboy members of the circus, as they find themselves in peril in the Forbidden Valley, a rocky zone that is full of prehistoric creatures! Woot!
Gwangi won’t be caged for long!
THE VALLEY OF GWANGI is a vibrant monster-fantasy-western that features stop-motion effects courtesy of the great Ray Harryhausen, a rousing score by Jerome Moross and likeable performances from the likes of James Franciscus and Richard Carlson.
Pteranodon attack!
Plot-wise, the movie is a lost world adventure with a western twist, which then transitions into a King Kong-style finale, where the titular dinosaur Gwangi is brought back to civilisation to be displayed at Breckenridge’s circus but, as always happens in these tales, the beast escapes and runs amok in the local Mexican town.
Gwangi on the rampage! The dinosaur reaches the big cathedral…
…and there’s a cat-and-mouse encounter inside the building, as Tuck takes on the giant predator…
…and eventually Gwangi is burnt to death, as the cathedral catches fire and starts to collapse
‘The strangest round up of all as cowboys battle monsters!’
Harryhausen’s effects are definitely the movie’s main selling point, and for this production we get to see an Eohippus, a Pteranodon, an Ornithomimus, a huge Allosaurus (Gwangi) and a Styracosaurus roaming across the screen. A stop-motion model of an elephant is also used when the pachyderm fights Gwangi during the finale.
Ornithomimus
Styracosaurus
Dinosaur versus elephant!
The real stand-out moment is the roping sequence, when the cowboy heroes attempt to capture Gwangi using lassos. This is a wonderful action scene, showcasing Harryhausen’s top-notch stop-motion skills.
The roping scene rocks!
Another mouthwatering effects set piece is Gwangi’s fight with the Styracosaurus. Lots of roaring and biting! I love stop-motion dino battles!
Dinosaurs duking it out!
Some earlier scenes with El Diablo the Eohippus, a tiny prehistoric horse, are also memorable, with Harryhausen putting just as much effort into these quieter, sweeter moments as he does with the more bombastic dinosaur encounters later on.
He’s a cute lil’ thing, ain’t he?
Tuck & T.J. with El Diablo the Eohippus
The Eohippus says ‘hi’ to its much bigger descendant
I’m not a fan of the solid-latex model of Gwangi that’s used for the scenes where the dinosaur knocks itself out while trying to push its way through the narrow gap to escape Forbidden Valley. I think Harryhausen himself was never pleased with these shots, as this inflexible model definitely has no ‘life’ to it: it looks especially stiff in the shots of Gwangi lying unconscious on the ground. Harryhausen had done similar scenes in his previous dinosaur adventure, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C., for instance, where Ray presented us with a marvellous shot of a dying Ceratosaurus lying on the ground, with its belly inflating and deflating as it desperately tries to keep breathing. So it’s such a shame a similar effect couldn’t have been used in GWANGI, though I’m sure Harryhausen was under a lot of budget and time constraints (but the Styracosaurus model in GWANGI was equipped with an inflatable air ‘bladder’ to simulate breathing).
Gwangi’s skin colour changes a few times over the course of the movie because, as there was so much animation to do, Harryhausen didn’t have enough time to do proper colour testing, so Gwangi ranges from grey to blue to purple-ish. I actually don’t think these colour changes are distracting and I’m sure I never spotted them when I viewed the movie as a kid.
I would’ve liked more atmospheric matte paintings like this one
The full-scale Pteranodon model and Gwangi head, used for close-ups, are not as effective as their stop-motion counterparts, but I’ll stop quibbling now and reiterate that THE VALLEY OF GWANGI is a colourful, entertaining fantasy flick, replete with monsters, gypsy curses, a belligerent circus elephant and even a dangerous-bull-in-a-bullring scene!
Trying to break the Pteranodon’s neck!
Angry gypsy folk
Shot in Spain, which stands in for Mexico, the movie utilises the odd rock formations of La Ciudad Encantada, a distinctive geological site near the city of Cuenca (which is also featured in 1982’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN), to create the prehistoric vistas of the Forbidden Valley.
This shot features some of La Ciudad Encantada’s mushroom-shaped rock formations
Nom-nom-nom!
Jerome Moross, the composer who worked on such films and TV series as THE BIG COUNTRY, GUNSMOKE, WAGON TRAIN and HAVE GUN – WILL TRAVEL, provides a soundtrack that really injects a thrilling, full-blooded western vibe into GWANGI. It’s a great score, with a main theme dripping with urgency (that I happen to be listening to right now as I write this!)
Here’s some free advice, cowboy-dudes: don’t use a blanket to ward off a vicious Allosaurus!
I was never quite sure why the cowboy decided to spear the herbivore, rather than the more dangerous predator…
The scene where Gwangi lunges into view and snaps-up the fast-running Ornithomimus in its jaws was later recreated in JURASSIC PARK, this time featuring a Tyrannosaurus Rex plunging into shot to gobble up a fast-running Gallimimus.
Anyway, this is a Ray Harryhausen movie about cowboys venturing into a lost world of dinosaurs, so of course I will always love this movie!
THE WILLIS O’BRIEN CONNECTION This film was actually a project that Willis O’Brien tried to develop, many decades earlier. It was titled THE VALLEY OF THE MISTS and it had been in preproduction at RKO for a while but, like a lot of O’Brien’s projects, it unfortunately fell through.
Here are some storyboards drawn by Willis O’Brien…
Here’s a hand-filled report (by O’Brien) on a printed RKO Radio Pictures form detailing visual effects requirements for an action sequence titled ‘Edge of Cliff’, which would’ve been featured in his iteration of the Gwangi movie…
RKO Radio Pictures form
Even though Willis O’Brien’s Gwangi movie was never made, some of his old production materials came into Ray Harryhausen’s possession and he proposed making his own version of the film to his producer/business partner Charles Schneer, who agreed that it should be their next project. And so THE VALLEY OF GWANGI finally went into production. Hooray! Though, as some people have pointed out, it’s a shame that O’Brien, who put a lot of effort into conceptualising the original Gwangi concept, didn’t receive a credit in the 1969 movie.
RAY HARRYHAUSEN CONCEPT ART Here are some really gorgeous examples of Ray’s well-rendered concept art for his movie…
Styracosaurus versus Gwangi
Cowboy chases an Ornithomimus
In Ray’s concept drawing for the pteranodon attack he drew the flying reptile with accurate-looking pterosaur wings. In the movie his stop-motion model was equipped with stylised bat-like wings.
Rays’s hand-drawn scale concept drawing for the Pteranodon features Ray’s signature bat-like wing design
Ray’s concept drawing for Gwangi, with cowboys and a horse shown for scale
Interestingly, long before Ray Harryhausen made his Gwangi movie, he actually painted this scene, way back in the 1930s. The painting’s title is: ‘Allosaurus attacking a cowboy’. So, I guess Ray was destined to make THE VALLEY OF GWANGI one day…
Lovely painting!
POSTERS FOR THE MOVIE Uber-talented artist Frank McCarthy, responsible for vivid, astounding poster illustrations for DUEL AT DIABLO, THE DIRTY DOZEN, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, KRAKATOA EAST OF JAVA, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, WHERE EAGLES DARE and many more, produced the striking artwork that adorns almost all of the poster versions for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI.
Here’s McCarthy’s illustration without the poster blurb. It’s a glorious piece of promotional art that exaggerates the scale of Gwangi. The mounted cowboys, dwarfed by the size of the mega-Gwangi, ride their steeds away from the dinosaur and gallop past supersized skulls, adding a lot of dynamism to the composition. A couple of scared, attractive women and the burning cathedral (from the end of the movie) add extra flavour to the artwork.
Stunning stuff!
McCarthy produced several preliminary design sketches that explored possible compositions for the Gwangi poster…
This Frank McCarthy preliminary artwork explores the idea of showing Gwangi from a reverse angle
This rough prelim sketch depicts a very upright-looking Gwangi
This is the Frank McCarthy preliminary artwork design that was chosen for the poster. ‘This is it’ is even written on the design!
Let’s check out a whole bunch of Gwangi posters now…
US three sheet poster
Italian poster. This puts a scantily-clad female at the front of the action. Those Italians!
Japanese B2 poster
German poster
US six sheet poster
Japanese STB poster
UK quad poster
Belgian poster
French grande poster
UK quad double bill poster
US half sheet poster
Italian locandina poster
Australian daybill poster
French moyenne poster
US insert poster
Poster from Argentina
US window card
US one sheet
Italian poster. This one actually doesn’t use Frank McCarthy’s dinosaur illustration: it features a spike-backed carnosaur instead (which was cribbed from a comic book)
A much more recent Mondo poster for the movie, designed by Mike Saputo
Poster for a screening of the movie by the Bristol Bad Film Club (I’m sure the club didn’t think this movie was actually bad!)
LOBBY CARDS Here are just some of the bobby cards for the film…
Lobby card
Lobby card. Laurence Naismith is just about to get squashed!
Lobby card. Dino fight!!!
Lobby card
Lobby card. Two big prehistoric beasts have a face-off!
Lobby card. Gwangi gobbles up an Ornithomimus!
ART INSPIRED BY THE VALLEY OF GWANGI Here are some cool artworks by illustrators who were inspired by the movie…
Gwangi-inspired cover art for the 1983 May issue of ‘Fantasy Book’ magazine, by Alan Gutierrez
Here are some Gwangi-tastic illustrations by the very prolific and very talented artist Jamie Chase…
Tuck encounters Gwangi
It’s lasso time!
William Stout…
William Stout’s rendition of the Gwangi vs Styracosaurus battle
Illustrator & designer Ross Persichetti produced some illustrations, featured on ArtStation, that were inspired by THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. Ross’ faux Gwangi sequel was called ‘Return to the Valley of Gwangi’
Gwangi chases a stagecoach!
Another faux ‘Return to the Valley of Gwangi’ concept illustration by Ross Persichetti
PRESSBOOK Pages from the Gwangi pressbook…
‘This is not 50,000,000 years ago… this is today!’
Page depicting various posters and accessories
VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES Here’s a bunch of different Gwangi-related items…
Dell movie adaptation comic cover
A page from ‘The Monster Times’ magazine
VHS cover
Hungarian DVD cover
UK DVD sleeve
German black and white ad
A shot of Ray Harryhausen with his clever set-up for the Gwangi vs elephant fight scene
Finally, here’s one more look at Gwangi in action…
I love how Gwangi stops to scratch his nose! Such a great touch from Ray, that adds more ‘life’ to the animated star of the movie. It is, of course, also a nice nod from Ray to Willis O’Brien’s dinosaur from KING KONG, which had an itchy snout too.
This giant wasp has got a lot of hairs up its nostrils!
This science fiction creature feature was directed by Kenneth G. (THE SPLIT) Crane, written by Louis (I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE) Vittes and Endre Bohem, and stars Jim (THE DAY TIME ENDED) Davis, Robert (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner and Eduardo Ciannelli.
The story centres on scientists, armed with grenades, trekking across Africa to find the wasps from a failed rocket experiment… that have turned into mutated giants!
US lobby card
The flick features lots of footslogging scenes. There’s so much walking! These sequences feature the main characters wearing Victorian-era clothing… so that the filmmakers can match the shots with bigger-scale stock footage scenes taken from 1939’s STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE!
Jim (DALLAS) Davis wears old fashioned explorer gear so that stock footage from STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE can be used in this movie!
And after all that bloody trudging across Africa… the scientists are actually unable to kill the wasps with their grenades during the finale! Yes, the protagonists fail in their mission! But then… an erupting volcano fortunately intervenes and this wipes the critters out. How very convenient!
Giant wasp!
The plot for MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL is, as you may have guessed from my comments above, not too hot… but I kinda like the beasties!
Huge insects on the march!
These creatures are a bit toy-like, but a certain amount of effort was put into them: stop-motion puppets (built by Wah Chang and animated by Gene Warren), plus a full-scale prop head and pincer, are used to bring the bugs to life on-screen. Actually, the full-scale bug head, with swivelling compound eyes, is quite impressive. So it’s a pity the movie didn’t utilise it more.
The full-size monster wasp head model was pretty cool!
One scene features a stop-motion snake…
…and the snake gets skewered by one of the wasps!
MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL was released on December 12th, 1957 in a double bill with HALF HUMAN.
Check out some posters for the movie…
US insert poster
UK quad poster
US half sheet
Italian locandina poster
US double bill one sheet poster
US double bill three sheet poster
Italian poster
This Argentinean poster seems to be suggesting the movie actually features some kind of merman!
A newspaper ad…
‘Free with each admission – a poster size blow-up of the monster!’
Here’s the pressbook for the MONSTER FROM GREEN and HALF HUMAN double bill…
Above: some of the pages from the pressbook
And here’s the movie theatre herald (ad flyer) for the double bill of MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL and HALF HUMAN…
This film is really odd, okay? You’ve been warned!
Off with its head!
Directors: Toru Sotoyama and Tom Wyner. Writers: Masaki Tsuji, Ifumi Uchiyama and Tom Wyner. Voice cast: Tom Wyner, Dan Woren, Robin Levenson, Cam Clarke, Mike Reynolds and Joe Perry.
Zap!
This distinctively-posed dinosaur illustration was used for the ATTACK OF THE SUPER MONSTERS VHS cover…
…and Godzilla posed in a very similar way in GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019) many years later
This film, released on VHS in the USA, is actually an edit of episodes from Japanese TV series DINOSAUR WAR IZENBORG, which was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, airing from 1977 to 1978 on TV Tokyo.
American voice actor Tom Wyner is the unhinged genius who decided to splice four of the 20-minute episodes together and dub them into English. He deserves a medal!
DVD cover from 2007
This is the story of dinosaurs returning to the Earth’s surface to attack mankind. These monster dinos are super-large, telepathic, can talk and breath fire! They can also turn normal Earth animals, such as dogs and rats, into monsters.
This talking Tyrannosaurus Rex can aim eye-beams at dogs… …and turn them into red, slavering killers!
ATTACK OF THE SUPER MONSTERS is a super-weird production: a mix of live action, anime and some stop-motion!
Two harpoons are fired into this dinosaur’s mouth… and he just eats them!
The red-eyed brute breaths-out radioactive dust
The human characters are portrayed via cartoon animation, whilst the monsters are a mixture of suitmation, some stop-motion (for the underground ‘normal’ dinosaurs) and props. The Earth animals that go mad are either anime (the dogs, rats) or props (rubber bats on wires.)
There’s a lot of scale model work used too, for the buildings, vehicles and landscapes.
Red rats attack a little girl!
A subterranean stop-motion sauropod
These cave-dwelling stop-motion dinosaurs are rather crudely animated
The world is defended by Gemini Force, which is led by the semi-android brother and sister duo of Jim and Gem Starbuck… who can ‘combine’ in a ‘Gemini transfer’ that joins their ‘life essences’ together so that they can beat the monsters.
“Gem.. Gem… Gemini!”
One of the super monsters is a glowing-eyed stegosaurus that can vibrate its back-plates to turn cartoon rats into killers! Gemini Force uses its drill-nosed flying Gemini Ship to slice off some of the dinosaur’s back-plates… and then our heroes bore their vehicle straight through the stegosaurus’ belly! The dino then blows up, of course.
This stegosaurus can talk and control hordes of cartoon rats!
Watch out for the red rodent!
A super-styracosaurus can emit a yellow beam from its mouth……and it can also breath fire!The styracosaurus teams-up another super monster, who has had one of its arms sawn off by Gemini Force!
Another dino-kaiju that attacks the surface world is a huge pteranodon that commands a flock of killer bats! This beaked beast pecks at a skyscraper at one point.
When pterosaurs attack!
Gemini Force injures the pteranodon… and it explodes!
A dead killer bat
The main villain, Lord Tyrannus, is actually portrayed by the reused T-Rex suit from the gloriously cheesy film THE LAST DINOSAUR (1977)!
Man-in-suit Lord Tyrannus rules over his stop-motion dinosaur underlings!
Oh, the madness of it all!
Boom!
Don’t try to logically make sense of it all, or your brain may well explode just like the dinosaurs do in this film. Just go with the flow and enjoy…
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.
Monster Zone 