Synopsis
Guarding a treasure of what looks like a few novelty store swords and chocolate dollar coins in a cave that could almost be the fabled Bronson Caverns of many a 50s B-movie is a monster that sometimes looks like a bad CGI centipede, but most of the time is a guy in a baggy rubber suit. The treasure, we are told, was left by Viking Conquistadors, and yes, you read that correctly. Why the alien monster is guarding the treasure is never explained. Anyway, the beast slaughters a bunch of people …ho stumble on the cave, and the authorities put together a raggedy-ass group of preposterous mercenaries (goth girl in high-heeled boots???) and unbelievable government agents to find out what’s going on. Roped in as a woman who survived the attacks, and for some reason has a psychic link to the monster now. Everything goes wrong with their plan.
Everything goes wrong with the production, too. From the wonky grammar on the case and meaningless title on down, this is a pure trash joy. You have to admire a film that has the guts to show its awful monster suit (it would have been dopey looking in 1955) so much in the broad light of day. The gore is over the top and hilarious, the editing abominable, the dialogue sub-literate, and the plot so nonsensical it might have been concocted by Ed Wood. Plus you have Lorenzo Lamas and Priscilla Barnes (showing evidence of truly alarming plastic surgery disasters) in small parts. The result is something almost as funny as the sublime Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, but unintentionally so.
Audio
Shouldn’t avalanches make more noise than this? The volume is indeed rather low, and the mix lacks depth and richness, though the environmental effects more or less pass muster. Needless to say, this is only 2.0.
Video
What happened? The colours are okay, but then, how hard is that to get right these days? The fullscreen image, however, is plague by a truly appalling level of grain. For every shot that looks decent, there’s another that’s barely watchable.
Special Features
You have a bunch of trailers, and a silly, one-joke featurette purporting to be an interview with the monster (a guy wearing the mask, gloves and feet of the costume). They must have spent a whole five minutes putting this one together. The menu is basic.
Closing Thoughts
There are plenty of really bad movies out there. But this one is bad on a truly glorious and deeply entertaining scale. I almost gave it five stars.
Special Features List
- Creature Interview
- Trailers
