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| GARGOYLES |
| 1972:
Emmy-winning gargoyle makeup by Ellis Burman and Stan Winson
(Jurassic Park) highlights this somewhat atmospheric,
slightly better than average TV-movie in which researcher Cornel
Wilde finds a race of gargoyles (satanic lizard-men) living
in remote caves in the New Mexico desert. There's excessive
use of slow motion, but the story has some creative ideas --
the gargoyles, first depicted as simple monsters, eventually
are shown to be persecuted critters who just want a piece of
the world to hang in. Bernie Casey is good as the not-totally-evil
head gargoyle, and Carlsbad Caverns locations add a touch of
class.
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| THE
GIANT GILA MONSTER |
| 1959:
Hot-rodding teens led by swinging singer Don Sullivan (who croons
such hits as "Let the Children Play" and "My
Baby, She Rocks") run afoul of a big gila monster deep
in the heart of Texas. Veteran stuntman Fred Graham is good
as the local sheriff, who thinks the monster may have been caused
by radioactive contaminants in the water. Meanwhile, every time
someone sees the monster, they're either conveniently drunk
or soon dead, so it takes awile for people to believe Sullivan's
wacked-out gila monster story. Effects are accomplished by having
a real gila monster wander around a terrarium. Director
Ray Kellogg (The Green Berets, The Killer Shrews) has
put together a decent drive-in picture with all the right ingredients;
and the score's not too bad. Just don't mistake it for Gone
with the Wind.
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| THE
GIANT LEECHES |
| 1959:
Another cheap drive-in monster movie, this one from director
Bernard L. Kowalski (Sssss, Night of the Blood Beast).
Leeches looking like guys in trash bags with suckers on them
rise from the swampy depths to kidnap local hillbillies and
carry them back to their underwater caves. The scenes in the
Leeches' underground lair are neat and atmospheric. Bruno Ve
Sota (Creature of the Walking Dead, Daughter of Horror)
plays a local shop owner, and Yvette Vickers (Attack of the
50-Foot Woman) plays his cheatin' wifey-kins. Aka Attack
of the Giant Leeches.
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| THE
GREEN SLIME |
1969:
Although it's got an "international" cast (Robert
Horton, Richard Jaeckel of Sometimes a Great Notion,
Luciana Paluzzi of Thunderball), this was made in Japan,
and it looks just like the giant monster movies of that period,
with extensive use of models and guys in monster costumes. Astronauts
try  to
stop a meteor headed for Earth and, although they succeed in
blowing it up, slime from the meteor makes it back to their
space station, where it grows into one-eyed, tentacled monsters.
Hilarious all the way through, with a spaceship loaded with
now-outdated analog clocks and rotating number wheels. It's
really just a WWII-esque formula soldier movie with space stuff
and slime monsters thrown in. And would you believe? The doctor
tries to communicate with the monsters in the name of science
but - surpise, surprise - they kill him. Leonard Maltin's film
guide says that this is "[n]ot as much fun as it sounds,"
but whoever wrote that review (probably one of the hundreds
of illegal immigrants chained to typewriters in Maltin's basement)
deserves to be eaten alive by cannibals, or at least made into
a casserole, as this movie is GREAT! Funny human interest,
great slime monsters, and probably the best title song ever,
the appropriately titled "Green Slime." Back |
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Text
copyright 2000 by Conall Pendergast.
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