ALL SCI-FI

Bud Brewster · Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Aug 23, 2022 2:14 pm; edited 9 times in total

Low-budget clone of the "Black Lagoon" creature, about a remote seacoast town whose citizens are terrorized by a monster. Some of the gory scenes are disturbing (the monster carries a severed head around by its hair).

The monster suit is pretty good — gruesome and toothy and tall enough to be imposing, with long claws on its huge catchers-mitt-sized hands. The suit was designed and worn by the film's producer, Jack Kevan, who also helped design the famous Black Lagoon creature.

Naturally there's a pretty girl (Jeanne Carmen) threatened by the monster, and a stalwart hero (Don Sullivan) who confronts the beast atop a lighthouse. In one romantic scene reminiscent of "From Here to Eternity", a young couple is shown in intimate embrace on a surf-washed beach.

The fact that the young man has his diving mask pushed up on top of his head sort of spoils the moment, but hey . . . love is never having to say, "Take the damn thing off, silly!"

Directed by Irwin Berwick. Also starring Les Tremayne ("War of the Worlds"), Forrest Lewis, and John Harmon.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

Hey, that's even a double-billing poster.
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...or not...

WayneO
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Bud Brewster · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:42 pm Post subject:

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Enjoy the trailer and the movie. The trailer claims that Famous Monsters of Filmland gave it an award!
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________ The Monster of Piedras Blancas - Trailer

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_________ The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Rick · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 8:35 pm Post subject:

Bogmeister · Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 4:39 pm Post subject:

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A low budget monster pic which is still not available on DVD. I finally checked out a DVD-R version, which looked like VHS quality.

The monster here is often compared to the earlier Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), maybe because the same FX man worked on the monster costume.

The story takes place in a tiny community dominated by a lighthouse. The grumpy lighthouse keeper (John Harmon) is at odds with the rest of the citizens for something that happened in the past.

He has a grown daughter who recently returned from college. Her new boyfriend is the local biologist. It turns out that the locals are right to be distrustful of the lighthouse keeper. He's secretly leaving scraps of food for the local monster. For some reason, this monster, which had confined itself to harmlessly prowling along the beach area for many years, has escalating to killing locals by ripping their heads off.

______ Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959) Trailer

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The film is slow overall, but it does have a few surprisingly effective monster-horror moments. Its other faults are a severe lack of internal logic and unaddressed questions — why does the monster suddenly want to kill everyone? How does it cleanly severe heads (described by the local doc more than once) with its cumbersome claws? How and why does it drain all the blood?

Also, why does the lighthouse keeper help it and keep it a secret for years. Just because he holds a grudge against the community?

Harmon does give a good performance for such tripe, as does Jeanne Carmen as his daughter. And, actually, all the main actors are pretty good, including Les Tremayne as the doc.

The monster? It may scare the little kids, I'll give it that. It's played by Pete Dunn, who doubles as one of the victims. The climactic action is also pretty good, almost spectacular for such a small film.

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BoG's Score: 5 out of 10

Monster Trivia: Don Sullivan, who plays the biologist boyfriend, also starred in The Giant Gila Monster that same year.

Star Trek TOS actor alert: Harmon played a bum in the famous episode, The City on the Edge of Forever.

BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

Bud Brewster · Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:42 pm Post subject:

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After waiting for years to see this movie, I finally got the chance to see it in 1993 while working as a security guard in the elegant lobby of an Atlanta office building which housed the corporate office of AT&T.

Three days a week I worked the day shift and checked the security baggies of corporate executives who came and went from nine to five.

But on weekends I worked the midnight shift from 11 pm to 7 am in a stately building that was empty and silent all night, while I sat behind the large desk in the lobby and listen to the sound system play elevator music in a gigantic marble room the size of a football field!

I was going slowly mad from boredom! Shocked

For the record, if you were caught sleeping, you were fired on the spot. Shocked

However, I found a way to stay both sane and awake by smuggling in a small TV each weekend like this one —

— so I could watch an Atlanta UHF station which saved my sanity by showing all-night movies, like B-movie Westerns and old sci-fi movies!

During that time I was also engaged in working on a years-long project called Vintage Science Fiction, which involved the use of multiple reference books to garner information on science fiction movies released between 1900 to 1977, and hand-writing reviews for each one.

Many of those reviews became the thread-starters for the first All Sci-Fi (2007 to 2014).

Anyway, my one and only experience watching this movie was in the middle of the night in the lobby of a plush Atlanta office building, on a small television hidden under the desk of my security station in the lobby of an office building that looked like the throne room of an Egyptian pharaoh.

However, I did manage to gain a keen appreciation for 1940s B-movies Westerns during that time. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Bud Brewster · Posted: Tue May 28, 2024 11:05 am Post subject:

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I wasn't at all sure this IMDB item was right until I checked it with photos.
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The feet and lower torso of the Monster suit were were recycled from the "Metaluna Mutant" in This Island Earth (1955), with the claws being recycled from the creatures in The Mole People (1956).
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By gum, I think it's true! Very Happy

It's the Metaluna Mole Mutant from Piedras Blancas!

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

DonM435 · Junior Crewman Joined: 23 Mar 2024 Posts: 7

I've always been impressed by the scene wherein the old guy 'way up in the lighthouse rages at the monster, who is carrying away the heroine, down on the beach maybe a mile away. He flings a lantern or a bucket of something and conks the creature right on the head. I doubt that Otto Graham or Johnny Unitas could have done as well with that throw.