ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Something different from Japan; the monsters in this one are created by an evil scientist living in an underwater city.

In several spectacular transformation scenes the scientist turns humans into aquatic cyborgs. The hero is a reporter played by Sinichi Chiba, later known as Sonny Chiba, the chop-saki star of martial arts movies. Directed by Hajima Sata, also known as Terence Ford.

YouTube has the entire movie with a fairly good picture!

___________________ Terror Beneath the Sea


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

[SAM33]

Hello - Thanks for inviting me to the forum Bud!

I'm currently in my "Watching non-Toho Japanese Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films" period.

I picked this up off a table at a convention a couple years back, not really knowing much about it, but knowing Dark Sky puts out good discs, and the price was right, so there you go!

I finally got around to watching this just a couple of weeks ago. The print is great, and I found it a lot of cheesy fun. As someone "imprinted" with Japanese fantastic cinema at an early age (KING KONG VS. GODZILLA was a film I saw on first US release at age 6), I can almost always have fun with pre-1970 things like this.

It sort of shares things with WAR GODS OF THE DEEP, but I like this film better! A little James Bond in there too, and all-in-all a nice 60's vibe.

Not "good" by conventional film criticism standards, but folks like us (you know who you are) don't fall into that category, do we?

A lesser known entry in the genre, and recommended.
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SAM33

[Bud Brewster]

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It's good to have someone who finds these less well-known films interesting, and who can share new info about them. Thanks to adding to this "lost" thread, Sam!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[bulldogtrekker]

I saw Terror Beneath the Sea (1966) in 2011 online. I thought I remembered the following scene when I originally saw the movie as a child in 1966: The mad scientist startles a female technician who drops a tray of test tubes. The mad scientist tells the female technician that she will be taken to the organ harvesting room and dissected because of her clumsiness.

However, this scene was not in Terror Beneath the Sea I saw online in 2011. Does anyone remember this scene, either in Terror Beneath the Sea or in another Japanese undersea sci-fi movie from the mid-60s?

[Bogmeister]

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THE MASTER PLAN — Convert people into sexless "fishmen", to prepare them for an underwater kingdom!

Described as a "Saturday Matinée Treat", this has elements of a James Bond thriller combined with Japanese Sci-fi of the sixties.

Indeed, this begins as a typical Bondian teaser on a submarine, with the Navy testing a new kind of torpedo. Although it's a Japanese production, most of the cast is Caucasian, with the notable exception of Sonny Chiba. He and cute blonde Peggy Neal play a couple of intrepid journalists who go scuba diving in the wrong area.

They're scared off by a "fishman", a poor cousin of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, but they lose the photographic evidence. Hence — being reporters — they go back and soon venture into the wrong caves, where there are now a lot of "fishmen".

It's all just a prelude to the reveal of an undersea installation (3,000 feet below!) headed by a mad scientist who has perfected the "processed man" formula & procedure — the method by which people are turned into fish people (or, 'water cyborgs,' as the gloating mad doc calls them).

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Most of this is harmless fun, with many of the actors (perhaps due to poor dubbing) seriously overacting. A lot of the dialog is shouted when they should have been speaking in a normal manner. This is especially evident with the two navy commanders, who always seem way over excitable.

The mad scientist is strictly out of the "sneering, cackling school" of nutty villains. Miss Peggy Neal also tends to scream or whimper during most of her scenes.

Of course, when we get to that eerie conversion process — which is demonstrated slowly to the reporters before they themselves are victimized by it — one can scarcely blame her. This is where it gets a little creepy, another example of the Japanese preoccupation with mutating the human body in movies.

The pace is a little slow in the first half, especially with all the underwater scenes, but there's lot of action towards the climax, with the Navy submarine attacking, and all hell breaking loose as the fishmen go out of control.

The FX are low budget and the "fishmen" suits are not very convincing. Chiba makes a pretty good leading man here, a full 8 years before his famous Street Fighter role, though don't expect the same fighting ability from him here.

BoG's Scores: Hero: 6 Villains: 5 Femme: 5 Henchmen: 4 Fights: 5 Stunts/Chases: 5 Gadgets: 5 Machines: 6 Locations: 5 Pace: 5

BoG's Overall Score:5 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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The late Tim Edwards (Bulldogtrekker) and I downloaded this one several years ago and enjoyed it in a synchro-cinema by watching it at the same time in our separate home states (North and South Carolina) while chatting on YouTube.

This was back in the day when illegal downloads were common and we managed to acquire a sizable library of movies we could enjoy together. Unfortunately, most of our preferred sites have been shut down these days.

But since we were devoted sci-fi fans and Bond enthusiast, we had fun with this one.

Damn, I sure miss Bulldogtrekker!


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