Friday, June 12, 2015

The Beach Party Blogathon: Creature from the Haunted Sea


Occasionally, I'll join a blogathon and not have any idea what I'm going to contribute. This was the case when I committed to The Beach Party Blogathon, a joint blogathon hosted by our blogging buddies at Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. I thought about it for a while, ignored it for a while, came back to it, and started the cycle all over again. Eventually, I did the smart thing and just stood in front of my DVD collections staring down titles. When I got to the horror section I came across one of those I bought a long time ago, but never actually watched. It was this...


To be honest, I never even heard of it before I bought it. But hey, I'm game. I popped it in, hit play, and...um...I dunno. Like, really, I have no clue what the hell I just watched. And that's a good thing.

I'll try to explain.

We start with a shooting and see a guy being chased through the streets. I've not the foggiest idea why we're shown this because it has exactly zero bearing on the movie that follows. The guy pulls a fake mustache out of his pocket, walks into a bar, and starts narrating. We find out he's a secret agent called XK150. I dunno who he works for. I'm not sure he knows. He's there to meet another agent, who happens to be a female. The only real reason for this is to show us that he falls head over heels in love with just about any woman that crosses his path. Next thing you know, dude is off on a yacht with some rather snooty, but none too bright criminals and some Cuban military personnel who talk about stopping Castro's Cuban Revolution. Among the crooks is a guy who is clearly trying to channel Humphrey Bogart and his girlfriend whom we're led to believe is a stone cold killer. There's also a dude even dumber than them. We're told that he developed a facial twitch from watching too many, guess what, Humphrey Bogart movies. Finally, there's the girlfriend's brother. Okay, we gotta talk about the brother.Wow. This dude doesn't speak too often. At least, he doesn't use English or any other human language. Dude just makes random animal noises. I mean he opens his mouth and canned sounds play. Yup.

Then a bunch of stuff happens.

Occasionally, that stuff includes a guy in a weird rubber suit the titular creature.


Eventually, we even get to the beach. After the bad guys purposely capsize the small boat they're on. By the way, this doesn't stop them from having multiple outfits. At least once, that outfit impossibly changes from one shot to the next. None of it makes a lick of sense. This includes everything involving our super spy. He does nothing...NOTHING to effect the story one way or the other. He makes two calls. One is to say that nothing much is going on. The other is to speak to the agent he spoke to at the beginning. He speaks in code to her. I swear, he says "I'll trade you my utilities and all of my railroads for Park Place." Seriously, we're dropping Monopoly references? I had been giggling all along at all the inanity. When this happened, I was literally in stitches. The reason the movie is making such references is because it fathoms itself to be some sort of spoof or satire of monster flicks and spy movies, but it fails spectacularly. Other than the Monopoly line, almost of the humor derived from watching this is unintentional. Then there's the action. It's oddly non-violent considering that it involves people being murdered. I could go on, but let's just say this is one of the most awful movies I've ever seen. And that's a good thing. In other words. it's so bad it's awesome!


15 comments:

  1. Hah! I love your hilarious recap. :-)

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  2. Haha! This looks like a great flick to watch for a laugh. Good on ya for biting the bullet and buying it despite not knowing what it was!!

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    1. Yeah, watch it for a laugh. That's what I was hoping to get and I did.

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  3. I chuckled at your recap but well this sounds....just dreadful. For some reason while I was reading your review the movie Octaman came to mind, have you seen it? The stories don't really relate, other then having someone running around in a cheap rubber suit, but it sounds like the awfulness factor is about the same.

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    1. Haven't even heard of Octaman. Bad rubber suit, though. I'm on it.

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    2. Octaman is jaw droppingly ghastly but it has some interesting trivia connected with it, some of it quite tragic. It was a very early credit for special effects master Rick Baker, obviously with still a lot to learn at this point! Sadly this was also the last film of leading lady Pier Angeli, she had been a minor star in the 50's as well as having been engaged to James Dean just prior to his death. She committed suicide during production and her part was completed with a stand-in.

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  4. This is an utterly fabulous review. Love the gif, too. This sounds like an awesome movie for all the reasons you describe. Thanks so much for bringing this furry, bug-eyed creature to the Beach Party!

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  5. You're right it is so bad-awesome, I recently saw it and had the best time wondering what I was watching. It's funny how in the plot they're creating a phony monster and probably used the exact same method Corman uses to make the "real" monster. Great pick and thanks for joining in the fun.

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    1. I was having a ball trying to figure this one out. During one of my fits of laughter, my daughter who trooped it out with me just rolled her eyes and said "You're enjoying this way too much."

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  6. Wow, this sounds shitty.

    But a well-placed Monopoly reference? I'd be all over that like three houses on Marvin Gardens.


    That was bad.

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    1. Shitty would be an improvement. Like adding that fourth house to Marvin Gardens.

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  7. Sounds like an all-out marvelous mess. A mess for the ages.

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    1. An all-out marvelous mess is a very apt description. Thanks for reading!

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