CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA!

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)
dir. by Roger Corman
star: Betsy Jones-Moreland, Anthony Carbone, Robert Towne.

Although Roger Corman was my favorite film director when I was in high school way back in the way back, I must admit that now, many decades later, his films, especially those made in the 1950's, strike me as discombobulated, at best, and mentally debilitating at worst.

We just showed this film to a campy, all-ages crowd at a local coffee shop, and, to my horror and surprise, they absolutely loved it! So much for erudite film criticism! Of course, they were all hopped up on coffee and espresso, but still...

Originally, "Creature," wasn't even scheduled to be made! Corman took a film crew and a gaggle of actors down to Puerto Rico to film "The Last Woman On Earth" (also pretty bad) and "Battle of Blood Island." Since both movies finished up a few days ahead of time, Corman decided to film a third movie, "Creature From The Haunted Sea." Quickly written by Charles Griffin, who wrote many of Roger's best films, and who had written at least one, if not both, of the other two films made in Puerto Rico, the movie is not a monster flick at all!

The movie is sort of a pre-Laugh-in, campy, in-your-face comedy about
a corrupt American skipper who transports some Cuban generals and soldiers off Castro's Cuba and to Miami with a footlocker of stolen Cuban gold, planning all the while to invent a phoney monster and thereby use that as an excuse to kill them and steal their money. Something weird happens when he puts his plan into action. Can you guess? Are you laughing yet?

Every scene is tongue-in-cheek, with a sly--and not very subtle--wink to the audience. Additionally, the monster, composed of pipe cleaners, rags, tennis balls, and with ping-pong ball eyes is so bad and fakey and discombobulated that he might be the best monster ever created. There are also innumberable incoherent scenes with characters appearing outof nowhere dressed in British suits and bowler hats. And remember, this was way, way, way before the drug era!

Hey, I don't know! I don't write these, I only review them. The film also contains a scene of female lead, Betsy Jones-Moreland, singing an innocuous torch song, while the ping-pong ball, pipe cleaner monster is about to attack. The jump shots b/w the two are absolutely mind-numbing and defy all traditional logic and wisdom as to how to actually film a movie. There are also endless long shots of the yacht floating around, and around, and around.

With "Creature" being almost 95% dialogue (including a character who mainly makes animal noises), the double-takes and self-conscious campiness of the entire project seems more like 1969 than 1961.

This film would have to get better to be bad.

But the live audience loved it, so who are we to judge? Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, who made a war film ("The Secret Invasion") with Corman in the late '60s, once told me that Roger was always reading books by Bergman, Fellini and others about how to direct films, since he was unsure of his own ability to helm a movie. Obviously, by the time of "House of Usher" and "The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," Corman had mastered his craft.

His 1950's films are another story, but maybe Bob Seger said it best when he sang, "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." I just know you'll have fun if you watch this movie with a crowd of campy movie lovers.

"Creature From The Haunted Sea" is Public Domain and can be found on
myriad cheapie Public Domain DVDs. Sadly, most of these have good visual quality but extremely bad and unintelligible audio (a trademark of "Under $5 " DVDs). Some outfit just released all three movies that Corman filmed in Puerto Rico in 1961 ("Creature From The Haunted Sea;" "The Last Woman on Earth" and "Battle of Blood Island") in a boxed set and supposedly, these are excellent prints.

For the record, actor (and I use the term loosely) Robert Towne, went on to write "Chinatown." And there is no Haunted Sea in the film.

The film was padded out from its theatrical release length of 63 minutes to 75 minutes (for TV broadcasts) with illogical scenes (filmed later) involving a beautiful Island girl who speaks spanish with funny subtitles about ripping off tourists. Her appearance is never explained and she doesn't turn up in any other scenes. This only adds to the unavoidable and compellingly irresistable absurdity of the film. Muy divertido pero bastante barata!