The Crater Lake Monster

source: The Crater Lake Monster

No need to recap the plot. Okay, the film's no classic. In fact, someone in production borrowed the bulldozer vs. monster from 1960's schlock comedy Dinosaurus. But, in my book, the 80-some minutes isn't bad enough to rate among the truly bad, e.g. Manos: The Hands of Fate {1966}. Catch the photography, which is pretty good (of course, post- production bungled day-for-night, but that's not photographer Gentry's fault). Then there're the lush colors, about as vivid as any I've seen. Add Cardella's sturdy performance as the take-charge sheriff, along with some pretty good stop-motion, and you've got genuine compensations that lift results from the truly bad. Of course, the intended comic relief is pretty lame, along with a script that appears almost thrown together. But perhaps most disappointing is the utter lack of tension. Monsters should generate tension. However, director Stromberg fails to build suspense, which requires a better sense of structure than what's provided here. Instead, the production goes for quick shock, which itself doesn't work very well. All in all, the movie's too good to be truly bad, and too bad to be good. I like what another reviewer observed, namely the results look like they were made by erratically skilled amateurs.

One of my all-time favorite so-laughably-lousy-that-it's-totally-lovable el cheapo and stinko nickel'n'dime independent horror creature features, an enjoyably dreadful marvel that was released by the formidably fecund exploitation outfit Crown International Pictures so it could play numerous crappy double bills at countless drive-ins back in the 70's and eventually wound up being rerun like crazy on several small-time secondary cable stations throughout the 80's. I naturally first saw this gloriously ghastly abomination on late-night television one fateful Saturday evening while in my early teens and have had a deep-seated, albeit completely irrational abiding fondness for it ever since. A meteorite falls out of the sky and crashes into the still waters of a tranquil country lake, thereby causing a heretofore dormant dinosaur egg to hatch. Of course, the baby dino immediately grows into a gigantic waddling, grunting, teeth-gnashing prehistoric behemoth with goofy flippers, an extended neck and a huge mouth full of little sharp, jagged, stalagmite-like chompers. Our Southern-fried male cousin to the Loch Ness Monster promptly starts chowing down on various luckless local yokel residents of a previously quiet and sleepy hillbilly resort town. It's up to drippy stalwart sheriff Richard Cardella, assisted by the painfully idiotic hayseed comic relief brotherly fishing guide duo of Glenn Roberts and Mark Seigel, feisty gal pal Kacey Cobb and terminally insipid nerdy scientist Bob Hyman, to get to the bottom of things before the over-sized gluttonous Jurassic throwback ruins the tourist trade by eating all the campers and fisherman that the hick hamlet makes its cash off of. Director/co-screenwriter William R. Stromberg displays a wonderfully woeful and thoroughly clueless incompetence when it comes to pacing, atmosphere, taut narrative construction and especially eliciting sound, credible acting from his hopelessly all-thumbs rank amateur community theater level cast. The performances are uniformly abysmal: Cardella is way too bland and wooden to cut it as a solid heroic lead while the pitifully dopey redneck comic antics of Roberts and Seigel provoke groans of slack-jawed disbelief -- you aren't laughing with these two atrociously mugging clods so much as at them, particularly when the insufferable imbeciles discover a severed head bobbing up and down in the murky lake water. Better yet, a clumsily integrated sub-plot concerning a vicious on-the-loose criminal leads to a spectacularly ham-fisted supermarket hold-up scene which degenerates into a hilariously stupid mini-massacre when a young lady shopper interrupts the stick-up artist in mid-robbery! A subsequent car chase is likewise severely bungled as well; it's so limply staged and unimpressive that one feels more relieved than scared when the monster abruptly pops up to devour the nefarious fugitive. Moreover, David Allen's funky herky-jerky stop motion animation dinosaur is the authentic gnarly article, projecting a certain raw charisma, sneaky reptilian personality and overall forceful screen presence which makes all the horrendously underwhelming human characters seem like pathetically unbecoming nobody bores in comparison. And as for the rousing conclusion where the sheriff takes on our slavering beastie with a bulldozer, the operative word for this thrilling confrontation is boffo all the way.

I was attracted to this movie because of the title, as I come from Oregon and was excited to see a movie made about one of Oregon's natural wonders "Crater Lake national park". Oh my disappointment! Crater Lake is a lake that formed in the crater of Mount Mazama after the top of the mountain blew off centuries ago (as Mount Saint Helens did in the 80's). For a B movie made in the 70's it reminds me of other laughable movies of that era, "Trog" and the "Man with 2 heads", and is as good as they were. It is a fun flick to watch on a slow Saturday evening when you want to be nostalgic about your youth. I would recommend watching it at least once.

A meteor crashes into Crater Lake, the heat from the impact causing a prehistoric egg to hatch. Alright, so the plot is just trash. But despite its obvious low budget, this comes across as one of the most gripping and entertaining monster-on-the-loose films in existence. There are also some good moments of humor. In an age filled so-called 'monsters' which are no more than laughable men-in-rubber-suit creations or lizards dressed up in frills and forced to rip each other to pieces (cheap exploitation-style), it's refreshing to discover that the Plesiosaur in this little gem is an excellent Harryhausen-style stop-motion creature. Quite a hard film to find, but it's worth finding.

C'mon people, look at the title! LOL! I remember seeing this movie on Saturday Late Night Creature Features years ago. It's a great, cheesy monster flick with hilariously bad acting and two wonderfully moronic hillbillies that add to the schlock factor. The 2 redneck boat rental guys are the movie! LOL, and you'll love the boat scene where the English guy and his wife are talking about all the stars and it's midday and sunny. Bloody hilarious!!! You can tell they just didn't care about plot, they just wanted to blow through the filming of the movie as fast as possible. Bottom line, you'll love it if you love 70's schlock.

... and how they bore you right out of your mind! The Crater Lake Monster is one of the classic BAD films from the 70's made with no actors of any note, an embarrassing script, woeful direction, and a tireless desire to fuse "horror" with light comedy. This movie introduces a paleontologist who finds drawings of an aquatic dinosaur underneath Crater Lake...a meteor falls from the sky, and an aquatic dinosaur of the claymation variety begins to terrorize and eat the inhabitants surrounding Crater Lake. The whole matter is taken care of by Steve our local sheriff. Much of the film - when not showing pools of blood left behind from what we imagine must have been the beast dining - is spent following the bumbling antic of two guys named Arnie and Mitch who run a boat rental place. They try so bad to be funny, that we get lines like, looking at a business sign, Mitch saying to Arnie "You spelled bait wrong, it's spelled B-A-T-E." The laughs were rather scarce here. We then see them get drunk together and imagine a tree trunk to be the dinosaur. Laurel and Hardy watch out! The dinosaur looks fake, but the movie is fun in a bad way. And at the very least, the lake is beautiful.

This movie is a great Drive-Inn 70's Sci-Fi / Thriller I know most people give it bad comments though. Since it was supposed to take place at Crater Lake instead because of the low budget limitation it was filmed in California at some land formed lake up there. Anyway the lake is dark, murky & a good bit of it leaves behind that creepiness image & feel that Loch Ness gives you. Not the greatest acting but I guess good enough for this type of B-Drive Inn Sci-Fi Film. What makes this movie so great u ask? Any fan of Stop-Motion Animation knows of the great David Allen who followed in the footsteps of the stop-motion legends Willis O'Brien & Ray Harryhausen. He was inspired by them in the early 1950's as a young boy he saw some of their films on television. The Plesiosaurus which is a prehistoric water reptile from the Dinosaur ages that has a long neck razor sharp teeth & four flippers with a tail. It can walk on land as well. The attack scenes depicted in this film handled by Dave Allen using Stop-Motion Animation. Then some scenes in the water had like a fabricated head made for some of the close up water attack shots & a few other shots in the film. The Loch Ness Horror (1982) also has a Plesiosaurus in it which is supposed to be what Nessie is the nickname of The Legendary Loch Ness Monster of Scotland. Same with the lake monster that's in Lake Champlain in Upstate New York. Champ is the nickname & that is America's Loch Ness Monster. Back to Crater The Stop-Motion Animation in this film is some of the best Animation I have ever seen. This is one of his early efforts not to mention also. Equinox from 1970 was his first big break & that film earned a huge Cult following by Sci-Fi, Horror & Fantasy Film Buffs like myself. I also just got that 2 Disc DVD Special Edition Set from Criterion Collection I have checked some of it out awesome stuff. I can't wait to watch both versions of the films this weekend with the extras on Disc 2. Anyway back to Crater Lake Dave was assisted by Jim Danforth & Randall William Cook two other great Stop-Motion Animators Danforth that was focusing on more matte painting on Films at that time since Stop-Motion was becoming obsolete. His last film he did in which he did all the animation on was When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1970). Which he earned an Oscar for Best Visual Effects in America & that is a British made film. He started Matte Painting on that film as well while still doing Stop-Motion also. But Equinox he only does Matte Painting & most of the films after Equinox too. He does some assistant animation occasionally & other animation though. Jim Danforth he loves animation he thinks it gives that feel & look that CGI doesn't give cause it is too real the same was said by Ray Harryhausen. I agree with them both I prefer Stop-Motion Animation over CGI myself. Dave Allen's Animation in Crater like steals the show it is what makes the film worth watching. Otherwise if there was no great Stop-Motion either done by Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Pete Peterson, Jim Danforth, David Allen, Randall William Cook, Phil Tippet, Jim Aupperle, Doug Beswick, or Dennis Muren which is an exceptional animator the others are the best animators out there. My point is without Dave Allen's Animation or one of the other greats I mentioned which Willis O'Brien passed away in the early 60's so he couldn't do the animation obviously. If u are a huge Stop-Motion Fan like me then u will really enjoy this movie. Other then that stay away I guess unless u are a fan of Drive-Inn B Sci-Fi Films with great special effects & low grade everything else. It is one of my favorite 70's Sci-Fi Flicks anyway.

Man, what a scam this turned out to be! Not because it wasn't any good (as I wasn't really expecting anything from it) but because I was misled by the DVD sleeve which ignorantly paraded its "stars" as being Stuart Whitman, Stella Stevens and Tony Bill. Sure enough, their names did not appear in the film's opening credits, much less themselves in the rest of it!! As it turned out, the only movie which connects those three actors together is the equally obscure LAS VEGAS LADY (1975) – but what that one has to do with THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER is anybody's guess Even so, since I paid $1.50 for its rental and I was in a monster-movie mood anyhow, I elected to watch the movie regardless and, yup, it stunk! Apart from the fact that it had a no-name cast and an anonymous crew, an unmistakably amateurish air was visible from miles away and the most I could do with it is laugh at the JAWS-like pretensions and, intentionally so, at the resistible antics of two moronic layabouts-*-boat owners who frequently squabble among themselves with the bemused local sheriff looking on. The creature itself – a plesiosaur i.e. half-dinosaur/half-fish – is imperfectly realized (naturally) but, as had been the case with THE GIANT CLAW (1957) which I've also just seen, this didn't seem to bother the film-makers none as they flaunt it as much as they can, especially during the movie's second half!

The movie opens with a meteor crashing into a lake. Unbeknownst to the locals, a dinosaur egg is also at the bottom of the lake. The meteor heats the lake, turning it into a giant incubator. You guessed it, the egg hatches releasing a dinosaur that proceeds to terrorize the community. What utter garbage. It's not that I mind the stop-motion clay dinosaur, it's everything else about the movie that bothers me. The acting is atrocious. The dialogue is utterly ridiculous. The comic relief is anything but comic. Logic is non-existent. Any similarity between the "scientists" in this movie and an actual scientist is purely coincidental. I could go on for an eternity on the bad aspects of this movie, but you get the idea. I feel it's fairly safe to call this disaster "MST3K Worthy".