Creature from the Haunted Sea: 1961

Let's review a B-Movie Creature Feature.

   A crook decides to bump off members of his inept crew and blame their deaths on a legendary sea creature. What he doesn't know is that the creature is real.

   "The Creature from the Haunted Sea" is an example of Rodger Corman's knack for dark humor.  He takes a budget of what looks like less than $200, and turns it into this.  A furry/criminal/stranded/quirky/chuckle/in love/Cuban/monster...and all of it on a boat.  In a way he's a genius, and in another he's...well...not.  But, there is a definite charm to his films, this one especially.  The movie is so strange that I would classify this to be rather stylistic, or at least to some extent.  I do have to note the cartoon opening credits though.  I thought for just a second that it would be, "Santa Clause Conquers the Martians" all over again, but thank goodness that it wasn't.

Now, I'm not clear as to what the budget Corman was given exactly.  But whatever he wanted to do, I think he did it.  Aside from the poor sound quality he accomplished his task successfully, although it was very difficult to hear the dialog.  This made it very hard to hear the jokes and even sometimes the story.  But even though there was poor sound quality, that didn't stop any of the actor’s voices from hitting an un-hittable frequency.  Honestly, I don't know whether these people want to be caught, or are just lousy spies!  Every scene in which two people are trying to trade, "spy" information, they talk as though nothing's at stake!  "HELLO THERE FELLOW SPY!!!” "OHHHHH HELLO!!!”  "DO YOU HAVE THAT SUPER TOP SECRET INFORMATION ON THE COUPLE SITTING IN THE BOOTH NEXT TO US???”  "WHY, I SURE DO!!!  HERE YOU GO!!!".”THANK YOU FELLOW SPY!!!  GOODBYE!!!".”GOODBYE FELLOW SPY!!!”  It's ridiculous!

   Now let's talk about the monster.  I can tell you that when I saw the poster for this movie, I did not think that it would look like it did.  I'm sure that by now I've gone and posted the monster's picture on this review, but I'll describe it anyway.  It looks like if you took the creature from the black lagoon, and instead of having him be a human fish, you made him a bear/alien.  I guess the monster is pretty funny, so that's another point to the comedic side of this film.  Also, if you look at the synopsis near the beginning of the review, it takes a (sort of) real issue, and mixes it with a myth.  I suppose that it's to flesh the monster out to be more realistic, but I'm not too sure about that.  

   

   In Conclusion:  For anyone that knows what a Rodger Corman film looks like, then you can expect what you're going to get out of the, "Creature from the Haunted Sea".  It's a cheesy film, riddled with dark humor and an expendable cast to be picked off one by one.  I do respect Corman for both the director and producer that he is, and I also like his films, but in a different way that I like other films.  With him, you know what you're getting into and I enjoy that just as I do with people like Alfred Hitchcock and his twist endings.  And speaking of endings, this film has a surprisingly satisfying one!  If you enjoy a good Corman film, I'd advise you to check this one out!      

Verdict:

I give this film 3 plungers to the face out of 10

Next Review:  Night of the Living Dead 1963