The Giant Gila Monster
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Movie Reviews of The Giant Gila Monster
Movie Review: Flathead Fever!
Summary: 4 Stars
My fellow Motorheads will get a kick out of this movie simply for the period hot rods; a half-dozen T-buckets powered by the long gone Flathead Ford V-8! I often wonder what happened to those old rides, hopefully some were perserved.As for the movie itself, well it's bad but doesn't take itself too seriously. Too much 1950's stuff is crammed into the movie for a two hour horror flick. Hot rods, rock and roll, teen angst, rich vrs poor, and of course the rich girl dating the poor boy. All this and a giant Gila monster! They could have had about three decent movies (budget allowing of course) out of this low budget gem that tries to do too much with way too little.
Viewed as a fun piece of nostaglia it is certainly worth watching.
Movie Review: Really Big Lizard!
Summary: 4 Stars
Very good 50's horror flick. What is good about this movie is that some other movies like this either show the monster too much or too little. But in this movie, the monster has the right amount of screen time. There is one very good scene in which the monster causes a train to crash. Overall, this is a great movie and I recommend it.Movie Review: Nobody watches these for the art, anyway
Summary: 4 Stars
I assume nobody has ever watched this expecting Oscar material. So what if it's mostly a gila monster crawling through an HO-scale train set? Can't we just have some good, cheesy, fun once in awhile?
That kid was a pretty good singer, too. Too bad nothing came of him.
Movie Review: Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie is worth watching for several reasons. First, this movie actually had a somewhat plausible plot. Second, many of the Gila monster scenes were well done. Third, Fred Graham and Shug Fisher are in this movie; more on them in a moment.
There were many movies made for drive-in theaters that featured teenagers in weak plots with a poorly costumed actor as the monster. These movies were cheesy, but many of the teens that went to the drive-in were not really there to see the movie anyway, so everyone was happy. However, some of these movies actually tried hard to present a relatively coherent story and featured a plausible monster. This movie is one of those.
The monster in this case is a huge Gila monster. The movie glosses over the source of the monster, but the movie uses a genuine Gila monster on various miniature sets that generally match the full-sized locations in appearance. My only disappointment was that the Gila monster never appeared in the same frame as any of his victims.
Gila Monsters make poor actors. In one scene I could see that someone was pushing the Gila monster forward because sand was piling up in front of the Gila monster's legs. In another scene the Gila monster breaks through a wall, but the Gila monster appeared more enthusiastic about getting unstuck than breaking through the wall. I felt sorry for the Gila monster.
Our human actors are principally teenagers. The teenagers in this case are good kids who are generally misunderstood. There is more than a little conflict between characters because Sheriff Jeff (Fred Graham, a veteran actor of more than 200 films, including "Wake of the Red Witch," "The Horse Soldiers," and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon") is supportive of the misunderstood teenagers in opposition to wealthy Mr. Wheeler who believes the sheriff is incompetent and the teenagers are a bunch of hoodlums. The lead teenager is Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan, who also appeared in "Teenage Zombies" and "The Monster of Piedras Blancas") who sings several songs in the movie and has a sister who gets braces for her legs so that we have a bit of "aww" factor in this movie, especially when the Gila monster chases the sister in her leg braces. One of Chase's songs is passable, but I fast-forwarded through all of them.
The Gila monster makes regular appearances throughout the movie. There is the dramatic claw shot; there are the ominous Gila monster in the brush shots; and then there is the ever-popular Gila monster under the railroad bridge shot. This Gila monster is multi-talented. As is often the case in monster movies, most of the major characters do not know there is a monster lurking about until about two-thirds of the way into the movie. Once everyone finally realizes there is a giant Gila monster munching its way through the local population, including some passengers of a wrecked train, the sheriff and the teenagers are galvanized into action! The excitement builds as the Gila monster threatens a dance, which somehow includes Chase Winstead's boss Old Man Harris (played by Shug Fisher, a member of Sons of the Pioneers, who sang with Roy Rogers, and a veteran of many movies including "My Pal Trigger," "Mr. Roberts" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance") and then attempts to eat Chase's polio stricken sister as she runs in her new braces. Will the excitement ever end!
This movie is a study in contrasts. On the one hand the movie has very weak special effects. For example, the train scenes used film from at least two different trains, and maybe three. Also, the model train that wrecked was a poor match for the actual train used in the shots leading up to the wreck. While some of the scenes of the Gila monster were nicely done, others looked exactly like what they were, a genuine Gila monster walking around (or being pushed) on the ground.
On the other hand, the movie does play as a serious movie. The movie painted the teenagers as being a bit too goody-goody, but otherwise everyone acted reasonably typical for the era and the teenage parts of the movie refrained from the over-the-top nonsense that plagued many other teen movies of the era. I also admit that when I was a kid I thought this movie was really scary. I was probably ten at the time but I was impressed!
If you like old monster movies from the 1950's and 1960's, this one is certainly worth a watch. I have this one in my collection because I liked it when I was young and because it was cheap. It is also great for a Friday or Saturday night watch on a Halloween weekend or on New Year's weekend instead of letting a television programmer decide what you are going to watch.
Enjoy!
Movie Review: SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE
Summary: 3 Stars
IN A NUTSHELL:ONE CAN'T HELP THINKING OF THE BLOB WHEN WATCHING THIS CREATURE FEATURE
Like the 'The Blob', 'The Gila Monster' takes itself seriously -- dead seriously. Watching this film makes my mouth water for an audience to lampoon this charming 50s creature-feature for, but that is just part of the fun. You see, this film approaches its subject with the same gothic intensity that the original 'Outer Limits' did in 1963-1964. The film opens with a missing couple, presumed to be eloping, but we all know otherwise. Gradually, the County Sheriff begans to notice the same pattern that the audience had, only a bit slower. People are disappearing and in increasing numbers. Since most of the adults are drunk in this film, especially the witnesses, it is up to the teenagers to assist the Sheriff in bringing this big lizard to justice.
WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT: SO YOU NEVER SAW A 50 FT. GILA MONSTER?
Okay, so it's a bit corny and cliche, probably even when it played to drive-in crowds in 1959: small crowds, but crowds to be sure. It is played in earnest and the tension does build. Unlike the first feature, this film seems a bit drawn out, perhaps to be long enough to play for European audiences looking for new eclectic American productions -- perhaps not. Anyway, it seems as though this would have made a neat 'Outer Limits' episode if it had been tightened-up at bit with editing. Maybe a couple of country tunes could have been omitted, or maybe the serenade was important for the atmosphere of the film -- in any event it seemed too long for a very short film. Maybe we could have seen more of the Gila Monster, which Ray Kellogg, a Special Effects A-List veteran, expanded from a 2 foot reptile into a 50-80 foot long behemoth rather convincingly. All the scenes showing the monster were miniatures, but a full-scale set was made to make the transition from mini-monster to actual set with people pretty real looking for a low-budget thriller. Of course we don't see people and the Gila Monster in the same frame. For that kind of magic in 1959, you'd need Ray Harryhausen and about 3 years of his time. The film does start with a bang and then gradually builds suspense to a Nitro charged conclusion which is after all, all we want from a Drive-In thriller. From that standpoint 'The Giant Gila Monster' delivers as advertised, "ONLY HELL COULD BREED THE GIANT GILA MONSTER"!
BOTTOM LINE: GOOD CLEAN FUN -- NO BLOOD - GORE - NUDITY or PROFANITY
Okay, this is not classic cinema, but it is a classic drive-in creature-feature! There are some better entries in this genre, like 'The Blob' and 'The Killer Shrews', but in the end they're all fun to see and the variety now available on DVD simply gives us more opportunities to enjoy these B-creature-features of yesteryear in all their campy wonder -- again and again.