The Lost Continent
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Movie Reviews of The Lost Continent
Movie Review: Great Surreal Adventure Tainted by Laughable Monsters
Summary: 3 Stars
I remember seeing this flick many years back on TV; it kept my interest for the first hour and twenty minutes , right up to when the colossal creatures appeared. They're so laughably bad I was FORCED to tune out.
After becoming a fan of Dana Gillespie (see her in "The People That Time Forgot" to learn WHY), and finding out she appeared in this pic, I ended up buying it on DVD. An open-minded second-look reveals a fine adventure yarn capped off by a very moody, surreal climax.
Quite a few reviewers state that there is no lost continent in the picture; this is not true. When the cast are in the Sargasso sea area you can clearly see mountainous land in the background; in fact, a character even proclaims at one point, "Look -- land!" Some of the cast even end up walking on the "lost continent" which is where they run into the laughable monsters (giant crab, giant lobster, etc.).
What works: There's lots of action and adventure. Eric Porter as Captain Lansen is strong. The human-eating seaweed is a plus. The surreal sets for the orangey Sargasso Sea of shipwrecks are fantastic. Dana Gillespie is incredibly beautiful. The balloon shoes and harnesses are creative. The plot keeps your interest even though much of the writing is weak.
What doesn't work: Except for Dana Gillespie (Sarah) the characters are all rather unlikable and the biggest flaw is that the creature F/X are horrible (did I mention that already?).
Final Analysis: "The Lost Continent" is not hailed as one of Hammer's masterpieces, but I think the main reason for this is the lousy crustacean monsters. The flick gets extra points for its high adventure and its undeniably great mood. The film will certainly be enjoyable for those of us who are attracted to "lost continent"-type adventure flicks (just bear with the relatively short crustacean sequence). And Dana Gillespie doesn't hurt.
Movie Review: Incontinent...
Summary: 2 Stars
Imagine a rusting, leaky, creaky, hulk of a ship loaded with high explosives that go boom when they get damp, a cranky crew, and a passenger list borrowed from the love boat. Now, put these poor wretches through a mutiny, a hurricane (in a lifeboat), a shark attack, and being lost at sea. Next, add a tangled mess of killer seaweed. Then, throw in a spanish galleon full of pirates / conquistadors / inquisitors and big-boobed babes who walk around on the killer seaweed in balloon shoes (I'm not kidding)! Finally, toss in a few floppy, rubber "monsters", hand-made by four year olds, and you've got THE LOST CONTINENT. The title is interesting, considering the fact that NO continent, lost or otherwise, ever appears in this film! Just lots of seaweed, boredom, and plot threads that add up to nothing in particular. With all that's going on in this movie, you'd think it couldn't possibly stink. Think again...Movie Review: Voyage of the Damned or, we go where the weed takes us...
Summary: 2 Stars
The Lost Continent (1968), released by Hammer Studios, isn't one of their finer films, to be sure. Co-directed by Michael Carreras, who later gave us the mobster/kung-fu Hammer flick Shatter (1974), and Leslie Norman, who was probably more known for his early TV work on the Avengers and The Saint, The Lost Continent instills a feeling of oppression on viewers from the very beginning. Adapted from a Dennis Wheatley novel, the screenplay was adapted by a writer named Michael Nash, who has no other credits than this film, which did not surprise me at all.The film starts off showing a rusty cargo ship that is also a passenger liner of sorts. The vessel has obviously seen better days, and so have the passengers. We find that the passengers are all pretty much undesirable types, who elected to take this mode of travel due to their need for anonymity, something they wouldn't have gotten on more modern, more crowded ocean liners. We also soon discover the captain is transporting some extremely dangerous cargo, highly volatile explosives to be more specific, and this is not entirely all on the up and up, but he is being paid well and plans to retire after this voyage. I must also note the explosives are very stable, that is, unless they come into contact with water, and then it's good night nurse.
Anyway, through a mishap, the ship's hull gets damaged, and water starts leaking into the compartment where the explosives are stored. Good thing they are sealed in metal canisters...to top it off, a hurricane is approaching, and the pumps begin to fail. They finally abandon ship, but end up coming back later (I know, I know, this seems to make little sense). They get the boat working again, but get stuck in a whole lot of seaweed. Not only that, but there's a big, nasty one-eyed creature lucking in the seaweed, and it seems to have a taste for humans. The boat ends up drifting with the seaweed, and it takes them to a sort of ship graveyard, full of other ships in various states of decay.
While stuck here, they get attacked by another group who had gotten trapped in the weed, and from the looks of their outfits, they've been here for a while. We see Spanish Conquistadors, barbarian types, and even an inquisitor or two. These guys come from another ship, a Spanish Galleon, not far away, and have come to raid this new ship for supplies and such. Oh yeah, they've devised a method for walking on the thick seaweed that entails big floaty type booties and balloon harnesses they wear around their torso. Oh man, is this getting goofy...anyway, the Spanish type people are led by a runt who calls himself `El Supremo', among other things, and they take part in torture and archaic religious rituals. `El Supremo', it appears, is only a figurehead, with the real power emulating from the Grand Inquisitor...I've got to stop here...seriously, this movie just has too much silliness going on...why was this ever made? The plot careens this way and that, the characters have no redeeming qualities, and the dialog is utterly inane. Some effort was put into the special effects in the creation of various creatures, but with an obvious lack of resources, they come out looking like leftovers from science fiction movies from the 50's. There is atmosphere to be found within the film, but given the lameness of the whole production, it tends to be overshadowed by all that is wrong in the film. The actors seem quite capable, with a few exceptions, and had they been given something to work with, I am sure this could have been a much better movie.
How does it end? Who cares? I was just happy to see it finally ended (it runs an excruciatingly 89 minutes). I won't even bother to go into who starred in the movie, as I am sure the more competent actors would probably just assume forget they appeared in this dog. Anchor Bay does release a decent looking wide screen print here, but the quality of the picture does have its minor visual flaws. Special features include a restored version with never before seen footage (oh boy, you mean the film is longer than it was originally?), a trailer, some TV spots, and a neat little 5 X 7 reproduction of the original movie poster. I am still unsure what the title refers to, as we never really got to see a `lost continent', unless they were talking about the huge bed of seaweed. Maybe I should just go read the book...
Cookieman108
Movie Review: What the heck happened here???
Summary: 1 Stars
After watching this, I'm not really sure just what I experienced, but I do know that The Lost Continent is clearly one of the worst if not THE worst Hammer movies I've seen.First off, there was no Continent in the movie, just a bunch of ships stuck in the middle of a misty weed covered swamp.
The first 45 minutes sets up the checkered pasts of the passengers but its all meaningless set up as nothing occurs in the remainder of the movie to justify the character development.
The movie just sinks down to Davy Jones' locker after that....
- Somebody explain to me how you go back onto a ship that you had abandoned (because of a hole in the ship predictably in the hold where some unknown dangerous "will explode if in contact with water" cargo was stored), I assume somebody who remained on the boat repaired the hole in the hull?? I'm confused.
Unfortunately, there is basically no plot except trying to figure out who's going to survive - I did like the balloon devices that enabled the crew to walk over the weed infested sea - that had to have taken a lot of thought.
The "creature" effects were laughable and embarrassingly bad.
The attempt to create a creepy Spanish Inquisistion type cult out in the middle of the ocean just plain failed - as did the entire movie.
I bought this as a 2 DVD package with "The Reptile" which is a much more honest Hammer offering, so its not a total loss.
Avoid this disaster.
Movie Review: Truly Bizarre Minor Hammer
Summary: 3 Stars
What a loopy, loopy movie. After an hour of passable (and palpalbly sleazy) onboard thriller dynamics (with one actor that looks eerily like a young John Carpenter), the movie quickly evolves into an outlandish horror fantasy about a continent-sized mass of living (and biting) seaweed that drags our anti-heroes into a ship's graveyard populated by lost Spaniards. These Spaniards are ruled by a puppet boy king and they make their way over the mushy weeds and ocean beneath by harnessing a balloon to either shoulder. It gets a little surreal, folks. The whole movie is sickly orange in a rather fetching way, and if it all feels like bargain basement "Ship Of Fools" meets bargain basement Lovecraft, well, I guess it should also be said the inherent smarts and adult themes that were the trademarks of Hammer studios did extend even into most of these Anchor Bay obscuities. "Lost Continent" is as fun as it is odd.