Really scraping the bottom of the Bert I. Gordon barrell with this one, but i did mention it twice before, and – as i said when reviewing 2008’s Cyclops – it’s not like we’re drowning in cyclops movies, at all, and this one has some of that “so bad it’s good” qualities, so for this year’s Giant Monster March’s finale it’s time to end as we begun, meaning to fall face first into a vat of Gouda, groan like a fuzzy giant toddler and “do the cyclops”.
At least it has Lon Chaney Jr. past his prime as a Universal horror star but not yet being reduced to a pathetic, drunken parody of himself (the epitome of that would be him in 1971’s Dracula VS Frankenstein, which nowadays is kind of a cursed movie as it was the undignified end of many actors careers and lives), not yet, here we have him in his post-glory phase were he did a lot of work pretty much any support roles in any kind of movie, mostly westerns, exotic adventure flicks, and horror films once in a while, mostly cheap, low budget, often indipendent productions.
The Cyclops definitely fits the bill, being a Bert I. Gordon film and what that entails, and here a plays a villanous mining expert in search of uranium, part of a posse led by the wife of a pilot that disappeared 3 years ago in the jungles of Mexico, as she still believes he’s alive despite all odds, but guess what, it’s a 50s b-movie, so the mining for radioactive material results in mutated everything, from spiders, lizards, eagles, mice and whatever animal stock footage Bert could superglue together.
And also a 25 feet (7, 92 meters for my fellow europeans) mutated man (the lost pilot, if you didn’t guess already) that was disfigured by the radiations, resulting in him having half of its face being melted irradiated cheese, hence it’s mono-eye, here’s your fucking cyclops.
Yes, it’s an original cyclops design… because it’s a shit one, i know it’s a cheap production so there’s not much else they could have done differently, but it’s just laughably bad, figures no one would do it like that before or since (unless you count War Of The Colossal Beast, the sequel to Bert I. Gordon’s The Amazing Colossal Man, as it’s the same actor, Duncan Parkin, doing basically the same identical character, with facial make up done by the same make up artist, Jack H. Young), but i’ll agree it’s one of the few things that you’ll remember this movie for.
Honestly, even the cheapness of “BIG Bertos” usual fare is nothing of note here, aside from what could be one of the worst special effects ever put in a 50s b-movies, due to the only notable scene being the one where the mutated “cyclops”picks up the girls… and basically “clicks and drags” the background alongside her. That is so shit it’s magical, less so the obvious and rampant transparency of the creatures in many shots, and even when you can’t tell the outline of the composite shots you will notice shit like a 2 second loop of an actor reacting to a background imposed “giant “creature.
Aside from that, it’s pretty dull, not that surprising especially as an early Bert I. Gordon outing, but not necessarily dead on arrival, since the premise it’s ok for the era, the cast it’s actually good, but the incredibly shitty effects, forgettable (and mostly stupid, with Chaney’s being the only one having some common sense, despite being kind of a villain) characters and abrupt ending easily place in the sub-par “rotten cheese strata/crust” of american 50s b-movies.
This is the leftovers at the bottom of the pop-corn bowl, the old stale peanut you find while searching or cleaning the folds of your old couch, and yet due to the crap factor in mishandling the titular creature from Greek mythology with such cheap and laughable effects, it stands out as a kinda funny side note, despite being one of the dullest and poorer efforts, even for the carreer of B-movie cheapies maestros like Bert I. Gordon that pumped them out fast, this one literally came out not even a month after what would become (another) MST3K-riffed Bert I. Gordon classic, Beginning Of The End.
As it’s also incredibly short, not even reaching 70 minutes, which i’m taking as a small blessing, personally, but it’s no surprise it was released as double feature alongside Daughter Of Doctor Jekyll, as that also had Gloria Talbott in the protagonist role.
Wise Cafe (International) 