So yeah, this is not quite “giant monster” territory as the poster would imply, but i wanted to cover this one for a while and it will do as a parallel to Monster Armageddon, as any excuse to compare Roger Corman’s output of the 50s-60s with the Asylum’s to shame the latter… it’s a good one.
Even if it’s still a tale of lies, because this was deliberately made as a comedy but was never advertised as such, with the promotional material playing it straight, like this being a “serious” monster flick in the vein of Creature Of The Black Lagoon, only to ambush the audiences come to see this in a double feature with Devil’s Partner.
Goading people into seeing a deliberate farce, a parody of basically every movie Corman did to that point, another quickie he actually shot in Puerto Rico alongside Last Woman On Earth, but it wouldn’t be seen until a year later in 1961, a farce that also a political satire and then lastly a monster movie, with one of the silliest looking aquatic monsters ever, as if The Monster From Piedras Biancas was made to look as silly as the bird thing in The Giant Claw. Deliberately.
It’s all a big spoof, of monster movies, of spy flicks, and willing to jump on the recent Cuban revolution, as the plot does involve an American gangster named Renzo Capetto hired to transport some Cuban military officers and their men off the island after Castro’s revolution, but decides to basically steal the treasury money carried by the soldiersm, offing them one by one and blaming it on the local legend of a sea monster by fabricating fake mud prints and such.
Aboard there are also Renzo’s goons, including his girlfriend, Mary Belle, and the protagonist (that moonlights as the clueless narrator as well), an undercover American spy using the alias “Sparks Moran” (played by Robert Towne, credited as “Edward Wain”) that tries to save Mary Belle from her life of crime, but unbeknownst to everyone, there’s an actual sea creature that eventually attacks them, leading to Renzo sinking the boat deliberately in the hope of salvaging the gold later, some romance subplots interfere, and eventually the creature kills – almost – everyone, sits on top of the sunken treasure, picking its teeth, then burps. Absolute fuckin cinema.
it’s a garbled mess of a film, a Corman’s cheapie if you ever saw one (and boy i did), it’s not really that funny, it’s silly but not exactly “high brow” comedy, and i don’t think it was much funnier when it released (and the references it makes actually could make sense to most audiences), but it does deliver the occasional chuckle, the acting is “fine enough” for a movie like this, and i can’t stop laughing at the sea creature every time, i think it’s the fuckin ping pong ball eyes, but it always gets me how stupid looking it is, this garbage can of random shit and seaweed Corman glued together on a diving suit as a deliberate, intentional “joke monster”. Shame it’s barely in the film.
And it’s the highlight of a film that’s intentionally a farce yet not really funny nowadays, aside from the monster (and the bit with the telephone booth on an inhabitated island withobvious spies waiting their turn in line), but its kinda of cute and chuckleworthy at times, so it comes off as a pretty bad yet charming silly mess that was deliberately meant to be such (the eurocomic style cartoon animation used for the opening credits and prologue cements the silly tone right off the bat), i do like the ending, where the monster for once wins.
It being just 72 minutes long helps too, even if the finale does drag a bit.
I have seen the old B/W version i had on a Italian DVD release, there’s a colorized version too which i guess might raise the “cheese meter” even further, but personally i prefer its original black-and-white version, i feel it fits with the cheapo junkyard budget quality of Corman’ productions.
So overall Creature From The Haunted Sea it’s a cute so bad ……it’s actually kinda funny curiosity of yore from Roger Corman’s Filmgroup “story arc”.
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