There are many giant monster bugs themed films from the ’50s, and if you made one back then, there’s a good chance that legendary fx maestro Willis O’Brien worked on most of them, curating the creature effects made in stop motion animation, and The Black Scorpion is indeed one of the less discussed 50s giant monster flicks, alongside the often forgotten-ignored piece of Eugenie Larie’s “dinosaur trilogy”, The Giant Behemoth, also with effects by O’Brien.
Yes, before you point it out, yes, a scorpion is not a bug per sé (and we’re gonna split hair, ants aren’t bugs either), is an arachnid, but it’s not like audiences cared about this back in ’50s, nor do they now.
Doesn’t really matter because if we can make it big, we can make a movie about it, thems the rules, and a scorpion is a really intimidating crawly for most, so why the fuck not?
The Black Scorpion definitely didn’t stick out for its script’s originality, even if the titular gigantic black scorpions aren’t mutated due to an atom bomb test in the desert or radioactive waste drum full of Ecto-cooler style ooze glowing like the sun and fallen out of a vehicle into a city, they come from where they usually do in these films: some god forgotten substratum inside the Earth, freed from their subterranean prison by an earthquake.
It’s not “giant monster movie plot n°2”, it’s the other option when they don’t wanna use atom bomb stock footage, with the variant using the eartquake and the formation of a new volcano for good measure.
This time happens in Mexico, so a doctor and a geologist are sent to investigate in the nearby small town of San Lorenzo, but – as luck often has it – giant scorpions, and eventually the duo – with the help of the army and other scientists – have to fight off the giant prehistoric arachnids before they can reach Mexico City and cause even more death and destruction.
The Black Scorpion is in this fashion an exemplary booktext case of “setting up and forgetting it”, since i almost forgot what i wrote in the synopsis immediatly, and i sure in not even a hour after i finish writing this, i will have forgotten the plot completely, not that i will need to even remember it, as i could assume at random and easily guess correctly.
It’s not bad per sé, it does serve its purpose of explaining why there are giant prehistoric scorpions going around Mexico and killing people, but that’s about it, it’s as bog standard as it gets to the point it almost doesn’t register, no reason to point out the minuteries of the proceeding because – again – it’s so pretty typical of the genre you can easily predict those if you ever saw a giant monster film.
Yeah, usually you don’t go see these for the intricate novel plots, so it becomes a non-issue as people will acknowledge it exists and mostly don’t care for it and starts focusing on anticipating the monster scenes, but i will admit it helps the acting is fairly good compared to most of these films from the era, even if there is a vestigial romance subplot and a little mexican kid going around, but there’s no Gamera bond with the creature, and sadly he has “annoying sidekick” plot armour.
That said, the scorpions themselves do look quite good and are still kinda scary to look at, i can imagine them being so proper in 1957, nowadays i’m not sure if they look ridiculous, scary, or both, though showing the scorpion’s faces close up would have been fine twice or thrice, to remind you of that weird mug they have, instead of constantly cutting to that close up shot of the scorpion drooling and looking weird (still better than the art of it used for the poster, there it looks super derpy).
And yes, the main attractive for genre buffs is how this movie has O’Brien allegedly reuse the props made for the infamously lost “spider pit” scene in the original King Kong, it’s indeed as close as it gets to ever see that happen for real, but there are also some other weird monsters the group sees and faces while exploring the caves where the scorpions were nesting underground.
The stop motion animation effects for the creatures are indeed the highlight and it’s still good work as you’d expect by a consumate pioneer in the field such as O’Brien, though this time as supervisor, since most of the fx work here was done by a often unsung special effects pioneer that did work with O’Brien on Mighty Joe Young and the aforementioned The Giant Behemoth, Pete Peterson, though the smaller budget can be seen in not so much the -again, allegedly – reused props from older O’Brien projects, but also some distractingly bad matte shots.
Still, it’s quality stop motion animation, the creatures show up a little earlier than usual, so you won’t be feeling bored waiting for their reveal, the runtime is under 90 minutes and even with the limitations of the budget that strangle the script and how much stop motion animation they could get done, the finale with the tanks and the giant scorpion in the stadium it’s quite a fun spectacle.
While not a classic or a hidden gem, The Black Scorpion is honestly a decent entry in the genre, easily better than most of the competition thanks to the good stop motion fxs and better than usual (even if still hammy) acting, sadly offset by a very factory standard plot and okay but also uber plain, uninteresting human characters, so yeah, this one you’re gonna want to see just for the special effects work and the giant monster action.
Wise Cafe (International) 