Watched this beauty on my phone, using something
called an ‘app’. I previously saw it in my youth, I believe, in a
theatre, certainly not a first-run film. I think even then I
recognized the limitations of the movie, yet the power of the monster
projected intense visceral response.
I somehow understood that there were a gazillion
of these rubber-suited monstrosities on show somewhere
serving the need for unexamined fear. Donald Trump now fills that
role. Few of these movies
were available to me in the darkness before VHS and Internet. This
movie somehow exceeded the niche and became a classic. It’s
not The Thing (50s version), which is both more primally scary, and
also has a livelier script. Still, it’s an iconic sea monster
until we can get Spielberg to present sharks as psychopathic killers.
The movie
begins with an archaeologist whose team discovers a large,
unprecedented
clawed hand from, as repeatedly said, the Devonian Era.
The
archaeologist hacks it out of the
earth to
bring
it home.
He wants to return
with a proper crew to
excavate the site.
His two native
workers were to remain
at the site. Whilst they discussed
the logistics of the
archaeologist’s return, we
see a living version of that hand reach out of the nearby river. It
just feels the ground a bit then draws back into the
water. That, my friends, is
presaging. Use it wisely.
Scene change to
somewhere else. The staff ingenue, yclept Kate, drives a speed boat
to a larger one. Under the sea someone is scuba diving. The diver,
David, emerges from the water and we get some exposition going. Kate brings the archaeologist to meet with the
diver. David and Kate are an item, albeit unmarried
They gather with the
rest of the cast, which includes Kate’s boss. He too is a scientist
but, as belaboured, he thinks too much in terms of bottom line. His
name is Mark as in the ill-fated King in the Tristan and Iseult cycle
of stories. Just saying.
Meanwhile, the two
natives back at the archaeological site are in their tent one night.
A, but we know it is the, creature emerges from the water and
heads for their tent. We see one native sleeping, the other a-fright
and saying “No! No!” The big claw lands on the fellow’s head
and then from outside we see the turmoil of his death. Similarly so
for sleepyhead, who wakes just in time to see himself killed. Okay,
monster fully checked in. Such a monster can easily get thru first
floor windows, and find its way upstairs to bedrooms of
overly-imaginative youngsters. Easily!
The scene changes to
our scientific party as it starts its journey African Queen-style
down the Amazon. The captain has been charged with overacting as the
wise but eccentric master of the river who needs a shave. A couple of
natives help him drive the boat while our science friends lounge on
deck.
Kate has a remarkable
facility to keep her hair well-fussed with pins and scarves. Her
shorts don’t seem like Amazon ware. David seems to look older as
the movie progresses but they remain fluttery in their moon eyes.
Mark proves to be a bit grouchy. He never seems to have been in the
game vis-a-vis Kate but jealous nonetheless. Also, he’s not
idealistic like David is.
At the site they happen
to notice that the two natives have been eviscerated. Everyone’s
almost shocked, but then they get back to business. They dig at the
site for a while until Mark becomes disgruntled about not discovering
a fishy Piltdown Man. They decide they need to investigate the water,
on the off chance that earthquakes and landslides had moved the rest
of the bones. David and Mark do the diving.
I believe that every
movie or television show featuring diving becomes an act of following
random fish around with a camera then occasionally taking note of the
divers. At least glimpses of the Creature sends some adrenalin into
our bloodstream. He does a lot of lurking, kind of a wallflower.
After one dive, Kate
decides the boys are having all the fun so she takes a dip herself.
We see her swimming luxuriously. She even performs some synchronized
swimming routines for our viewing pleasure. And the pleasure seems
even more so for the Creature, who lurks below watching. At one point she swims
backstroke and the Creature below her unbeknownst does the same
thing. A curious mating dance.
Lucas, the Captain,
espies Kate and tells her to come closer, it is dangerous out there.
She complies. Despite webbed feet and hands, the Creature barely can
keep up with her, outstretching his clawed paw but unable to grasp
her.
Just after she is back
on board, the boat is rocked. Something large has gotten into the net
they have in the water. They try to reel the net in but whatever that
was caught burst thru the net. Later that night, the Creature climbs
aboard and kills a native, using his patented claw to the head
maneuver. Kate gets to scream.
Mark and David argue
what to do next. Mark wants to kill it, and bring it back as a
lucrative trophy. David wants to capture it, and bring it back as a
scientific trophy. In a hunt for the Creature, Mark wounds it with a
spear gun. It may be that it is now that the Creature comes aboard to
kill a native. Specific narrative doesn’t matter, we know what’s
going to happen.
Lucas suggests using a
powder the natives use to catch fish. When they get the dose right,
the Creature becomes woozy. I think the boys chase it to its grotto
or something.
Whatever narrative
details I have missed, Mark still falls to the clutches of the
Creature, tho David does his best to save him.
Since it would be silly
to take defensive measures, Kate sits out somewhere dreamy-eyed. The
Creature appears, and the last native runs to her defense and is
killed. That guy in all the 50s movies (Whit Bissell by name) joins
the affray and is wounded, David and Lucas coming in the nick of time
shooting guns.
While discussing the
next move in a cabin with Whit Bissell laying there with his head
completely bandaged, the Creature’s hand appears at the porthole.
David slaps at the hand and closes the porthole. What was the
Creature planning anyway? Surprise attack thru the 10” porthole?
Well, time for
denouement. Kate sits out in the open on the shore and the Creature
scoops her up and takes her to his grotto. David follows with loaded
spear gun. Finding Kate he drops his weapon and they enter full
smooch-mode, At which time the Creature reappears. Before things go
too far regarding David’s head in the grip of the Creatures clawed
paw, Lucas and the archaeologist appear with firearms a-blaze. The
Creature hightails it. David, out of some arcane definition of
humane, prevents the coup-de-grace. They let the Creature return to
the water, where death comes soon enough. The end.
Like in King Kong, the
movie wants to suggest the Creature’s humanity, or humanness, at
least. And he seems attracted to Kate, tho expressed in a muddy way.
But this is a monster, and the trumped up logic is simple:
-
See monster (code word Other)
-
Kill it.
-
Revel in the thrill of fear.
