REVIEW: THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS
REVIEW: IRVIN BERWICK [ 1959 ] 71'
REVIEW: VANWICK PRODUCTIONS
CAST: LES TREMAYNE, FORREST LEWIS
CAST: JOHN HARMON, FRANK ARVIDSON
PERSONAL RATING:
CRITICAL RATING:

This review is part of the
B-MOVIE BEACH PARTY MEGA ROUNDTABLE

I've been meaning to sit down to this film for quite some time now, so I'm quite glad that this mega-roundtable came about to give me an excuse to do just that. As a child I rather wanted to see it as well, though my reasons for such were more than a little lop-sided. Way back in the far-flung days of the early 1990's - when having a satellite dish meant installing a free-moving 8 foot monstrosity in your front yard - I glimpsed something special in our monthly TV guide. At first glance it appeared to be something akin to that famous shot from FROM HERE TO ETERNITY [1953] with two lovers groping about like some kind of deranged and pallid octopus as the surf washed up upon them. There was something strange about this incarnation, however - something different.

It might have had something to do with the gigantic fish dude towering over them as they bird and bee'd.

The accompanying article, funnily enough, had nothing to do with the image itself - this was not entirely uncommon as I remember another instance where a still obviously taken from childhood favorite PLANET OF DINOSAURS [1978] was used to illustrate an article for Troma Studio's A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL [1991] - so I was left, at my highly-impressionable young age, to simply wonder about the strange still I'd seen in the television guide.

It was some years later when I rediscovered it - my family and I were on vacation in Atlanta, GA if memory serves. While out on the town we happened into a little video shop (a trip that I'm all but positive was my first step inside the weird and over-priced universe of Suncoast) and I naturally gravitated to the only spot where bygone monster epics could be had - the bargain rack. There, amongst the likes of EARTH VS. THE SPIDER [1958] and GAMERA VS. ZIGRA [1971] sat something pale-green and familiar. It was quite the same still as I'd seen in the TV guide only this time it was gracing the cover of a video cassette that I was reasonably assured housed the film from whence it came. The beast looked to be even larger than I remembered it as it loomed over the writhing bodies of the doomed lovers with its mighty claws outst. . . then I saw the back.

I'd mis-seen, I was sure of it. My eyes lied - it was the only explanation!

There on the back cover was another still of the beast - this one being entirely unfamiliar to me - that showed it tormenting a few people in what looked to be the interior of a lighthouse. Instead of the hundred-foot behemoth I was promised on the cover, the image revealed the monster to be a mere man in a suit - and a quite normally proportioned one at that. I was disenchanted to be sure and there was a sick feeling in my stomach - the kind you only get when you know you've been deceived. I put the video back in its spot on the shelf and quietly wandered back to my parents, my young mind sure that it simply had to escape a world so cruel and fraudulent that it could lie about a man in a suit.

In the back of my mind, however, the still of the monster and the title associated with it would forever remain. I've tempered considerably since then and have come to realize that the world is more cruel and fraudulent than I ever could have imagined at that age - and the men in suits that are lied about nowadays are considerably more important than the fish-man of the film's title.

"Hey! Hey you there! I told you to stay away from this light! I meant it!" cries a post-middle-aged man to two little boys who wander too close to the cliffs near his lighthouse. A monstrous hand drags a bowl on a chain back behind a rock and then throws it back towards the camera in disgust. The post-middle-aged man rides off on his bike. And so begins the highly derivative and graphic (for 1959) little C-grade bore THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS [1959].

Once in town the man (Sturges) learns that two boys - presumably the two he told to stay off his property - were found decapitated in their rowboat. Through conversation between a few townspeople and the constable we are told that Sturges isn't very well respected in the town of Piedras Blancas - this seems to be due entirely to the fact that he lives alone. I don't imagine they'd approve of him much more if they were aware that he was feeding the town monster (they should have put up signs).

Sturges heads over to the town grocery (as owned and operated by the annoying buffoon named Kochek) for some supplies for his lighthouse and meat scraps for his pet monster, but Kochek would rather tell him the entire story about how he found the two decapitated boys instead. What does the knowledgeable grocer have to say about what caused the boy's deaths? Why it was THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS [1959], of course. After the story we learn that Kochek gave Sturges' meat scraps to a pig farmer the previous day when Sturges didn't show up for them. Sturges is infuriated. "You'll be sorry!" he warns.

And so - 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the film - the audience is let in on the entire plot of the film to follow:

1) Sturges has a lighthouse and isn't liked by the townspeople.

2) Sturges is also feeding the titular monster.

3) The monster is also pissed and killing people for whatever reason.

Given how many times such plot elements had been utilized by this point in the B-movie scene, we can rest assured that the film will resolve itself in one of two possible ways:

1) The monster will kill Sturges, thus granting a sort of divine justice for his involvement in the monster's killings, before being killed itself.

2) Sturges will sacrifice himself to make right his many wrongs just before the monster is killed.

The plot will deviate remarkably little from these norms as the film progresses.

After buying some liver and bacon from Kochek, Sturges heads over to The Wings Cafe, where his daughter is working. He berates her a bit about coming home late but is interrupted when the Constable begins asking him questions about the dead boys. After giving a few short answers and yet another unnecessary warning - "They'll learn someday!" - Sturges heads back home. His daughter flirts a bit with the local bum-and-biologist and agrees to go out to the beach with him for lunch. Back at the grocer's, the freezer is doubling as a mortuary (!) and Les Tremayne (credited only as THE DOCTOR though those in the movie call him Jorgenson) has just finished the autopsy. Aside from the obvious decapitation, it seems the boy's bodies had been drained of virtually all their blood. Kochek is on hand for the proceedings, of course, and makes mention once more of the legend of THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS [1959].

Subtlety is obviously not the film's strong suit.

Meanwhile, on the beach, Sturges' daughter Lucy is having a nice lunch with Frank - before long Frank and Lucy are both groping about in the surf. In direct contradiction to what both the VHS cover and poster artwork for the film would have you believe, the titular beast is nowhere to be seen here. Bummer. Back in town, Tremayne and the Constable are talking a bit more about the murders - apparently the boys arteries had been sucked up and out of their necks a bit by whatever killed them. The Constable then heads over to Kochek's just to tell them that if he doesn't shut up then he'll be arrested - good stuff. Back at the lighthouse, Sturges is talking to himself and his dog.

That night Frank drops Lucy off at her lighthouse home - not one to waste a beautiful evening, Lucy strips down to herself and goes swimming while the monster (off screen with the exception of its hand) fondles her clothing. She heads back home in short order and unharmed and receives a scolding from her father about swimming after dark. She mentions that she had a feeling that she wasn't alone - this sends her father into hysterics again. After sending his daughter to bed he puts on his jacket and heads outside. Kochek is working late back in town - his shop door wide open - and is, as such, the next victim (and first on-screen) of the monster. The scene fades out well before anything graphic can be shown.

The next morning is the funeral of the two boys from the beginning of the film. While it's underway another little boy finds a coin and heads into Kochek's store to buy a bit of candy, only to discover that the blabbermouth has gabbed his last. He runs to the funeral and lets everyone know that Kochek has lost his head. At the scene of the crime, Frank discovers what looks to be a large fish scale - he and Tremayne take it to be analyzed. The two of them find that it resembles the scale of an extinct species of fish. Suddenly, Lucy arrives on the scene and starts raving about her father having fallen off a cliff and being unconscious and stuff, so the whole lot of them set out to find him and make sure he's okay.

Aside from a gash to the arm and a sprained ankle, Tremayne thinks that Sturges will be fine. He's carried back to the lighthouse and put in a bed to rest - meanwhile it is found that the dog is missing. Frank stays behind to help Lucy with her dad while Tremayne and the Constable head back into town. More exposition occurs between Frank, Sturges, and Lucy and we discover that Piedras Blancas is so named because the rocks are covered with seagull droppings. Charming! When Tremayne and the Constable return they see that the monster has killed two more people - the first being a little girl who went to buy something form Kochek's store and the second being Eddie, who was left to guard it. At the lighthouse, Frank decides to check out the caves along the cliff faces. In town, the monster finally makes another appearance by popping out of Kochek's meat freezer with a disembodied head in tow - he roughs up a couple of townspeople and makes his way to the beach. Only after discovering another scale are Tremayne and the Constable finally sure that it's the monster who is responsible for the murders.

The Constable heads out to the lighthouse, retrieves Frank, heads back to the town to get men with guns, and heads back to the caves in the cliff faces near the lighthouse. Frank and the Constable find a cave with a few disembodied heads inside of it and two of their fellow gunmen are attacked - one fatally. Back in the lighthouse Sturges spills the beans to his daughter about how he took care of the monster by feeding it fish and meat. Against his daughter's wishes he heads up to take care of the lighthouse light to make sure that no ships wreck (he shouldn't have worried, there wasn't enough money involved for that). Back in town Tremayne and Frank convince the Constable that the monster should be captured - he begrudgingly agrees and the lot of them head off to find a net.

Back at the lighthouse, Lucy is undressing - the monster takes this as his first opportunity to truly reveal himself (it's one of precious few moments when he is exposed in all of his goofy glory) and starts dragging Lucy back to his cave. Sturges stops him by hitting him on the head with something unidentified (and at range!); the monster doesn't care for this so much and heads back into the lighthouse to take care of the old man. The Constable notices that the lighthouse is out and rushes the whole crew over to it. Sturges is killed by the monster when he is tossed off the top of the lighthouse - Frank heads up to do battle with it as well and discovers that light hurts the creature (though it was running amok in the daytime earlier). The lighthouse is turned on and Frank breaks all laws of physics by managing to muster the force necessary to, with a single strike from his rifle butt, send the monster flying off the lighthouse, over the onlookers, past the cliffs, and into the ocean. The end.

Much ado has been made online about how the monster in this film bares a striking resemblance to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. While designed by the same person (Jack Kevan) I feel the monster is much closer to the previous year's IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE [1958]. From the constant facial expression to the way it walks to the size, the resemblances are quite startling. The film itself, in fact bares considerable likeness to IT! - the monster is vampiric in nature, an outsider is ostracized by the majority for his supposed involvement in the murders, and the monster itself isn't shown in full until the conclusion of the film. Even the final assault on the lighthouse isn't entirely unlike the attack on the multiple tiers of the spaceship in IT!. The film was produced by Kevan as well, who seems to have been looking for just about any excuse to put one last monster on screen. The creature here is rather less than convincing and seems to be a mishmash of reused props (the feet look to come from THIS ISLAND EARTH [1955]'s Mutant while the hands come from THE MOLE PEOPLE [1956], both of which Kevan did special effects work for).

Starting off the remarkably identifiable cast is Les Tremayne, who manages to lend an amount of credibility to the part of the good Doctor (though the script gives him little room to excel within). Equally well known to B-movie buffs will be Don Sullivan, who's other credits include THE GIANT GILA MONSTER and TEENAGE ZOMBIES [both 1959]. Late 50's bombshell Jeanne Carmen is given an "introducing" credit in the opening though she had played in several feature films previously - as Sturges' daughter she may well be the only reason to watch the film. Even the monster is somewhat familiar as it is played by Pete Dunn, who also portrayed one of the Mutants in the much better 1953 mini-epic INVADERS FROM MARS. Director Irvin Berwick provides simple point-and-shoot direction and a pace that, even with a running time of only 71 minutes, still makes the film far too long. Screenwriter H. Haile Chace does about as well as you could imagine from a man who also wrote and directed the 1961 scare-film V. D.

A lackluster pace and overall lack of interesting content keep what could have been a decent entry into the hall of cult filmdom from being anything but a bore. After checking out the advertising campaign for the film prior to this review I can honestly say I feel nearly as cheated now as I did when I was a child. It's still a pity the titular beasty wasn't a couple of hundred feet tall.