CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)

Tagline: This Gangster's "Single Partner" Isn't Even Human!

(Sci-Fi, Comedy, One Of The Goofiest Looking Creatures Ever) [G]

Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating, but likely would have landed an [G]. 

She was madly in love with me, only she didn’t know it yet. 

Just to get this out there before we dive into this one, you should know this movie is not taking itself sci-fi or anything in it seriously. If you are trying to approach this expecting a complicated masterpiece with any sort of top-notch acting and a brilliantly written script, this thing won’t be that movie. There is literally a character in this that impresses an island native using nothing but realistic-sounding animal noises. Oddly she is equally adept at making animal noises as he is. 

The storyline revolves around Renzo Capetto who wants to make a bunch of money during a revolution on a Caribbean island. He decides to start killing off some of his crew while he escapes with the loot and then blames their deaths on a local superstition that involves a sea creature. It doesn’t take long before the plan goes horribly wrong when the real sea creature shows up. 

Currently, there is a fantastic director out there named Christopher R. Mihm who is churning out 1950s and 1960’s style films to the tune of about 1 a year. His first film that caught national attention was THE MONSTER OF PHANTOM LAKE and the monster in that is a play on the monster in this thing. Both have wildly googly eyes and look just absolutely ridiculous. I freakin love both of these designs. Because a lot of the humor is dated, I really didn’t find much of this film all that funny unless the narrator was talking. The narration is freakin hilarious. Having said that Roger Corman has a way of taking about $15.00 and making films that are somehow engaging and at least entertaining in spite of how poorly produced they are. This one is no exception. A LOT of this script doesn’t even seem to fit with the rest of the film. They cram 3 love stories into this movie, 2 of which seem to just be there to fill the 63-minute run time for a story that could have been wrapped up in 10 minutes. 

Acting wise Antony Carbone gets the lead role as Renzo Capetto. He ended up appearing in 57 different TV shows and movies, but his most famous was probably 1960s LAST WOMAN ON EARTH. He is fine in this for what it is, but Corman didn’t really seem to be asking his actors to give their best efforts here. Again, this is a comedy; it actually includes a hysterical line where the narrator says, “It was dusk, I could tell because the sun was going down”. The movie also stars Betsy Jones-Moreland who was also in LAST WOMAN ON EARTH. I mention in my LAST WOMAN ON EARTH review that Betsy can act; she just isn’t really trying in this movie or LAST WOMAN ON EARTH, but she is better in this one as Mary-Belle. I did not like Beach Dickerson in this one as Pete Peterson. It seemed like his character was thrown into the movie for comic relief, but he actually just drags this thing away from humor. Robert Towne is pretty great in this though, especially as the narrator Sparks Moran. Towne is best known for his work in writing the screenplay for both MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II. 

The cinematography is weak, the acting is mostly weak but funny at times, the dialog is mostly weak but decent at times, and the camera work is mediocre. Wait a minute? Is this a Quinton Tarantino movie? Just kidding, but it does have tacky music and a few camera angles that remind me of stuff Tarantino has done. 

This is a very interesting outing even for a Corman movie and I actually enjoyed it, so I can’t give it any lower than a 4 out of 7. If you like 1950s sci-fi or horror this would be a pretty fun addition to your collection even though it came out 1.5 years after the 50s were over. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ROGER CORMAN PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.