Swamp of the Lost Souls (aka El Pantanos de las Animas) (1957) – This reminded me more than a little of The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956): both movies are 95% Western soap-opera (Swamp is a Mexican-made, Spanish-language one), with 5% extraneous monster movie thrown in. Beast had a bad man-in-suit dinosaur; Swamp has a bad man-in-suite swamp creature. Stay till the end, and be rewarded by a conclusion that makes you say, “That’s really stupid.” Not really impressive, but… well, just that.
Danger Island (1992) – Originally produced as a TV pilot, it was rebranded “The Presence” and dumped to video when no series was forthcoming. Many have noted the similarities to Lost: a disparate bunch of people stranded on an island on which Strange Things Are Afoot. The big difference is that Danger Island is lame right from the get-go, instead of at the end.
But check out this cast: Kathy Ireland! (Playing a supermodel — way to stretch yourself — but a really smart one.) Gary Graham! Joe Lara! Nikki Cox! (Between befriending Data in “Penpals” in 1989 and getting her own sitcom Unhappily Ever After in 1995.) A whole bunch of people who were hoping to get a steady paycheck. Alas.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) – Put this in the “Why The Hell Did It Take Me So Long?” drawer, right beside O Brother, Where Art Thou? I don’t know that I’ve ever used the phrase “sumptuously plotted” before, but it works here.
Abandoned movies:
The Boxer From the Temple (1980) – After twenty minutes of waiting for the movie to decide what story it was going to tell or even who the main character was going to be..
Four Frightened People (1934) – If your story is an adventure about four unprepared Americans stranded on a South Seas island, let’s have a little more adventure and a little less melodrama.
Correction: Beast from Hollow Mountain had a bad *stop-motion* dino, not a man-in-suit one (save a few shots of the beast’s feet).
And you gave up on Boxer from the Temple? I haven’t seen it. But I know it gets points with MA fans for its fight sequences. You and your insistence on GOOD STORYTELLING!!!!
Oh, and I remember watching “Danger Island” when it premiered. I revisited it a couple of years ago. I think it’s one of the last cinematic gill men that we got, for better or worse.
Worse, definitely.
It’s been over 20 years since I’ve seen Beast From Hollow Mountain, so you’re probably right (although, as I recall, the dinosaur was so absent from the film that there were probably as many shots of its ominous feet as there were of the full beast in its “glory”).
Question: How did you watch SWAMP OF LOST SOULS?
With my eyes?
Tubi? Amazon? Netflix? Legitimate DVD? Gray Market DVD? The Matrix?
I may be out of the game, but I still have my resources.