The Monster of Piedras Blancas

Don Sullivan should be the star. He is the young handsome monster fighter. Others were better known at that time, perhaps. This is a good, but not great sci-fi B movie. It is entertaining and an obvious low budget quickie that might make back the investor's gamble. The monster is not totally ridiculous and the story is OK. The acting is better than most low budget films. Any of the main cast members, including the child actors could handle a Hollywood production. Camera work is better than adequate. This is not boring but sometimes it slips into comedy that is unintended.

I insisted on seeing this movie when it came out in the 1950's, I was 7 years old. I got to the theatre late and the movie had already started. As I opened the doors to enter the screening room a strange feeling came over me, could it have been that the room was pitch black and 500 people were screaming at the top of their lungs? Somehow I found my way to a seat trying not to look at the screen. In a few minutes the monster comes waltzing out of some industrial size refridgerator carrying some guys head in his hand.....that was all it took....as the blood rushed to my head I did the 50 yard dash to the doors in world record time and never looked back. Decades later (1990's) I had the chance to watch the movie again on cable. This time my girlfriend was with me so I was able to get through it........

John Harmon plays a crusty lighthouse keeper who lives with his daughter and secretly feeds a monster of a prehistoric fish-man heritage scraps and fish. One day he misses feeding the creature scraps and all hell breaks loose. The creature walks about unseen and walking in and out of stores neatly severing the heads off folks. This is vintage 50's bad sci-fi. It has all the cliches you would expect, yet it is a whole lot of fun. Obviously made on a shoestring budget, Monster of Piedras Blancas has a charm to it. The story is pretty straightforward with everything from one-dimensional characters to the obligatory romance between the lighthouse keeper's daughter and a serendipitous biochemist versed in prehistoric fish species(played by Do Sullivan who you may...or more likely may not...remember as Chase in The Giant Gila Monster...no singing in this one fortunately!). The monster looks decent. Sure, you know its a rubber suit, but at least its not crying out that it is. This film makes great Saturday or Sunday afternoon fare!

I had never heard of this movie until I met the object of aforesaid Monster at a fan convention here in the bay area a few years ago... she told me about it, perhaps somehow sensing my affinity for rubber-suited monsters. I told her I hadn't seen it, but I'd sure love to, and she said the guy who worked on "Creature from the Black Lagoon" had also done the monster suit for this movie. Now I had to see it, but I didn't really get a chance until last Thursday at the Parkway in Oakland.

Strangely enough, the producer of the film's daughter had shown up for the showing (I'd give you her name if I remembered it), which also coupled as a birthday celebration for bay area horror host "Dr. Ghoulfinger". Even stranger, she had shown up not to seize the print or anything vulgar of that nature, but rather to lend her support and enjoy the rare public viewing of her father's film. When asked about her father's career after "Monster from Piedras Blancas", she said he moved into other types of film, to which a vocal part of the audience shouted "PORN!!!"

OK, the film itself is a somewhat better than average exploitation horror flick. The monster suit, which allows for a great deal of animation and motion, is a wonder -- it easily blows away everything else in the movie, including the much cheaper gore type effects such as decapitated heads. Of course, depending on your own inclinations, Jeanne Carmen also steals the show with her luscious bod, appearing as a brunette (anyone know what Jeanne Carmen's natural hair color is, anyway?) showing more character than most victims of 50s rubber monsters. Her acting is not great, but adequate for the film's demands.

No one else in the cast really stands out, but the effort in general is solid, not slowing down too much like many of its kind do in the middle. The film's makers seem to have known they must show something worth seeing every reel or risk losing the audience. A lot of the stuff in the movie seems pretty goofy, and I doubt that anyone involved took the film too seriously; it almost comes off as a comedy, kind of like but not as much so as some of Corman's movies from the time (most notably "Not of This Earth").

All in all, a good show

"The Monster of Piedras Blancas" was an independent production from Jack Kevan who was former makeup artist at Universal and was responsible for designing and building the Gill Man suit in "Creature from the Black Lagoon", as well as the alien Xenomorph from "It Came from Outer Space", and the Metaluna Mutant of "This Island, Earth".

The suit for the film's "diplovertebron" monster consisted of existing molds for the feet that were cast from those of the Metaluna Mutant from "This Island, Earth" along with over-sized hands originally designed for "The Mole People".

There's no mistaking the fact that the "Monster of Piedras Blancas," is somewhat of a knock-off of the "Creature from the Black Lagoon".

It is obvious that some thought had gone into the plot which was fairly consistent and had some logic to it such as the monster's origins and the reasons behind its murderous rampage. The theme of loneliness and of being an outcast and the kind of desperation it can produce are touched on quite nicely as well.

A couple of quite gruesome scenes for the time included the monster bursting in on the scene carrying a bloody severed human head and a shot of the same head with a crab crawling across the face. Even cute pooches and little girls are not spared from the murderous wrath of the monster!

The film was shot not at the actual Point Piedras Blancas, which is north of San Simeon on the California coast. The lighthouse locations were shot at the Point Conception lighthouse near Lompoc, and the film's "town" was in fact the seaside city of Cayucos, about 30 miles south of the real Piedras Blancas.

Don Sullivan who plays Fred we remember from his role as Chase in "The Giant Gila Monster". In this film, however we can breathe a sigh of relief as he refrains from singing! His girlfriend Lucy is played by pin-up girl Jeanne Carmen who is certainly easy on the eye in just a simple floral dress or blouse and skirt and sensible flat shoes. No need for clown make-up, outfits that leave nothing to the imagination or stiletto posture torturers!

To conclude, I must admit that I geared myself up to hate this movie. I really, really wanted to hate this movie but I found that I just couldn't, no matter how much I tried! I'm really not sure why? I even mildly enjoyed watching this low-budget affair. The acting was pretty ordinary but at least the actors were earnest enough and the pace of the story was OK right up to and including the thrilling and at the same time, quite funny climax.