En el corazón de la tierra

Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) is a Victorian era scientist who is about to take his revolutionary vehicle, capable of boring through the Earth, on its maiden voyage. Accompanying him is former student turned businessman David Innes (Doug McClure). The vehicle is more powerful than they thought, and they end up deep inside the Earths' core. Here they encounter a nonstop assortment of monsters, a kingdom named Pellucidar, a tribe of primitive people, and their subhuman captors / tormentors, who pray to dinosaur gods.

Now how can you resist any hokum featuring those elements? Produced by Amicus, and scripted by Milton Subotsky (based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs), this is decently executed by director Kevin Connor, who was a real go-to filmmaker for this kind of fantasy material in the 1970s. McClure is a jut jawed hero, and Cushing seems to be relishing a rare opportunity to ham it up. His performance may not be one of his most accomplished, but it's certainly a fun one. Caroline Munro is *extremely* alluring as cave girl Dia. Also performing this amiable nonsense with straight faces are Cy Grant as the helpful Ra, Godfrey James as the stolid Ghak, and Sean Lynch as the devious Hoojah (just to be sure we get the point, Hoojah is nicknamed "The Sly One").

The movie begins in grand style, with some striking opening titles and a beautiful, rousing piece of music. It promises a solid diversion, and that's what it delivers. The understandable criticisms often leveled at the production are its obvious budget issues, and rubber monsters. But these monsters are just so damn amusing, especially the exploding fire breathing frog. All of this is done in an agreeable tradition of the Saturday matinée feature. The sets and the visuals are reasonably impressive, and Connor keeps things moving along nicely (the movie hits the ground running), and building to an exciting and destructive finale.

"At the Earth's Core" does put a goofy smile on *this* viewers' face.

Seven out of 10.

Man, what isn't there to like about this movie? Sure the SFX are kinda low-budget and some of the actors sort of ham it up, but imagine if this film was made today with CG and bland actors whom take everything seriously, it just would not be the same movie.

The movie follows, well, two scientists whom drill beneath the Earth's core, run into bizarre monsters (whom looked like they were kicked out of Daiei's Gamera films BTW), become slaves, and explore the strange world and so on. I don't remember the novel very well, but I sure know that this movie is one of those "so cheesy and wild, it's hard to forget" type of movies.

BTW, check out the part with Jubal the Ugly one! PRICELESS!

Hi! I'm Doug McClure. You may remember me from such other cheesy adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs works as, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot.

This movie is hysterical. Even allowing when it was made, the monsters are just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad! All rubber suited things with people inside. There's even a fire-breathing beastie, but don't look at it's mouth too close or you'll see the flame-thrower nozzle poking out. Couple that with Peter Cushing's wonderfully useless "old professor" routine and Doug's stoic hero performance and you'll laugh the whole way through. Carolyn Monroe plays Dougies love interest, though I did wonder where she got cosmetics from, living deep in the Earth. Perhaps the Avon lady calls there.

The flying monsters at the end are particularly silly. They have all the aerodynamic properties (and believability) of a concrete block. Just a bunch of fat blokes in rubber suits. All they do is sit on a ledge and hypnotise people. It's only when that fails, or it's feeding time, that they "swoop" down to attack. And when I say swoop, I mean someone prods the rubber thingy in the back and it swings down on a cable.

Total B-Movie delight. Watch it and be amused. Be very amused.

The main criticism of AT THE EARTH'S CORE is that it's cheap, the special effects are bad and so on and so forth. Yes, some of the special effects are painfully bad but what a lot of folks overlook about it is that it's actually quite fun, which is very important in my book.

In comparison, just look at the latest STAR WARS films: they have the latest, greatest special effects created by the latest technological advances which are capable in creating stunning visual effects as far reaching as the human imagination can imagine and yet, with all the razzle dazzle, those films were as exciting as a funeral. As Yoda would say, Fun they're not! In other words, who cares if the FX aren't the greatest when the spirit of the film is fast-paced, humorous and clearly set on the side of action. I love everything about AT THE EARTH'S CORE: the contrast between stodgy Victorian England VS the wild other-worldly, colorful setting of Pellucidar, the cast of characters, the concept of a lost underground world, the telepathic Pterodactyls, the human slaves rebelling, Jubal the ugly one (lol!), the inspired teaming of Peter Cushing (who's great!) and Doug McClure, the excellent music (it's really good), cinematography by the amazing Alan Hume and last but not least, Caroline Munro. She's effing sexy in this movie. One of the sexiest B-movie babes ever captured on screen.

Seriously, anyone who doesn't like this movie doesn't know what fun is. Gimme AT THE EARTH'S CORE over any turgid STAR WARS prequels any time! At least it has Caroline Munro, which no CGI fx can ever recreate.

Way back in the 70s, when I was kid, we didn't have fancy CGI effects in our monster movies: if we were lucky, the film featured stop motion work, but often they would rely on men in shonky rubber suits, made to look enormous through dodgy matte work or back projection.

Case in point: At The Earth's Core, a ropey adaptation of an Edgar Rice Burroughs story (which I caught on its original release in '76) that presents creatures so pathetic that I'm surprised that any of the actors in the film managed to keep a straight face. To their credit, though, B-movie hunk Doug McClure and horror legend Peter Cushing do manage to hold back the laughter, playing a couple of Victorian explorers who travel under the Earth's crust in a mechanical 'mole', only to discover lost civilisations and prehistoric monsters.

Even as an 8 year old kid, I remember being distinctly unimpressed with this pretty poor effort from director Kevin Connor, finding not only the effects to be laughably bad, but also the acting to be of a pretty poor standard (Cushing, in particular, gives an amazingly hammy performance that still makes me cringe to watch). Nowadays, however, I find this whole sorry affair just about watchable thanks to the gorgeous Caroline Munro, a major hottie of the 70s who spends this film prancing around in a skimpy outfit that reveals her ample cleavage, and the unintentional laughs that can be had from the awful dialogue, bargain basement visuals, and general atmosphere of cheesiness.