En el corazón de la tierra

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.

I'm serious as well, I mean don't get me wrong, if you haven't got a bent for this type of Z grade, creaky creature feature (why would you be watching is my first thought?) then it's most likely a rating of about 4 to 5 out of 10 tops, but to me it's a special kind of nonsense that takes me back to a nice time in my childhood. You know the kind, where the memories have never left you. Eagerly taking it all in with youthful wonderment as Doug McClure and Peter Cushing tunnel beneath the mantle to do battle with a host of creatures and sub-human species. And guys! Now we are all grown up we can admire most seriously at the wonder of Caroline Munro and her heaving cleavage. No wonder my older brother was keen to take me to the cinema to see this one!

Yes the effects are bad, men in suits, strings pinging parrot monsters around and exploding rubber frog like thingies amuse us greatly. And yes, Cushing and a surprisingly pudgy McClure (wearing bell bottomed flared trousers) act as if they have truly been mesmerised by the evil Meyhas at the "core" of our film. But it matters not, zany and clunky and awash in glorious colour, At The Earth's Core is a throwback to a special pre ILM time when kids like me queued around the block to see such joyous nonsense. 8/10

Funny, I'd read most of Edgar Rice Burroughs' fantasy adventure novels by the time I saw this movie, and knew that this wasn't Pellucidar: where were the vast, open spaces of the hollow earth, the blazing sun, the endless forests and lakes and mountains? Where were the friggin' tarags and thipdars?? And yet, this cheesy movie has managed to stick with me over the years. I love the cramped, fake-looking sets, the dazed actors playing slaves, the hyperactive Sagoths acting like Japanese prison camp guards in some WWII flick. And best of all are the dinosaurs, looking more like something from a medieval bestiary than actual prehistoric animals. They seem to combine aspects of human, rhino, frog, titanothere, you name it. All this, and cave princess Caroline Munro running around screaming, shooting smoky glances at Doug McClure from her sexy, kohl-rimmed eyes. It was TOO MUCH.

I can't help it. At the Earth's Core is one of my all-time great guilty pleasures. I only wish I could see it properly in a movie theater with an audience some day before I die.

Make no mistake, this is a very silly movie. Peter Cushing knew it; he gives one of his most over-the-top, ham it up performances.

Generally speaking, this movie has awful production values. Flying rubber pterodactyl creatures ruling the underworld. Piggish humanoid servants of said pterodactyls. A vapid, vacant-eyed Caroline Munro. An oh-so-macho leading man who, when you really look at him, doesn't look all that tough.

Still, At the Earth's Core has a charming innocence about it that gives it a bit of appeal. Best viewed by 10 year old boys on rainy Saturday afternoons, it's all in good fun.

This film begins with a wonderful piece of music and an excellently tense and edge-of-seat sequence in which Victorian scientists (played by Doug McClure and Peter Cushing) drill into the depths of the earth in their 'Iron Mole'. You truly believe you're going to see a great film to rival 'The Land That Time Forgot'. But then the two companions arrive in the underground world and encounter their first monster, which is quite obviously a man in an outfit which looks like a dinosaur with a parrot's face. From here it's downhill all the way as the intrepid scientists encounter ovens with tentacles on strings, fire-breathing critters with clearly visible flame-thrower nozzles and pterodactyl-people who, when they fall down, explode for no apparent reason. It's a shame the special-effects are so awful, as the storyline is quite interesting with some good situations and the music is excellently atmospheric. But what we have here is a good script let down by poor execution. All I can say in this film's favor is it's watchably bad. But I'd have been a lot happier if it was watchably good.