Creature from the Haunted Sea

This low-budgeted picture is a monster-movie concerning about a Government Agent ( Robert Towne ) chasing a gangster named Renzo Capeto ( Anthony Carbone ), a mobster likeness to Bogart who along with his fiancée ( Betsy Jones Moreland ) and underlings are aboard ship with a group of exiled Cubans . Renzo schemes a plot to invent a mythical sea monster to eliminate the Cubans and steal the national treasure .

The film is a horror comedy blending parody , humor and suspense . The comedy is absurd and cheesy but gets some fine moments here and there. The movie has storyline gaps and is an embarrassing mess badly developed .However , it gets some amusing gag as the animal imitator hoodlum and the phone cabin on the island . Incredible cheap special effects with ridiculous rubber monster is a man suited attacking the ship crew though also there are good underwater scenes. The main actors ( Towne,Carbone,Moreland ), technicians ( cameraman ,Jack Marquette ) and writer ( Charles B.Griffith ) will repeat with Corman in subsequent films as ¨ A bucket of Blood ¨ and ¨ Last woman on earth ¨. Robert Towne is a prestigious director ( Tequila sunrise and Without limits ) and writer ( Mission impossible, the firm, Two jakes, Days and thunder ) , . The pic belongs to monster movie sub-genre which Corman directed during the 50-60s as ¨ Attack the crab monsters ¨, ¨ It conquered the world ( an Alien from Venus ), ¨ Beast with a million eyes ¨( other Alien ), ¨ Wasp man ¨, ¨ Viking women and great serpent ¨ or even a carnivorous plant as ¨ Little shop horrors ¨ though Corman also produced as ¨ Night of the blood beast ¨ and ¨ Attack of the giant leeches ¨( Bernard Kowalski ) . Rating : Below average , it's a real turkey .

Usually I'm pretty charitable to this kind of low-budget flick, since these people work just as hard (and in most cases, much harder) than their big-studio counterparts to make movies and to me the difference between oh, say, this and "Scream" usually has more to do with money than talent.

This one is different. No attention to plot, etc, no attempt to create suspense, etc. The whole freebooters preying on the Cuban revolution thing is a underexplored angle for a better movie. This one, however, sucks. Even an infomerical would be a better choice. Avoid.

This is pre-Airplane humor. Anyone who thinks this is a "monster movie" will be sadly disappointed. My first clue? The very first scene has a guy getting his shoes shined. And what is he wearing? White canvas sneakers. There are lots of quirky dialog that doesn't even need MST3000K to make jokes about. "Did you get that?" "Right. Where do I turn for the decoder pin?" "Left." "Left?" "Right." "Right". And the classic, "It was dusk. I could tell because the sun was going down."

Nothing in this movie was intended to be "horror". But if you listen closely and watch, you'll find plenty to laugh about. Kind of clever, actually.

Hardly a good film - but an enormously likeable one - this is the third of a trio of zany comedy-thrillers dashed off by Roger Corman's Filmgroup, made on a whim because he already had a cast and crew with him in Cuba (in the days when all those vintage cars in Havana were still new).

Featuring probably the daftest looking monster since 'The Giant Claw' (intentionally this time), future Oscar-winner Robert Towne in his second and final appearance as Edward Wain (who this time also narrates the film), foxy Betsy Jones-Moreland as a shady lady "perfectly adjusted to my life of crime" and a very noisy jazz score by Fred Katz; according to Corman financially the film "had a mild success...It should have been a big success or a big failure".

So many people seem to believe that this was supposed to be a straight-up horror film. It is anything but that. Creature From the Haunted Sea is a broad farce first, a political satire second, and finally a horror film/creature feature third. In fact, the said creature in the title has barely a presence in this film at all.

Roger Corman obviously wanted to make a silly comedy with political undertones about the times, but always the businessman, he knew to throw in a monster and cool sounding title to bring in the ticket buying public. Folks need to realize when they watch this to not expect a nail biting thriller or blood curdling horror film. This is comedy all the way.

The film is about an American gangster who agrees to transport a couple of Cuban military officers and some of their men off the island after Castro's revolution. They also bring along a large part of the Cuban treasury. Also aboard the boat is an undercover spy for the American government, who is trying to figure out what all is going on. The gangster also has his girlfriend with him and a couple of hired hands, one of which is his girlfriends brother and the other a strange fellow who makes animal noises all the time. The gangster decides he would like the money the Cubans have brought along for his own and decides to bump them off one by one, blaming things on a local legend about a sea monster. Unfortunately for him, it turns out that the legend is true and there is really a sea monster.

The acting in this film is fine for what it is and the actors play their roles like they should. Its a Corman picture so you know its a cheapie, as the monster is one of the silliest looking creatures I have ever seen. I really didn't laugh at anything in the movie, though it caused me to elicit a small chuckle a couple of times. The picture moved along briskly enough and wasn't a bore, though it didn't thrill me either. My biggest gripe is that so many DVD companies who have released this try to pass it off as a serious horror film. Anyone expecting that will be sadly disappointed.

Not a terrible movie, but not what you would probably expect either.