Sting of Death

66 was the year of William Grefé's Evergladesploitation trash hits Sting of Death and Death Curse of Tartu. The national park proved an apt locale for cheap horror; most of the time the proceedings feel almost as exotic as the Filipino 'Blood Island' movies. The lush marshlands are beautifully photographed for the most part and Sting of Death even has an airboat chase scene.

Make no mistake, the film is a stinker. A research team plus a bunch of roistering college kids are terrorized by a jellyfish-man killer who looks like a garbage bin version of the mushroom people in Toho's Matango. The pacing is not as abysmal as in Death Curse of Tartu (where an unreasonably big chunk of the runtime is padded with various characters trudging through bog to suspense music), but the movie is low on thrills of any kind. It's really only worth seeing for the scenery and that bizarre jellyfish costume.

Got to give it 4/10. One point plus three more - 1) you've got Neil Sedaka singing, "Do the Jellyfish." 2) You've got really, really pretty color, better than a lot of mainstream films from the same era. 3) And the final man vs. monster confrontation is so hilarious that you'll play it over and over, if, of course, you're drunk on your ***.

Kind of disappointing, really, because this probably would've been more fun if it had either been inept and stupid start to finish, or if it had been 'way-over-the-top whack like an Al Adamson epic. Worth watching mostly so you can tell people about this messed-up movie you saw about a guy with a Portuguese Man-o'-War for a head.

[The other Southern film with a trashbag-based monster, of course, is Attack of the Giant Leeches.]

One of the more obscure works from 60's SF/Horror Cinema has raised its ugly head in the form of SOMETHING WEIRD'S VHS & DVD release (some early copies had tech flaws so beware unscrupulous dealers). Not so much awful as just plain dumb, STING OF DEATH has a few unintended yocks along the way for the "so bad its good" crowd, but is mainly numb and dull more than "fun". On the plus side, the photography and songs (by NEIL SEDAKA!) aren't half-bad, and the ladies are far more attractive than usual for this type of regional exploitation quickie (including DEANA LUND in her debut). But, the musical scoring is lax, the dialogue mostly lame and it has one of the most illogical creature costumes in history! To wit, a none-too-well disguised black wetsuit with a few rubber tentacles and big CLEAR plastic bag on an actor's head! This is the "jellyfish" monster! At first we were ready to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt and assume the creature PUT ON the wetsuit before diving into the waters - but no, in the "climactic" sequence the creature transforms before us STRAIGHT INTO THE WETSUIT! And, you gotta laugh when you see the actor's pale white skin emerge from between the bottom leg of the wetsuit and the BLACK RUBBER FINS the "monster" has on!

Yes, it's a low budget schlocker but you've gotta give credit to this cast for playing it completely straight throughout the proceedings. And look for a pre "Land of the Giants" Deanna Lund as one of the groovy chicks coming to the doomed island. Looks like it was fun to film!

I rented The "Sting of Death" on a DVD that also included "Death Curse of Tartu" and two very short features that I wasn't expecting, "Love Goddesses of Blood Island" and "Miami or Bust". As an added attraction, you can watch the "The Sting of Death" or the "Death Curse of Tartu" with director audio commentary if you wish. What really made watching this DVD a fun experience though was the "Sting of Death". This movie is what makes the DVD. The rest is inconsequential. The "Sting of Death" alone is worth the price of the rental or if purchased would make a fine addition to any video library. What makes this movie so attractive? It's a cheap low budget movie with lots of mistakes but that's why it's fun. You can't take this one too seriously even though it was intended to be a horror movie. The monster consists of a man in a black wet suit with tentacles attached and a black semi transparent plastic bag as a head. Watch the monster's ankles. The skin is exposed a few times. One scene shows a lot of jellyfish, which look like they were made with see through sandwich bags with pieces of blue and red in them. The scene is supposed to be scary but it looks like a bunch of garbage floating around in the water. What did impress me was the quality of the color. The movie really did look good. How the movie was made is another thing. For those that enjoy watching poorly made monster movies, this one is a must see. It's the only horror movie I know of that features a Jellyfish/man monster. They even have a song in this movie by Neil Sedaka called "The Jellyfish". You get to see them dance to it and hear it in it's entirety. It's great stuff. The song and dance is enough to give it a couple of points when rating it. This is a fun and humorous film. If you want something serious, this is not for you. If you like the kind of movie that's so bad it's good, this is just the thing. For 1950s and 60s monster movie fans, you really have to see this lesser known film. You have to see and hear it to believe it.