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Perhaps the strangest film to come out of Hammer Studios, The Lost Continent is literally like watching two movies in one. Similar in format to Tarantino's From Dusk 'til Dawn, the film shifts from a taut "mutiny on the bounty" type nautical drama play (with a little funky late sixties weirdness thrown in) to a whacked out sci-fi freak show complete with corny monsters, strange & hostile plants, an unnaturally large breasted woman, a child King, an oddball religious cult, and balloon-type thingies to keep the characters afloat on the marshy alien wetlands! Whew! Talk about your shift in gears! A must see for fans of oddball cinema. And to think it came out of Great Britain . . .

You know what a typical Hammer production looks like, and "The Lost Continent" definitely doesn't fit that picture. It doesn't feature any old Gothic castles or torture dungeons, any cloaked vampires or mad Barons and it doesn't even star Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing. Surely Hammer also produced other mythologist films and stories revolving on time warps, but "The Lost Continent" is an entire league on its own and the complete opposite to what you expect. Right after watching this movie, you can't even properly determine for yourself whether it's good or bad … just plain weird. "The Lost Continent" is an outrageously plotted but awkwardly coherent film with two entirely different main story lines rolled into one. The titular continent (although it's merely just a small island) actually doesn't get reached until the twenty last minutes and, before that, it is just a suspenseful thriller set on a boat. The ambiance on the ancient and leaky cargo ship is rather tense and sinister. The captain ignores safety warnings and advice from his personnel and the passengers prefer facing a terrible sea storm rather than to return to the coast, even though they have been informed about the potentially explosive cargo. Suffice to say these aren't normal tourists, but people with dark secrets or even fugitive criminals. There are a lot of intrigues going on-board, but the sea is mightier. The captain and his passengers have to abandon ship, but they recover another one slowly drift towards uncharted regions. There they encounter ravenous seaweed and a lot of other things that don't make the least bit of sense, like gigantic crab-creatures, a native tribe under the impression that the Spanish Inquisition isn't finished yet and a local girl with the most gorgeous pair of breasts in the universe. In order to set food on land, they have to put watery pillows on their feet and attach balloons on their shoulders, which forms another very ludicrous sight to behold. "The Lost Continent" is an incredibly silly film, but all cast members perform their roles with a poker straight face, like as if they were starring in the greatest & most budgeted epic adventure in the history of cinema. The effects and monsters designs are extremely dodgy and laughable, but also somewhat charming. The film hasn't got a real ending, but (fortunately?) Hammer never bothered to make a sequel. Crazy little Brit-film, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to open-minded fans of cult cinema.

Michael Carreras often attempted to broaden Hammer's repertoire during his terms there and most of the company's artistic triumphs, and interesting misfires, can be laid at his feet. THE TWO FACES OF DR JEKYLL was a serious attempt to move the Gothics beyond the traditional limits expected of Hammer that failed due to the gap between intention and execution. Having pioneered SHE and ONE MILLIONS YEARS BC and put Hammer into the Summer family crowd pleaser market - and anticipating the modern Hollywood blockbuster - Carreras took advantage of hammer's relationship with Dennis Wheatley not to churn out another Black magic Chiller but a curious mish-mash of soap-opera, disaster movie, nautical adventure and sci-fantasy.

Eric Porter was hotter than a murder weapon at the time with his portrayal of the tormented, cuckolded Soames Forsyth on the BBC (and had become something of a sex symbol in the process - despite, or because of, his rough treatment of his capricious wife, Irene) so Hammer thought it worth taking a chance on him as leading man material - as they had Peter Cushing - instead of Christopher Lee or a fading American star. Porter was a top drawer classical actor - I had the good fortune to see his Malvolio in TWELFTH NIGHT at Stratford - and he has a convincingly craggy sea-faring face and a natural authority, and ain't half-bad as a man of action at the climax. His captain could give Cushing's Baron Frankenstein a few lessons in monomania - he fails to tell his crew (including, inevitably, Michael Ripper) about the dangerous cargo of Phophor B they carry. Having been beaten to the punch by Benito Carruther's sleazy character to sleep with Hildegard Knef, he cares very little when the man is carried off by an octopus. I doubt whether Porter lingered too long over the film on his CV but he's a first-rate lead and although he made an excellent Moriarity in the Granada series, might have been an intriguing Holmes. The women characters are unusually complex for Hammer. Hildegard Knef looked every inch a MILF and conveys the weary melancholy of a beaten-down woman who's had to compromise herself in the name of survival. Suzanne Leigh is one of Hammer's finest and most underrated bitches - look at the smirk she gives her hated father Nigel Stock when Porter berates him - and opens her thighs for anything with a pulse including the Sparks, Benito, and on-the-wagon Harry. Sadly, both fade from centre-stage at the climax - but there is compensation in the form of Dana Gillespie. We've suffered enough childish double-entendres with those gas balloons she wears for now, but she is a striking beauty and, as Hammer weren't overly concerned with the thespian ability of their ladies, it seems strange she never made another one for them - Christopher Lee could have sunk his fangs into her certainly. I suspect she's dubbed, but she certainly takes Harry's mind off the booze.

The plot structure is oddly similar to FROM DUSK TIL DAWN with the plot starting off as one genre and taking an unexpected detour in fantasy-land. Nonetheless, it remains a curio in Hammer's output (and an indication of what ZEPPELINS VS PTEROCATYLS might have looked like had it been made) and remains the guiltiest of pleasures.

THE LOST CONTINENT might be typified by the music that accompanies its credits (a kind of languid 60s house band crooning intro) and perhaps that's not entirely a bad thing, because the movie is an initially-languid action fantasy that eventually includes plenty of angst, violence, heavy weather, man-eating plants, top-heavy Christian girls, oversized arthropods, bloodthirsty Inquisitorial Spaniards and a very explosive substance in yellow barrels...

The overall effect is that of medium-budget comic-strip, but with this much action and so much violence and all these yummy females and heroic guys...it's a fun movie from end to end...a great tonic if you're marooned in the Sargasso Sea...or stranded in your living room of a Sunday afternoon

One of my favorite rainy weekend movies, The Lost Continent also is one of the best ripe Hammer films of the Sixties.

A freighter is blown off course and finds itself in a fog-shrouded part of the ocean where the seaweed enjoys flesh and mutated creatures with claws scamper about. It's a mild horror version of the Sargasso Sea and Bermuda Triangle. Eventually the surviving crew and passengers encounter humans who scitter around the seaweed with paddle-like shoes and balloons. The ship these people are from is a Spanish galleon several hundred years old, the crew of which survived and bred into the generations, evolving an Inquisition-like culture on board.

It's really pretty good, thanks to the interesting ideas of seaweed that bites back and the evolved life on the Spanish ship, plus the skill of the two lead actors. And it has a great look. Eric Porter and Hildegard Knef were both heavyweights in the acting department. I'm not sure why they agreed to this film, but I assume the money was good. Porter is one of my favorite actors. He wasn't handsome enough to make a career as a movie leading man, but if anyone doubts his abilities to command watch him as Soames in the original BBC Forsyte Saga. Knef had a so-so career as a lead actress in a handful of American and British films, but returned to Germany for better stuff. She was sexy and self-confident.

In terms of plot, this movie is often ventures into territory at times strange and bizarre, at times silly and outrageous and at times (especially in the opening half)-suspenseful! The whole sequence where they wind up lost at sea keeps the viewer glued to the screen.

The second half however ventures into the outrageous and bizarre territory. Complete with crazy FX scenes featuring giant monsters which are done on the cheap but aren't soon forgotten. The actors/actresses continually play their roles straight throughout the film and are quite competent which helps slightly. But overall the second half proves a disappointing mess of a movie.

At the same time, the main reason to watch this film however is its haunting visuals of the "lost continent" seen in the second half-Paul Beeson is credited for the cinematography.

An interesting gallery of characters take a sea voyage on a tramp steamer led by Captain Lansen (Eric Porter). Some of them have their own sordid stories, like the Captain himself, who's in a hurry to unload some dangerous cargo in order to make a quick buck and retire rich. One hurricane and one mutiny later, and they end up stranded somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, where the water is infested by a particularly hideous, man eating variety of seaweed. There they come upon an island civilization, not to mention a crazed mollusk or two.

The primitive special effects (Robert A. Mattey, who later supervised the creation of "Bruce" for the 1975 classic "Jaws", was in charge) add a great deal of schlocky charm to this Hammer production, certainly one of the oddest things that they ever made. Based on the novel "Uncharted Seas" by Dennis Wheatley (which you can actually see the character of Dr. Webster reading at one point!), it tells a fairly original yarn with a singularly weird atmosphere. The somewhat askew colour photography in the later parts plays a big part in this atmosphere, as well as some memorable images. The music score by Gerard Schurmann is supplemented by tunes crooned by a 60s group called The Peddlers. And the creatures on display are quite fun to watch.

The actors are able to give incredibly straight faced performances in light of how nutty the story eventually gets. Porter is an interesting guy in that he's not quite the conventional "hero". Hildegard Knef, the lovely Suzanna Leigh, and Tony Beckley have the meatiest roles among the supporting actors. Nigel Stock, Neil McCallum, Jimmy Hanley, James Cossins, Dana Gillespie (whose breasts threaten to pop out of her costume at times), Victor Maddern, Norman Eshley, the always delightful Hammer good luck charm Michael Ripper, and Donald Sumpter all deliver enjoyable performances.

Definitely a curiosity for fans of this great British studio.

Producer Michael Carreras reportedly fired original director Leslie Norman, and took over in that capacity, also writing the screenplay himself using the pseudonym "Michael Nash" (the name of his gardener).

Seven out of 10.

Things start off nicely with a cheezy theme song, then a brief scene that is full of people in all sorts of period costumes, some weird orange mist, and a bizarre funeral.

Then the movie starts. The next hour is spent explaining why these people are doing what they are doing, and it takes a long time in getting there. Once they actually get to the so-called "Lost Continent", you can marvel at excellent model work, fabulous set design, rubber monsters, and wonderful costuming.

Worth a look for the payoff, but it takes some time to get there.

Hammer's psychotronic "The Lost Continent" (1968) was based on Dennis Wheatley's 1938 book "Uncharted Seas," his second of three "Lost World" novels. The story concerns the mostly disagreeable passengers & crew of an old freighter traveling from a port in Liberia, Africa, to Caracas, Venezuela, with a volatile illegal cargo. The protagonists eventually become stuck in a mysterious area of the Sargasso Sea where they discover several intriguing things.

The first time I saw this on TV it kept my interest for the first hour and twenty minutes, right up to when two colossal creatures appear; they were so laughable I stopped watching. My mistake, because this is actually a gritty ship-oriented adventure capped off by a moody, surreal climax. Repeated viewings are necessary to appreciate its quirky charm.

The dramatic set-up is realistic and there are thrills interspersed throughout. Eric Porter as Captain Lansen is strong and his growing relationship with Eva (Hildegard Knef) adds some honest maturity. The carnivorous seaweed is interesting while the surreal sets for the orangey Sargasso Sea of shipwrecks are fantastic for a low-budget flick made in 1967. In the female department, voluptuous Dana Gillespie is breathtaking and Suzanna Leigh is entertaining as a man-hungry lass.

Meanwhile, the balloon shoes & harnesses are creative (which were inspired by a novelty craze at the time Wheatley wrote the original story, balloon jumping). The story keeps your interest with three distinctive acts, despite the dubiousness of some of the characters. Lastly, the distinctive 60's theme song is a bizarre highlight.

The biggest flaw is that cheesy scene with the fighting oversized creatures. It should've been omitted or, at least, modified. As done, it only mars the movie. The other creature effects are actually done well considering the budget and the era, like the giant octopus that attacks the couple on the ship.

The theme is reflected in the opening quote by the Captain of Job 14:1: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble" (from the 1789 U. S. Book of Common Prayer). Within that context the morally compromised characters might or might not find love, redemption and hope. The key is not giving-in to a spirit of fatalism, like those on the old Spanish galleon, because it hamstrings life.

Quite a few reviewers state that there is no lost continent in the picture; this is not true. When the cast are in the Sargasso Sea area you can clearly see mountainous land in the background; in fact, a character proclaims at one point, "Look - land!" Some of the cast even end up walking on the "lost continent" (actually an island) which is where they run into the laughable giant crab and scorpion.

While "The Lost Continent" is not hailed as one of Hammer's masterpieces, it scores well for high seas adventure and undeniable mood. If you have a taste for "lost continent"-type adventures, gritty drama and strangeness you should appreciate it, just bear with the relatively short fighting monsters sequence. Of course Dana Gillespie doesn't hurt.

The film runs 1 hour, 37 minutes, and was shot at Elstree Studios, just north of London, England.

GRADE: B

This is one of Hammer Films least known fantasy pictures of the late 1960's and it has to be one of their most bizarre. From it's out of place opening title pop song by The Peddlers to the hokey special effects, weird ideas and preposterous premise this is a guilty pleasure on every level.

Laughably given an X rating on it's release (now rated 12 by the BBFC) this is essentially a kids adventure film with a few moments of violence and gore but well acted by all involved, especially Eric Porter, who earnestly tries to bring Denis Wheatley's source material to life.

There are plenty of rubber tentacles, giant sea creatures, killer seaweed and a long lost colony of inbreds from the Spanish Inquisition to get your head around and like a lot of Hammer productions the action is often plodding, talky and studio bound for the most part, however it was more ambitious than most Hammer films of the time and consequently went over budget.

Nicely photographed with an eerie quality by Paul Beeson it's left to director Michael Carreras, son of Hammer Studios founder James Carreras and it's long time producer, to stitch things together after firing original director Leslie Norman (The Cruel Sea). We are left with an uneven fantasy that changes in tone at a moments notice as the scale and ambition of the production couldn't be realised due to budget constraints. The film subsequently made a loss.

Familiar faces like Michael Ripper, Nigel Stock and Victor Maddern are on hand to ham things up and it's a wonderfully self indulgent curio for Hammer fans that has become a cult classic.

First time I saw it, there was a scene where Porter hears Neff's life story (she was mistress of a banana republic dictator and has a son somewhere). He (I think) says he'll impound her passport unless she sleeps with him. He goes to her cabin to find Ricaldi (played by Benito Carruthers and whatever happened to him?) emerging and buttoning his jacket in a lewd way. Porter opens Neff's door to find her naked on the bunk. He throws her passport at her and exits. I watch this movie every time it's screened and have never seen this scene again. In a scene that's still present, Neff agreed to give Carruthers sexual favours if he'll let her keep the securities she's stolen from the dictator. But the absence of this key scene makes nonsense of the conversation between the three of them in the lifeboat... See this film anyway, it's a gem. xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

While not nearly as smitten with this sixties Hammer entry as many others seem to be, I will vouch for its undeniable uniqueness and bizarre story. Whether that makes for a good movie or not, I will leave up to you. This Hammer film, based on Dennis Wheatley's Unchartered Seas, tells a very un-simple story about a freighter going to Venezuela carrying illegal explosives and five passengers with equally suspect backgrounds. The captain of the ship is a man willing to look one way for extra cash and deals in cargo that will also benefit his wallet. Bad weather and some other unfortunate circumstances cause the crew to mutiny the ship and all the remaining passengers and crew get on a lifeboat hoping to survive the expected fate of the vessel that they left. Well, later they miraculously find the ship - in tact pretty much - board again while a strangling(and carnivorous) seaweed drags them into a ship graveyard where they meet some strange inhabitants from other ships as well as fantastical monsters such as huge man-eating mollusks. While the film has all the qualities that made Hammer the Horror studio of the sixties, this one just did not do it for me. The acting is solid with the likes of Eric Porter giving a very credible turn as the captain, Suzanna Leigh as a pretty(easy)passenger, Nigel Stock as her dubious father, Michael Ripper in again another well-played small role as a shipmate, and Hildegard Knef as the atypical lead actress(having just fled a volatile Caribbean country). Director Michael Carreras keeps the convoluted storyline in tact as best he can, but the story for this film is a major, major flaw. The first part of the film is about these personalities going to South America and then be stranded in a small boat ala Lifeboat, but then we get the bizarre creatures, the seaweed, and some religious cult that has apparently lived in the ship graveyard for centuries(whether it is populated by the actual inhabitants of the ship or their progeny was never explained sufficiently to me). But even with all of this going on, the movie just ends with nothing resolved. I was saying at the end, "What's the point?" The strange creatures are never explained nor are they in the least bit realistic - looking like something having been left in the garbage bin of a Syd and Marty Kroft production. And how about the title? What continent? All wee see are a bunch of derelict ships and a rock of an island. That does not a continent make. The film would have been better off using Wheatley's original title. So it is a lukewarm reception I must leave for this Hammer outing. The first half is really the much stronger half. The second half is too bizarre and broad for me with only the buxom(and I mean BUXOM) presence of Dana Gillepsie to give it any saving grace at all as some island girl being chased by the religious cult with balloons and paddle feet. Very original in some ways and yet oh so ludicrous as well.

Capt. Lansen avoids a customs check with a dangerous illegal cargo of weapons grade phosphorous. Various passengers are on board the freighter. The crew is concerned about the explosive cargo. An accident causes water to flood in threatening to blow up the ship. The situation gets worst and some abandon ship. The passengers get back on board. They arrive on the lost continent among countless shipwrecks and marauding locals.

I can do with fewer passengers. It doesn't make sense anyways. The Captain is trying to sneak around with an illegal cargo and the last people he'd want is a bunch of outsiders. I don't care enough to follow their stories either. The lost continent is interesting and this has some B-movie goodness. I do like the balloon gears and the rubber monsters. If the characters and actors can be improved, this would actually be good.

After reading the reviews here, I thought I would spend

the 16 dollars and check it out. Are we talking the same movie here guys?? What action?

What gore? One big breasted woman in the last 15 to 20

minutes of this feature does nothing to help save this

poor excuse of a movie!! I'm a big fan of old sci-fi/horror B movies, but 75 minutes into this 97 minute movie and all I've seen is

seaweed that burns the captains hand. The back of the box reads "the terrified travelers encounter unspeakable monsters, man-eating seaweed, vicious mutant pirates and stupendously endowed woman." It should say "the one dimensional crew encounter a giant

rubber octopus and crab, acid-like seaweed, one bad pirate

with a scar, and one buxom pirate. All in the last 20 minutes of this great adventure!!"

Michael Carreras directed this most bizarre science fiction/adventure tale on the high seas, where a disparate group of people(played by Eric Porter, Hildegard Knef, Tony Beckley, Susanna Leigh, Nigel Stock, among others) set sail on an old liner that has an illegal cargo of explosives that wanders into uncharted seas after a fierce storm. They then come upon a lost continent filled with prehistoric monsters and descendants of Spanish shipwreck survivors who have become a murderous cult! How can the survivors defeat this cult, and find their way home? Plot is unoriginal, but the style and approach is so rooted to its time(the swinging sixties, complete with lounge music title song!) and strange imagery(the people supported by balloons strapped to their waists) that it remains a fascinating failure. Dana Gillespie costars.

It is one of the major oddities out of Hammer Films, a nutty slice of fantasy adventure sci-fi, resplendent with rubbery effects work, an incoherent screenplay, auto-cue hammy acting and obligatory humongous cleavage!

Plot, for what it is worth, finds a potentially explosive cargo ship and passengers, piloted by an uber serious Eric Portman, become victim of a mutiny and then find themselves lost in the Sargasso Sea. But wait! There is an island offering salvation, only it's a bit of a time warp populated by despotic Spanish conquistadors. Oh and the landscape is filled with man-eating beasties, including rampaging seaweed.

Based on Dennis Wheatley's novel Uncharted Seas, it's a film where adults have to double check to see if they have had some bad liquor, while the kids delight in the garish colours and rubber monsters. It's all very surreal, and daft, and not quite a masterpiece of "Z" grade cinema, but it is fun, even if for those of us who like a drink, we will never ever be drunk enough to embrace its madness fully. 7/10

A bunch of sneaky-acting characters set out across the Atlantic Ocean and find "The Lost Continent"… or, maybe they don't. This has nothing to do with the missing "Atlantis" mentioned by many people, from writer-philosopher Plato to singer-songwriter Donovan… or, maybe it does. None of it makes much sense. The characters have interesting backgrounds, and voyaging with "illegal cargo" sounds like it should make a dynamite story. Yet, neither the performers nor producer/director Michael Carreras can make it float. His best direction occurs at around 30 minutes of running time, when he has sexy Suzanna Leigh wring out her wet dress. Tony Beckley gets to play the best part – if you're given a choice of roles, always opt for the alcoholic.

*** The Lost Continent (6/19/68) Michael Carreras ~ Eric Porter, Hildegard Knef, Tony Beckley, Suzanna Leigh

OK, I have actually heard this Hammer film described in the summary line I gave this comment. This was the first Hammer film I ever saw, although I was 6 or 7 at the time, so I had no clue who put out this little gem. My cousins and I watched it on late-night TV on Thanksgiving night and we sat there, mouths wide open and totally entranced in what was going on in the film. Sure, this isn't the best film ever released by Hammer Studios, but I'll go to my grave fighting that while it may not be a classic in the usual terms, it is most entertaining.

How can you not enjoy man-eating seaweed, descendants of the Spanish Inquistion, the strangest sea-beasties you've ever laid eyes on and an opening tune that you can't get out of your head, days after viewing it! While this isn't a film I'd recommend to most classic fantasy film fans or even Hammer film fans to go out and purchase, blindly, I would recommend at least giving it a view, it certainly isn't a kind of film where you'll want to pluck your eyes out, after viewing and who knows, if you watch it in the right frame of mind, you may end up enjoying it.

Based on a book "uncharted Seas" by Dennis Wheatley

A mysterious ship escapes port before they can detect that it is full of explosives that are triggered by water. This may prove to be valuable in the future. To make things worse a storm blows them off course into the Sargasso Sea.

Sargasso means floating vegetables. Yes, they are caught in a sea of floating vegetables and find an unusual society. Living their people from many ships that got vegetated over the centuries by weeds that would like nothing more than to eat you. How will they cope? Do they escape or are they assimilated (weed chow.)

Watch this unique Hammer film and find out.