The Phantom Creeps

Death rays, radioactive meteors, deadly gas, invisibility belts, mechanical men, robot spiders... all in one secret lab! What more could anyone want? Despite these schlocky riches, "The Phantom Creeps" (at least in its 80 minute movie incarnation) is largely underwhelming. Evil genius Dr. Zorka (an unsubtle Bella Lugosi) and ex-con henchman Monk (Jack C. Smith ) battle a couple fedora'ed G-man (Bob West and Jim Daley) while enemy agents lurk in the background and a 'plucky' girl reporter (Dorothy Arnold) noses around (you know that she's 'plucky' because that's how she's described on the front page of the newspaper that breaks the story of Zorka's bid to destroy the world). Being a glommed-together 12-part serial that is compressed to about a quarter of its original running time, "The Phantom Creeps" seems pretty dis-articulated at times (although it's easy to pick out the cliff-hanger endings that would have demarked the original chapters). The lurching, scowling hydrocephalic robot is the best part (as could be guessed by its prominence in all of the advertising material). Watchable only by people who want to add this silly Lugosi serial to their life-lists but don't want to invest 4+hours into watching the entire serial.