The Incredible Petrified World

The best sequence is the shot of the raging sea storm and the huge waves that lead us into this movie. But they have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie...which is incredibly calm and quite dull.

There is little if any action in this film. Diving bell goes down down down. There's trouble. Crew screams that something is buckling. On the ship above John Carradine, who looks like they got him out of bed for this movie, shouts, "What's buckling?" I don't know about you but if you hear someone screaming that something is buckling in a diving bell I would instantly reverse their submersion. This doesn't happen so they go down another quick 1000 feet and vanish - at least to the ship's crew.

Meanwhile the crew of the diving bell manage to find a series of underwater caves to escape to. They walk, they eat, they walk some more, they run into a monitor lizard, they drink water, they find a man with a very bad beard living in these caves. He tells them there is no way out. They settle in for the long haul. The man with the bad beard becomes menacing. Then a volcano blows up just in the nick of time.

Whew! I don't mind watching a bad film if it has purpose. This one denies me.

Like The Mole People, Unknown World and The Abyss, The Incredible Petrified World (IPW) defies sci-fi conventions by taking place entirely in inner space. Also like Mole People and Unknown World, inner space seems to have been built for human habitation - not only are the cave networks the perfect size for humans to walk upright in, the absurd Cyclotram of the unknown world even has a nicely graded (though bumpy) road to travel along while drilling through solid bedrock.

The only resemblance between this film and The Abyss is the underwater setting. IPW was made with less than a fraction of The Abyss' budget and the most talented actress in the film (Coates) was not paid. The film proceeds with mostly character-actors, and little to no character development.

Four people - a professional diver, two oceanographers and the stereotype female reporter - man the first deep-sea submersible diving bell (ya, this technology was already somewhat obsolete by the 1950s and the Navy was doing far more interesting things but who cares) on its first exploratory mission. Predictably, something goes wrong. But soon enough the crew finds itself in an underwater maze of caverns complete with fish ponds, potable water, a monitor lizard and a vaguely menacing hermit with extremely bad hair.

Putting all the absurdities aside (which is asking a lot), the plot is at least different and does take a few unanticipated turns. The terrestrial portion of the plot - focusing on Carradine as the philanthropic engineer sponsoring all of this - is actually more or less believable and interesting. But any value this plot adds is easily balanced by the laughable goings-on down below - especially the unnecessary and ridiculous hermit subplot.

All in all, I think this film deserves a better rating than it has here on IMDb, but I was seriously reconsidering my rating after I read about Ms. Coates' difficulties resulting from this film.

Recommended for B-sci-fi fans. AAAC (avoid at all costs) for everybody else.

When thinking of a catchy film title, "The Incredible Petrified World" is a strange one, as by the third word, you are starting to think of frozen stillness becoming lifeless. So, in this case, it is an apt title.

The simple problem with this film is nothing happens; and it seems forever to occur.

Our four heroes (sorry, two heroes and two women, judging by the subservient roles given to the female leads, and the bleak plot warning that if you step out of line, men will hate and leave you) go down in a dodgy diving bell, which conveniently fails at depth near an underwater cave that glows in the dark (phosphorus they explain). I could be critical of the science at this point, but this claim pales with the completely unexplained manner they can snorkel in and out of the diving bell without it being flooded.

Anyway, once they reach the Incredible Petrified World (aka small cave with glowing walls), they eventually meet a stranger who claims he got there from a shipwreck 14yrs ago. Now, it would have been good if they explained how he might have been able to swim so deep without being scuba supported, although it would have been better to explain why they chose to make him look like Chico Marx with a Santa beard, and wearing caveman clothes.

And thats the main problem; you don't mind putting up with the first three quarters being tedious if there is a payoff. Alas, in this case, the payoff is just the remaining tedious quarter.

"We are now prepared to invade this black wilderness." Well, actually they weren't, since the cable of the diving bell snaps, sending them to a tourist attraction with nice stalactites and stalagmites that I guess is supposed to resemble petrified wood or something. A very long technical explanation about the snapped cable is given later but that comes off like gibberish to me.

The only part worth watching is the genuinely exciting octopus and shark battle at the beginning, but which looks as if it was filmed in a small fish tank which had only a bit of sand poured over the bottom. You might as well turn it off after that part and have a nice nap instead.

The diving bell seems as big as a rocket-ship on the inside, but only about the size of an overinflated beach ball on the outside. This makes for some real laughs, especially when it is hanging and swaying about from the ship's crane and the actors are near it. It doesn't look like even one child could fit inside it, let alone the two men and two women, with a lot of room to spare, and the high ceiling.

Absolutely nothing happens in this movie after they get into the diving bell. They don't even show the implied trip to the volcano area with the lead characters! Instead, we get some sort of senseless and brief argument between the two women and Popeye's grandfather (or so he appears) making bizarre faces, as if he were in a "make the weirdest face and win fantastic prizes" contest. Silly beyond words and certainly belonging in a movie other than this one. At one point, his eyes are popping so far out, they look like they could just fall out of his face.

Later, "Popeye's grandfather" actually moves closer to the cave wall and slowly leans against it so that more rocks can hit him! (You can actually tell that he is trying to get under the path of the larger fake falling rocks! Hilarious!)

The ending made no sense to me, either. I may be wrong, but I got the idea that they weren't really that far under the surface at all. And where was the volcano (which sounded like the amplified recording of a rolling bowling ball and a bit from a storm) relative to the surface? Why wasn't it more of a noticed event from the ship?

The orchestral soundtrack on my DVD copy is really sour, and sounds more like two tomcats having a stand-off.

2/10. A two only because of the octopus and shark battle before the actors come in and ruin everything.

If you were looking for a one word description of the film 'The Incredible Petrified World', that word would have to be Boring. I almost wish I could use words like ridiculous or total nonsense but I can't. If that were the case, it might at least have been amusing. Maybe it would have been good for a few laughs. The main problem with this film is that it's just a boring movie. Plain and simple, there is very little excitement. There are no memorable moments, dramatic, comic or otherwise. The word petrified in the title seems to have no relation to anything in the film. My opinion is that neither does the word Incredible. It's too bad, the plot had potential but little to no effort was made to exploit this potential. Stay away from this one. It's a waste of your time.