The Monster of Piedras Blancas

In THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS, a series of grisly decapitation deaths occur in a small seaside town. Suspiciously, the local lighthouse keeper has been feeding meat scraps to a certain big-clawed creature. Keeping his secret becomes increasingly difficult as the body count rises.

Upon watching this movie again, it's interesting to notice the subtle influences it has had on other films, such as JAWS and THE FOG. It's also pretty grim and graphic for a monster movie from the late 1950's. Overall, the movie is very effective. The finale at the lighthouse is certainly memorable.

Co-stars Don Sullivan (THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, TEENAGE ZOMBIES) as Fred and Les Tremayne (WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE SLIME PEOPLE) as Dr. Jorgenson.

"The Monster of Piedras Blancas" was an independent production from Jack Kevan who was former makeup artist at Universal and was responsible for designing and building the Gill Man suit in "Creature from the Black Lagoon", as well as the alien Xenomorph from "It Came from Outer Space", and the Metaluna Mutant of "This Island, Earth".

The suit for the film's "diplovertebron" monster consisted of existing molds for the feet that were cast from those of the Metaluna Mutant from "This Island, Earth" along with over-sized hands originally designed for "The Mole People".

There's no mistaking the fact that the "Monster of Piedras Blancas," is somewhat of a knock-off of the "Creature from the Black Lagoon".

It is obvious that some thought had gone into the plot which was fairly consistent and had some logic to it such as the monster's origins and the reasons behind its murderous rampage. The theme of loneliness and of being an outcast and the kind of desperation it can produce are touched on quite nicely as well.

A couple of quite gruesome scenes for the time included the monster bursting in on the scene carrying a bloody severed human head and a shot of the same head with a crab crawling across the face. Even cute pooches and little girls are not spared from the murderous wrath of the monster!

The film was shot not at the actual Point Piedras Blancas, which is north of San Simeon on the California coast. The lighthouse locations were shot at the Point Conception lighthouse near Lompoc, and the film's "town" was in fact the seaside city of Cayucos, about 30 miles south of the real Piedras Blancas.

Don Sullivan who plays Fred we remember from his role as Chase in "The Giant Gila Monster". In this film, however we can breathe a sigh of relief as he refrains from singing! His girlfriend Lucy is played by pin-up girl Jeanne Carmen who is certainly easy on the eye in just a simple floral dress or blouse and skirt and sensible flat shoes. No need for clown make-up, outfits that leave nothing to the imagination or stiletto posture torturers!

To conclude, I must admit that I geared myself up to hate this movie. I really, really wanted to hate this movie but I found that I just couldn't, no matter how much I tried! I'm really not sure why? I even mildly enjoyed watching this low-budget affair. The acting was pretty ordinary but at least the actors were earnest enough and the pace of the story was OK right up to and including the thrilling and at the same time, quite funny climax.

I insisted on seeing this movie when it came out in the 1950's, I was 7 years old. I got to the theatre late and the movie had already started. As I opened the doors to enter the screening room a strange feeling came over me, could it have been that the room was pitch black and 500 people were screaming at the top of their lungs? Somehow I found my way to a seat trying not to look at the screen. In a few minutes the monster comes waltzing out of some industrial size refridgerator carrying some guys head in his hand.....that was all it took....as the blood rushed to my head I did the 50 yard dash to the doors in world record time and never looked back. Decades later (1990's) I had the chance to watch the movie again on cable. This time my girlfriend was with me so I was able to get through it........

This is one of those films that used to be shown on Creature Features on Saturday mornings. Its a rather dull film about a Black Lagoon-type creature who goes around killing people. Despite its dullness, it has a couple of the scariest scenes of any film made during this era. The first, when the monster comes bursting out of a door is a moment of shock and horror equal to the similar scene in "The Thing". And the second, at the lighthouse at the end of the film, is extremely terrifying and gave me recurrent nightmares as a child. Both scenes are still frightening to me as an adult. One also has to appreciate the amount of thought that went into the plot. The origins of the monster and the reasons he starts to kill are convoluted but, if you follow along carefully, everything is explained in a logical manner and there are no inconsistencies in the plot. In "Keep Watching the Skies", Bill Warren criticized the film as lacking a logical plot and explanation for the monster, but he is wrong! However dull, a lot of thought went into the plotting of this film and, had the script been better, this could have been a scare classic.

Don Sullivan should be the star. He is the young handsome monster fighter. Others were better known at that time, perhaps. This is a good, but not great sci-fi B movie. It is entertaining and an obvious low budget quickie that might make back the investor's gamble. The monster is not totally ridiculous and the story is OK. The acting is better than most low budget films. Any of the main cast members, including the child actors could handle a Hollywood production. Camera work is better than adequate. This is not boring but sometimes it slips into comedy that is unintended.