L'abominable homme des cavernes

and then shoot me with it...this is an absolute howler!! See Joan face down the troglodyte with her "hypo-gun"!!! See Joan's wardrobe of pink, white and tan lab coats!! See Joan bully the troglodyte into submission!......The sad end to a glorious career for sure,but let there be no doubt, it's still the one and only Joan.....kicking troglodyte ass no less. Heck, if I had a murderous troglodyte on the loose, I'd call Joan.............Crawford is quite game with her role as the scientist(?) and maintains a straight face throughout....no matter if she is tossing rubber lizards to the troglodyte or crawling around in the dark calling out to the TROG! This is a gloriously bad movie. MOMMIE DEAREST was no crueler than this.

I thought this was going to be one of those " So bad that it`s good " type movies , an optimism that was built on the DOCTOR WHO standard of cave sets ( To be honest the cave sets from DOCTOR WHO are far better ) not to mention Trog`s make up or his method of killing people by throwing paper maiche boulders at them . Unfortunately much of TROG descends into a morality play with a political subtext :ie Trog is an allegorical criminal with Doctor Brockton being the voice of progressive compassion while Sam Murdock is the reactionary flog them and hang them type . This might actually be coincidence because the last third of the film goes against the logic of being a morality play , mind you there`s little logic to the script in the first place , for example why would jazz make Trog angry and classical music soothe the angry beast ? I`d have thought he`d be unable to notice differing musical styles . How would surgery be able to make him speak ? Language volcalbury and communication isn`t only down to vocal ability , oh and there`s no way Trog would have been able to recognise dinosaurs as they would have died out millions of years before he existed.

TROG is a very patchy Brit B movie . It is enjoyable in places ( For all the wrong reasons ) but you have to sit through a lot of talky scenes for them to arrive

'Trog'. I almost have to stifle my giggles just typing the title! This movie, Hollywood Golden Age Superstar Joan Crawford's final big screen role, is so cheap and silly it is the stuff of legend. Crawford plays it straight, which makes it even more ludicrous. She plays an anthropologist who tries to educate a "missing link" (Joe Cornelius), affectionately nicknamed Trog, much against the wishes of the local townsfolk led by legendary character actor Michael Gough (Hammer's 'Dracula', 'Horrors Of The Black Museum', 'Konga', 'The Legend Of Hell House', 'Venom',etc.etc.) Of course Trog escapes and goes on a rampage, and it all ends in tears. This movie is an absolute hoot! I can't decide which is my favourite bit - the ridiculous scenes where Crawford tries to teach Trog to play with toy robots and dolls, Trog's agitated reaction to hearing rock'n'roll, or Trog battling with a German Shepherd. Each of these sequences is absolutely unforgettable. The silliest bit is probably an excruciatingly long and cheesy animated dinosaur battle which makes Gumby look like 'Jurassic Park'! The most amazing thing is that 'Trog's director went on to make the excellent Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee classic 'The Creeping Flesh', and it was co-written by John Gilling who made the excellent 'The Plague Of Zombies' and 'The Reptile' for Hammer. What went wrong here is anybody's guess! 'Trog' is a really bad movie, but a really enjoyable one. Highly recommended fun.

P.S. Keep an eye out for an early appearance by cult actor David Warbeck, who went on to Hammer's 'Twins Of Evil', Russ Meyer's 'Blacksnake!' and Fulci's 'The Beyond'.

The good: There is precious little but the ultra professionalism of Joan Crawford even in dreck like this is impressive indeed. She was aware what she was involved in and while many actors would have just phoned in a blank wall of a performance Miss Crawford would never allow herself to lower her standards to that level. At least by providing her own wardrobe, a budget necessity, she at least guaranteed that although matronly she was at least stylishly dressed amongst the mess that was surrounding her. A pity that this was her cinematic swan song after such a fabled career. She was offered a few more parts, albeit supporting roles in both Airport '75 and Airport '77 which are hardly masterpieces but at least more distinguished than this, but had lost her confidence and totally withdrawn from public view.

Beside Joan keeping a stiff upper lip while encircled by junk there are some pretty views of an English village and the surrounding countryside and some very buff actors in the first sequence who strip down to their undies and take a dip to go exploring a cave. Those are the sum total of worthwhile elements in this clunker.

The bad:everything else in this terrible movie. Only for completist fans of Joan or extremely bad movies.

Joan Crawford's infamously bad swan song, the story of an anthropologist (Crawford) who makes a study of a missing link, whom she dubs "Trog" (short for "troglodyte"). The film is extremely cheap and cheesy. Hey, I like extremely cheap and cheesy. If it were only that, I probably would love the movie. But what makes the movie bad is its slow pace. People talk interminably about stupid things, and the boredom sets in and never leaves. The scenes where Trog and Crawford play ball are the very definition of camp, and I would have much preferred Trog's final rampage to last 80% of the film's run. So, due to boredom, this truly is a terrible movie. It may be bad, but I still liked it more than Love Story, which was released the same year.