The Navy vs. the Night Monsters

How could you not like a movie with such an outlandish plot and such an infamous cast.

Mamie Van Doren is scrumptious as the Navy nurse heroine. Anthony Eisely ("Journey to the Center of Time") is the hero. Popular song-and-dance man Bobby Van ("Kiss Me Kate") is comic relief. Billy Gray ("Father Knows Best", "The Day the Earth Stood Still") is one of the brave young sailors who battle the Night Monsters (invading plant-creatures from space, ala "The Thing").

The monsters resemble huge mobile weeds (ala "The Day of the Triffids") which have acid for blood (ala "Alien"). The setting is Antarctica (ala "The Thing" . . . sort of), but the climate is a warm and well-lit (ala a studio set).

If all this sounds silly enough to be fun, take heart, it is (but beware of several gory scenes). The film was released by a company called Realart (this is "real art"?).

I love b-movies and i especially enjoyed navy verses the night monsters. its so bad its good,i would call this a poor mans day of the triffids. i especially liked the music on the soundtrack,its been used in many other monster films like;king Kong vs Godzilla.there's these prehistoric plant monsters that look like tree stumps that walk,and its up to the navy to stop them,led by gung ho navel officer;Anthony Fred Eisley (wasp women,mighty gorga)and busty Mamie van doran(high school confidential)also on hand is billy gray(father knows best)and bobby van. there's some early gore scenes like arms being ripped off,acid burns,etc; kind of gory for 1966.its a perfect b-movie.kind of enjoyable in an odd sort of way.this would've been great on mystery science theater 3,000. i give this b-movie gem 5 out of 10.

When I first heard of the title, I thought it was another stupid back yard production by some amateur film maker. But when I saw the show I was pleasantly surprised. Of course this is a low budget thriller and the story is quite interesting. Most of the actors in this movie are professionals who have appeared in other films, the quality of the film print is above average and the scenery is very colorful as compared to to other similar low budget "C" movies. But the title can be very misleading. If you are a nostalgic sci-fi buff, I recommend you buying or renting this movie because you just might get a kick out of it. P.S. look for familiar faces as you watch the show.

My following views only make sense, in the 'sense' that I'm a UK resident: Back in 1966, I took my little brother to a fleapit cinema to see a NEW movie with the come-on title THE NIGHT CRAWLERS. I was 14, he was 11 - and I was sneaking him in on a regular basis to catch up on horror movies.(That title was the UK title for NAVY VS NIGHT MONSTERS).

Every time something was about to happen, the film 'jumped' to the next scene. We came away deeply dissatisfied, believing that despite the obvious deficiencies of the movie, the stuff that had obviously been 'cut' must have been really, REALLY horrible. I should add that I was already a fan of the source novel: Murray Leinster's THE MONSTER FROM EARTH'S END. Call me 'picky' - but the point of the novel is that you don't know WHAT the hell is attacking the naval crew (Big shades of HP Lovecraft's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS).The movie poster tells you straight away- - so why bother with the mystery in the movie.

35 Years later, I purchased a copy of the uncut video.

So THAT'S what they cut: A crewman having an obviously false arm pulled off by a man-eating plant, and Bobby Van being pulled into a pantomine tree. (Hmmm - in retrospect, we might have really gone for that in 1966). P.S.) To a former reviewer, the pilot goes mad 'cause the plant squirts acid in his face.

Geisterzug

Navy vs. the Night Monsters, The (1966)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This now legendary cult movie has the reputation of being one of the worst ever made but I wouldn't go that far. The film has a pretty simple storyline as a Navy base has a plane land where only the pilot is alive and the rest of the crew have mysteriously disappeared. The only strange thing is this acid material that is all over the place. While the doctors try to figure out what's going on, more deaths happen and sure enough it's because of those killer trees brought back from Antarctica. The killer tree genre didn't deliver too many movies and you just need to watch this one to understand why. Again, this is no where near the worst movie ever made but at the same time I will call it one of the most disappointing because it really isn't as bad as what you've heard. I think the biggest problem with the film is that it really doesn't do anything with its silly and stupid plot. Yes, the plot is incredibly dumb but so were the majority of stories that were used for our sci-fi and horror favorites. The filmmakers want us to believe that trees have come to life and can attack people. Fine, do something with it. The first hour of the film pretty much has everyone talking about terrifying these creatures are yet it takes forever to get to see them in action. Once they do go into action we get a few nice laughs because of how silly they look. The low-budget is obvious with the special effects and especially one scene where a man gets his arm pulled off. An even stranger thing is why this movie was made to begin with. Outside it being shot in color the thing really looks and feels like something made ten or fifteen years earlier. When you think of what was going on in the film world by 1966 it's as if the filmmakers of this thing were in a coma and didn't realize how out-of-date their movie was. The performances, as you'd expect, are all rather wooden and this includes cult favorite Mamie Van Doren who plays the head nurse. She's suppose to be playing this brilliant mind but I think you know how that turned out. At least the directors were smart enough to keep her in tight shirts. At 88-minutes this comes off as one of those films where you keep watching and keep yourself entertained hoping that something good eventually happens but in the end there's not enough there to make it worth the effort. THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS isn't a good movie but sadly it isn't bad enough to be fully entertaining.