Caltiki il mostro immortale (1959)

Directed by Riccardo Freda [Other horror films: I vampiri (1957), Maciste all’inferno (1962), L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock (1962), Lo spettro (1963), L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (1971), Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea (1972), Murder Obsession (1981)] & Mario Bava [Other horror film: I vampiri (1957), La maschera del demonio (1960), Ercole al centro della Terra (1961), La ragazza che sapeva troppo (1963), I tre volti della paura (1963), La frusta e il corpo (1963), 6 donne per l’assassino (1964), Terrore nello spazio (1965), Operazione paura (1966), 5 bambole per la luna d’agosto (1970), Il rosso segno della follia (1970), Ecologia del delitto (1971), Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga (1972), Lisa e il diavolo (1973), The House of Exorcism (1975), Schock (1977)]

Caltiki il mostro immortale, better known as Caltiki – The Immortal Monster, is a decent film, if not perhaps a bit generic for the time. It looks quite nice, with some solid special effects, and it’s nice to see Italy get back into the genre after a long hiatus, but I think the film finishes out around average.

The story is probably what holds the film back most, and to be clear, I don’t think the plot is bad, but it’s not too different from many films at the time, such was the giant monster craze. Obviously, it’s similar to The Blob – the creatures here are amorphous, single-cell organisms, but also movies like The Black Scorpion, so it’s not the most original stuff.

It does have some surprisingly decent special effects though. The best would probably be someone’s face melting, which was beautifully gruesome for the time. The creature itself doesn’t look near as smooth as the Blob we know and love, but when it’s multiplying toward the finale, it does strike me as impressive.

It’s never easy for performances from giant monster movies to make a big impression, and it’s the same here. John Merivale is fine as a lead, and Gérard Herter was fine as a more antagonist force, but neither one stood out. Daniela Rocca and Didi Sullivan were fine, but again, neither one really added that much.

Italy got back into the horror genre in 1957 with The Vampire – the country had a couple of horror films in the early days, such as 1917’s Malombra and 1925’s Maciste in Hell – which was also directed by both Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava. Obviously, Italian horror skyrocketed during the 60’s and 70’s, so it’s sort of nice seeing Italian horror before it became the big thing, and though Caltiki is in black-and-white, it did look quite nice, despite the story not being particularly interesting.

When it comes down to it, while I enjoyed some aspects about the film, and I still think it’s an adequate movie, I don’t know why I’d watch this when I could just watch The Blob, unless I wanted something with Italian flavor.

7/10