Tag: 1955

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

Directed by Robert Gordon [Other horror films: Black Zoo (1963)]

I’ve said before that when it comes to giant monster movies, I’m not the biggest fan. I don’t think this one was great either, but I have always liked octopi, and it’s in that spirit that I found this a bit more tenable, despite having a creature with somewhat limited ranges of attack.

Largely, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason I’m not as enamored with movies of this type is because of it’s attention. And by that, I mean in this film, the whole of the United States Navy knows about the creature (and I imagine much of the military), and then, of course, the general public. Everyone knows about it. In slashers, the killer might be going after just a handful of people, but in movies like this, everything’s a public affair.

From Them! to The Black Scorpion, from The Giant Claw to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it’s always the military and scientists working together to find a way to destroy the creature. It just gets so repetitive, no matter how good the special effects are, or what the creature happens to be. Not only that, but they often throw in romantic subplots, and rarely does that do anything particularly interesting.

In this movie’s case, I will give you that the romantic subplot felt more like a confused love triangle at times, so it was at least a little different, and I did tend to actually like Faith Domergue’s character, but the point remains that throwing in a love story doesn’t automatically make the movie better, or the characters involved more interesting.

Of the three important performances, I do think Faith Domergue (Cult of the Cobra, The House of Seven Corpses, This Island Earth) was the best. It’s true that I liked her character the most anyways, but I also thought she had the most going for her. Kenneth Tobey (The Thing from Another World, The Vampire) felt like generic military guy 101, and while Donald Curtis (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers) was okay, but I feel like I never got a great hang of his character.

Again, I enjoy cephalopods – I think it’s the tentacles I’m enamored with. Which means, naturally, I felt bad about the harm people caused it throughout, especially as it had little other choice but to look for a new food group. I think the most painful was the flamethrowers – certainly that scene looked great, but my sympathy for the octopus was at it’s zenith.

Speaking of good-looking scenes, the sequence in which the octopus attacks the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty fun. I’ve never been to San Francisco, but if I could see a giant octopus destroying a famous bridge on my visit, then that would be a vacation worth remembering.

All-in-all, It Came from Beneath the Sea was an okay affair. It’s pretty much how I feel about most of these giant monster movies, which just aren’t usually my cup of tea. No doubt it was an okay watch, and the movie is well made, but it’s also not one that I’d think I’d watch too often in the future.

7/10

Cult of the Cobra (1955)

Directed by Francis D. Lyon [Other horror films: Castle of Evil (1966)]

Cult of the Cobra is a film I’ve known about for a while, and I was lucky enough to notice that TCM was playing it, and given that I’ve never seen it airing on television before, I knew it was one I had to watch. As it is, Cult of the Cobra can be somewhat entertaining, but it’s also a bit on the slow side, and perhaps not as interesting as I would have hoped.

I do think the basic plot is good, though. Six American soldiers in some nondescript Asian country witness a ritual that wasn’t for their eyes, and after being found out (one of the soldiers, who was a bit intoxicated, tried taking a picture of the ritual), have a curse placed on them, and one-by-one, they’ll be killed by snakes. It’s a nice little plot and the set-up was solid, but when the soldiers get back to the USA, things become mildly more middling.

There’s also a mysterious woman who gets involved with one of the soldiers, and is she perhaps a woman who can turn into a snake (or even better, a snake who can pretend to be a woman)? In that way, portions of this feel a bit like Cat People. I probably enjoyed it a bit more than Cat People, if only because cobras are more slithery than cats, but it’s the same basic idea. There is a solid silhouette sequence here toward the end, but there’s nothing near as good as the pool scene from Val Lewton’s classic.

Faith Domergue (It Came from Beneath the Sea, The House of Seven Corpses, This Island Earth, So Evil, My Sister) was okay as the mysterious, potentially snaky woman. She didn’t have a ton of personality, but I guess that was somewhat the point. Of the six soldiers (William Reynolds, Jack Kelly, Marshall Thompson, David Janssen, James Dobson, and Richard Long), only three, being Richard Long (House on Haunted Hill), David Janssen (Moon of the Wolf), and Marshall Thompson (Fiend Without a Face), made anything close to a lasting impression. Kathleen Hughes has one solid scene, but most of the time, her character was forgettable.

Obviously, Cult of the Cobra isn’t without some charm, and I sort of like aspects of the film, but it does drag for a not-inconsiderate portion of the middle section, and given that so few of the kills are great, this one, while competent, may not end up being that memorable, which is not only mildly damning, but also rather disappointing.

6.5/10

Les diaboliques (1955)

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot [Other horror films: N/A]

This French classic, widely known as Diabolique, has never been a particular favorite of mine. It’s a solid film, with a strong atmosphere permeating the whole product, and of course, the finale is pretty great, but at almost two hours long, every time I see this, I can’t help but feel as though it drags at points.

Obviously, this film has received critical acclaim, and later went on to inspire Psycho, so you know it’s heart’s in the right place, but on a personal level, I just can’t fully find it in me to love the movie. This isn’t to say I dislike it – like I said, Diabolique has a great atmosphere – but when it comes to classic horror films to watch, this wouldn’t really make my list, unless I was focused on French horror from the mid-1950’s.

None of this is supposed to sound harsh, and to spoil things, I’m giving this movie an average rating; I just feel as though I’m in the awkward position to defend an unpopular opinion on a movie that I don’t even dislike. I think Diabolique is an okay movie, and the finale obviously went on to influence hundreds of other films (and to be entirely fair, this film is based on a novel – Celle qui n’était plus, or She Who Was No More), but I personally find much of it a slough to get through.

Véra Clouzot (who died just five years later, at the age of 46) worked well with Simone Signoret. The pair of them made for good protagonists, and as the movie kept going, you could see the increased pressure they were under to try and figure out exactly what was going on. I found Clouzot’s character quite irksome at times – her ability to lie was worse than Janet Leigh’s character in Psycho – but her performance was sound. Paul Meurisse played a horribly unlikable man well, and I liked Charles Vanel’s gruff, yet paradoxically gentle, version of a private detective.

For a classic piece of cinema that inspired so many future films, Diabolique is definitely a movie worth seeing. It’s an atmospheric and moody film with beautiful cinematography and great tension. Of course, it’s also two hours long, and I just don’t know if there’s as much meat as I’d prefer. If you’re offended I’m not giving this a higher score, then worst case scenario, don’t listen to me, and ignore all my reviews. It’s the best I can say.

7/10