#Charles B. Griffith

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Beast from Haunted Cave | 1959

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Up from the Depths - Movie poster art by William Stout (1979)

[80smovies]

[schlock-luster-video]

On March 25, 1972, Creature from the Haunted Sea was screened on Creature Features.

[asceneoutofaserbianfilm]

1959

[brokehorrorfan]

Beast from Haunted Cave will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 24 via Film Masters. Ski Troop Attack is included as a bonus feature. Produced by Roger Corman, both films were shot on the same location using much of the same cast and crew.

Beast from Haunted Cave is a 1959 horror film directed by Monte Hellman (Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out) and written by Charles B. Griffith (The Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000). Michael Forest, Sheila Noonan, and Frank Wolff star.

Ski Troop Attack is a 1960 war movie directed by Roger Corman (The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum) and written by Griffith. Michael Forest, Frank Wolff, Richard Sinatra, and Wally Campo star.

Beast from Haunted Cave's theatrical cut has been newly scanned of 35mm archival materials in 1.85:1. The extended TV version is also included in 4:3. Ski Troop Attack has been newly restored in high definition in 4:3. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Beast from Haunted Cave theatrical cut (65 minutes)

Beast from Haunted Cave TV version (72 minutes)

Beast from Haunted Cave audio commentary by film historians Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire

Ski Troop Attack

Ski Troop Attack audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Howard S. Berger

Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story: Part One

Beast from Haunted Cave still gallery

Trailers

Easter egg - Interview with the original Beast

Booklet with essays by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Tom Weaver with the man behind the beast, Chris Robinson

In Beast From Haunted Cave, cut-throat gangsters hatch a plan to rob a bank in Deadwood, South Dakota. When one of the henchmen sets off an explosion in a nearby gold mine to act as a diversion for the heist, he awakens a blood-sucking, spider-like creature that isn’t happy about the intrusion. When a violent snowstorm delays the gang’s escape, things rapidly progress from bad to blood-curdling worse.

In Ski Troop Attack, an American patrol has to cross behind enemy lines by skis in order to blow up a railroad bridge. The task is made harder by conflicts between the platoon's veteran sergeant and its inexperienced lieutenant and by constant attacks from pursuing German troops.

Pre-order Beast from Haunted / Ski Troop Attack.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

There are only two good things about Creature from the Haunted Sea. The first is its laughably stupid-looking monster, whose comedic appearance was used in the opening credits of Malcolm in the Middle. It brings back warm memories. The second is that it’s in the public domain. This means you can easily find it for free or packaged together with 49 other horror films for less than $20 - like I did. That price tag is a valuable lesson, which we’ll get to in a bit.

During the Cuban Revolution, American gambler and racketeer Renzo Capetto (Anthony Carbone) is hired by deposed General Tostada (Edmundo Rivera Alvarez) to smuggle the national treasury out of the country. Capetto and his criminal crew, which include his girlfriend Mary-Belle Monahan (Betsy Jones-Moreland), her brother Happy Jack (Robert Bean) and animal impressionist Pete Peterson Jr. (Beach Dickerson) come up with an idea. They will murder the General and his loyalists, then keep the gold for themselves. To avoid suspicion, they will convince the Cubans they are being stalked by a sea monster. Little do they know a real-life monster is following their ship. if the secret agent onboard, XK150 (Robert Towne) had any kind of brains, he’d be able to figure this out quickly and put an end to it.

Even though this is a horror comedy and that much of the criticisms that could be thrown towards Creature from the Haunted Sea were likely intentional, the movie’s not funny so they turn into marks against it anyway. The characters are flat, uninteresting and annoying, with Pete Person Jr. easily winning a gold medal in irritation. Speaking almost entirely in animal noises thanks to a brain injury, his schtick gets old immediately. You’ll spend the brief 75-minute running time wishing he would shut up or get torn apart by the sea monster, which is obviously a scuba diver covered in seaweed (or something that looks like it) with toothpicks glued on the end of their gloves, vampire teeth, and ping pong balls for eyes. Go into any Halloween store on November 1st and you could piece together something better.

Even before the dreadful creature shows up, this premise is just dumb. I know if my shifty shipmates told me two men were just murdered by a sea monster I wouldn’t believe them. No one with their head on straight would. What’s much more likely to happen to Capetto is that the Cubans will see right through his dumb scheme and chop him up into shark bait.

It’s a bad movie and would’ve been bad even in 1961 when the Get Smart comedy thing was popular. If there was any kind of justice in this world, this desert of laughs would’ve been forgotten to the ages. Instead, it made its way into the public domain and regularly finds itself for sale/viewing. The problem is that no one cared about this movie then and they certainly don’t now. Every print you’ll see is scratchy and dusty, with muddy sound that will require you to crank up the volume just so you can understand what the hell is going on. Worse, you won’t find any subtitle option anywhere. You practically have to read the Wikipedia article just to understand what’s happening. It got so bad with the disc I was watching that I actually wound up going on Tubi, hoping that a better print would be available there. I got “lucky”, starting watching again. In no time, I was looking forward to the commercial breaks. At least those were lively, professionally made, colorful and audible.

Suddenly, it hit me. The only reason I was watching this movie is because it came in a box set I bought years ago. I would have to do this 49 more times to “get my money’s worth”. Meanwhile, there are thousands of other movies I could be watching. Even a horrible film like The Snowman or The Love Guru didn’t make me exhausted because I was able to passively absorb them. This was work. A job I wasn’t going to get paid for so I’m cutting my losses. I might've wasted my money, but I'm done wasting my time.

Even if you were sent back in time to see Creature from the Haunted Sea in a top-notch theatre with impeccable audio in the most comfortable seat ever made, I still wouldn’t recommend it. Today, presented like this? It would take all the gold in Cuba to convince me to hit "play". (On DVD, September 13, 2021)

[moviesandmania]

BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE (1959) Reviews and now free to watch online in HD!

‘Screaming young girls sucked into a labyrinth of horror by a blood-starved ghoul from hell.’ Beast from Haunted Cave is a 1959 crime horror film about gold thieves being stalked by a spider-like monster in a snowy wilderness Directed by Monte Hellman (Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!) and starring Michael Forest, Frank Wolff (Cold Eyes of Fear; Death Walks on High-Heels) Richard…

[movie-titlecards]

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

My rating: 5/10

Some of the humor kind of works by virtue of simply being profoundly silly, but overall this is kind of dull and occasionally rather racist.

[theoscarsproject]

Little Shop of Horrors (1986). A nerdy florist finds his chance for success and romance with the help of a giant man-eating plant who demands to be fed.

I can't believe I'd never seen this before? God, it's so much fun, with amazing puppetry, musical numbers and energy. It's high camp in every sense of the phrase, and also just the best time? Love it. 9/10.

[screamscenepodcast]

Let's meander down Skid Row for the horror adjacent Roger Corman flick THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)! Your hosts discuss this movie's placement in Corman's filmography, and the pros and cons of filming an entire movie over a weekend.

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 36:10; Discussion 48:48

[originalharmonysalad]

Trailers From Hell: Allan Arkush on ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

The title is risible but Roger Corman's landlocked monster movie boasts more than a few genuinely eerie moments, particularly when the titular creatures begin to communicate using the voices of the people they've murdered.

[80smovies]

Little Shop of Horrors

[schlock-luster-video]

On August 5, 2017, A Bucket of Blood was screened on the Creature Features revamp.

[from1837to1945]

Walthall's wife dies in childbirth. Meanwhile, Sweet gives birth to an illegitimate child, but the baby dies immediately after birth. The doctor(Charles Hill Mailes) decides to give Walthall's baby to Sweet, and Sweet, who receives the living baby, thinks the baby is hers.

Walthall keeps going to see his baby that he gave to Sweet, but Sweet is completely reluctant. After the doctor has no choice but to tell Sweet that the baby is Walthall's baby, Sweet and the baby move to Walthall's house and live there.

The man who had promised love to Sweet but eventually abandoned her (Lionel Barrymore) returns to Sweet. The man thinks the baby Sweet is holding is his, but the doctor tells him what happened. The man ignores the doctor and tells Sweet to choose him as the baby's father, and Walthall does the same.

Written by F.P. Bayer

Directed by D.W. Griffith

[brokehorrorfan]

The Terror will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12 via Film Masters. The Little Shop of Horrors is included as a bonus feature. Both films are produced and directed by Roger Corman.

1963's The Terror is written by Leo Gordon (The Wasp Woman) and Jack Hill (Spider Baby, Coffy). Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, and Sandra Knight star.

1960's The Little Shop of Horrors is written by Charles B. Griffith (Death Race 2000). Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, and Myrtle Vail star.

The Terror has been newly restored in high definition from 35mm archival elements. The Little Shop of Horrors has been newly restored in high definition. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

The Terror audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Steve Haberman

The Little Shop of Horrors audio commentary by actor Jonathan Haze and author Justin Humphreys

Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story: Part 2 featurette

Ghosts in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman’s Celluloid Castle - The Terror featurette by Howard S. Berger

Trailers

Booklet with a Karloff/Poe essay by C. Courtney Joyner and Little Shop of Horrors liner notes by Mark McGee

In The Terror, an 18th century French Lieutenant in Napoleon's army encounters the ghostly apparition of a young woman (Sandra Knight). Curiosity leads Lt. Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) to the castle of Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), where he notices a painting of the Baron's late wife Ilsa, who looks identical to the ghostly woman. Determined to unravel the castle's mystery, Duvalier learns that the Baron has many terrifying secrets.

In The Little Shop of Horrors, lonely florist Seymour (Jonathan Haze) goes to great lengths to ensure that his hungry plant friend, Audrey, is fed and happy.

Pre-order The Terror / The Little Shop of Horrors.