Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961) *
Lemme tell you about Jack from Creature from the Haunted Sea.

His real name is Happy Jack Monahan and he’s a crew member of crook Renzo Capetto, who has this real genius plan backfire on him miserably. Renzo wants to systematically eliminate his hapless crew and blame their deaths on a certain legendary sea monster, and that monster turns out to be real. Who could have guessed such a phenomenon? Anyway, Happy Jack’s played by Robert Bean and not by Jim Beam, which might improve Creature from the Haunted Sea.

This Happy Jack character, who probably once lived in the sand at the Isle of Man, imitates all form of animal life and it’s not a good sign for any sort of a good movie when Happy Jack lets out his inner yak. Happy Jack undoubtedly could have had a great future in “Farmer Says” toys, had he not been cast in Creature from the Haunted Sea.

That’s a roundabout way to get to the main point: Creature from the Haunted Sea ranks with the absolute dregs of the monster movie, down there buried at the bottom of the sea alongside Robot Monster and Slithis and APE, three other infamous monster movie titles featuring infamous movie monsters. You might feel sorry for this poor creature from the haunted sea and for all those associated with him, but mostly you’ll just laugh at him in that same way many people often do when they come across old movies and their antiquated special effects.

I am thankful, however, for Creature from the Haunted Sea, because its tedium afforded me the opportunity for an afternoon nap. I woke up and I felt like I didn’t miss a thing, not a beat; even if I did miss a thing, I would be grateful for it. That afternoon nap earned Creature from the Haunted Sea one-half star more than Slithis and APE, for example, I do believe.

I have not watched every Roger Corman monster movie, but Creature from the Haunted Sea is definitely the worst so far, leagues below Attack of the Crab Monsters from 1957 that’s for certain. Hell, Creature from the Haunted Sea is so bad that it makes The Wasp Woman look almost like Citizen Kane by comparison.

Charles B. Griffith (1930-2007), credited or not but more often credited, wrote screenplays for Corman spectaculars It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, A Bucket of Blood, and The Little Shop of Horrors, as well as later Corman productions Death Race 2000 and Eat My Dust. In other words, the man definitely had his better moments like Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors. Alas, Creature from the Haunted Sea is not one of them.

Rather, it’s a compendium of crap.

For example, Creature from the Haunted Sea gives us more voiceover narration than what’s necessary for any creature feature. I mean, for crying out loud, I bet there’s more voiceover in Creature from the Haunted Sea than in all the other films combined from 1961. Sure that’s why I fell asleep for a while. Airplane spoofed voiceover fantastically, although thankfully I did not meet the same fate as the characters on that infamous cinematic flight.

It doesn’t even matter that future Academy Award-winning screenwriter Robert Towne delivers this narration or that he’s credited for ‘Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator.’

I have not talked much about the actual creature in Creature from the Haunted Sea and there’s a good reason for that. Yes, that’s right, the creature from the haunted sea just might be the worst movie monster I have ever seen, and please keep in mind I’ve seen Robot Monster.

Goin’ Coconuts (1978)

GOIN’ COCONUTS (1978) 1/2*

In the distant future, one of the great mysteries of human behavior will be why there were so many teen idols after, oh, let’s say, 1955. Imagine trying to explain Tiger Beat, Joey Lawrence, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bieber to future generations.

I can only hope that future rational beings will reach the conclusion that many people (mostly girls, but also boys with such beacons of humanity as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, et cetera ) in the late 20th and early 21st centuries obsessed about the shallow and the superficial and the stupid and such attributes as perfect hair, perfect teeth, and dimples. “He / She has got such a perfect body. He’s so cute. She’s so hot.” All that jive can just go fuck off.

I thought about this “teen idol” angle during and after GOIN’ COCONUTS, the motion picture debut and finale of former teen idols Donny and Marie Osmond. Since I watched it after SLITHIS, I just might have survived the worst two movies I have ever seen back-to-back; I am blanking on whether or not I ever watched BATTLEFIELD EARTH after LEONARD PART 6 or vice versa.

Anyway, I hated just about every second of GOIN’ COCONUTS. Hated every musical number. Hated every bit of perfunctory dialogue. Hated every single attempt at humor. Hated the jewelry caper story and every single plot development that we have seen before from a million different movies and TV shows. Hated seeing legendary movie villains being reduced to buffoons for comedic purposes that miserably failed. Hated it the longer it went on. I rejoiced at the first sight of the end credits and turned off the movie. I didn’t even care all that much about the Hawaiian scenery, just because we had to watch this stupid movie take place within it.

I felt especially bad for actors like Kenneth Mars, Ted Cassidy, Khigh Dhiegh, and Harold Sakata. But, hey, not that bad, since they got paid and had the opportunity to make a movie in Hawaii. That sounds great right about now. I could go for that, even a movie as shitty as GOIN’ COCONUTS.

The reason I felt bad for them was they had to play cosmically inept. Like, for example, Sakata’s Ito could not take out Donny Osmond, for crying out loud. The filmmakers made the dread mistake of costuming Sakata (1920-82) in the same hat that he wore in GOLDFINGER as super henchman Oddjob. Sure we all remember what Oddjob did with his hat in GOLDFINGER; let’s just say that he wears the hat throughout GOIN’ COCONUTS and that’s that. It’s so insulting to see a World War II veteran and an Olympic silver medalist in weightlifting (Sakata represented the United States in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London) reduced to playing the fool, thwarted at every churn of the plot by a couple teen idols and their perfect teeth.

Dhiegh (1910-91) played a key role in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE as brainwashing expert Dr. Yen. Yes, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, one of the most intelligent movies ever made. Then, 16 years later, Dhiegh appeared in GOIN’ COCONUTS, which should have borrowed from THE WIZARD OF OZ its musical theme … “If I Only Had a Brain.” Again, it simply defies all credibility that Dhiegh’s character would be outsmarted by a pair of coconuts.

In GOIN’ COCONUTS, Mars (1935-2011) more or less gives us a variation on his characters from the Mel Brooks comedies THE PRODUCERS and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, only without the laughs.

Cassidy (1932-79) played Lurch on “The Addams Family” and would it have been too much to ask director Howard Morris (who played Ernest T. Bass on “The Andy Griffith Show”) and screenwriters William Marc Daniels and Raymond Harvey to include a gag where Cassidy’s Mickey answers the phone with “You rang.” Yes, of course, it would have been too much to ask. That’s silly to ask if you’ve survived GOIN’ COCONUTS.

It was a pathetic sight every time watching these villains shoot their guns at Donny and Marie. They should have been sent back to marksmanship class or had their diabolical henchmen licenses revoked.

Aside from the end credits, there was something else great about GOIN’ COCONUTS. Since it failed at the box office, Donny and Marie made only this one movie rather than a series of Donny and Marie spectaculars. They returned to their variety show where they belonged with their aw shucks gee whiz nature and perfect teeth intact.

Slithis (1978)

SLITHIS (1978) 1/2*

SLITHIS is one of the worst movies ever made, I feel safe in saying that, and it did for radioactive mutant monsters what A*P*E did for giant apes.

Maybe I would feel a little better after watching it had I received a “Slithis Survival Kit” like viewers did back in 1978 when this cinematic plague called SLITHIS was unleashed on theaters and drive-ins.

I read about this survival kit in Roger Ebert’s review and I found images of the four-page document through the magic of the Internets.

WARNING!

SLITHIS A CREATURE SPAWNED FROM THE WASTE OF A NUCLEAR ENERGY PLANT … WANTS YOU TO SURVIVE.

FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS!

REMOVE PICTURE OF SLITHIS BY CUTTING ALONG THE DOTTED LINE.
KEEP PICTURE OF SLITHIS ON YOUR PERSON AT ALL TIMES.
AT NIGHT, WHEN SLEEPING, PLACE PICTURE OF SLITHIS UNDER PILLOW.
JOIN THE SLITHIS FAN CLUB … HE WILL REMEMBER YOU WHEN HE STALKS YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

SLITHIS FAN CLUB

FOR MY PERSONAL SAFETY AND SURVIVAL PLEASE SIGN ME UP FOR THE SLITHIS FAN CLUB … I SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO UPHOLD THE FOLLOWING RULES AND REGULATIONS.

TO HELP ESTABLISH THAT SLITHIS IS A VICTIM OF OUR SOCIETY.
TO PROMOTE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SLITHIS AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS THAT CREATED IT.
TO ASSURE OTHERS THAT WITH THE SURVIVAL KIT THEY NEED NOT FEAR THE SLITHIS.

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY STATE ZIP

PLEASE SEND ME MY FREE PHOTO OF THE SLITHIS AND MY OFFICIAL MEMBERSHIP CARD.

(SEE BACK OF CARD FOR FURTHER INFORMATION)

NOTICE

PLEASE DEPOSIT THIS PORTION OF THE OFFICIAL SURVIVAL KIT IN MEMBERSHIP BOX LOCATED IN THE LOBBY OR CONCESSION STAND OF THIS THEATRE … YOU MAY PICK UP YOUR FREE PHOTO AND MEMBERSHIP CARD 3 WEEKS FROM NOW AT THIS THEATRE … or enclose 25¢ FOR POSTAGE & HANDLING AND MAIL TO

SLITHIS FAN CLUB

SUITE 200

1024 WALNUT ST.

DES MOINES, IOWA 50309

That’s absolutely patently ridiculous and far better than the movie itself. I wish I had thought about the Slithis Fan Club when our family vacation stopped in Des Moines.

I am being perfectly blunt with you when I warn you that coffee or any strong stimulant (s) would be a better survival kit for SLITHIS. How about taking a drink every time a character says “Slithis”? No, wait, never mind, alcohol’s a depressant and SLITHIS has been known to create depression within its viewers for at least a few hours. Viewers in 1978 were reportedly incredibly slow in returning home, since they just sat inside their cars unable to move and they were even unable to speak for hours. Hundreds even thousands of people sat in their cars in silence. It took a long time to process SLITHIS.

Because SLITHIS is deadly dull. Deadly dull. It is quite possible that SLITHIS wiped out an entire population of drive-in denizens through its sheer dullness.

After all, dullness is one of the worst possible sins that a monster movie can commit and SLITHIS commits that sin in spades. Its 85 minutes surpass watching GONE WITH THE WIND or the final act of RETURN OF THE KING.

The dialogue is banal, no, wait, it is so beyond banal that we need to invent a new word for the dialogue in SLITHIS.

I know that Warner Bros. plans to unleash GODZILLA VS. KONG on the world at some point during 2020, but I hope that some quick-buck smooth operator can beat that release into theaters with SLITHIS VS. A*P*E. Given the beating that humanity’s taken so far in the first three months of the 20th year of the 21st Century, SLITHIS VS. A*P*E seems only fitting.