I enjoyed writing my post about the Swamp Women, so I thought I’d continue the idea with another cheesy, uh, classic horror movie. This one has a monster. Three, in fact.
Monster from a Pre-Historic Planet is a Japanese movie from 1967, and the dubbing is pretty much as jarring as you’d expect it to be. I might have gotten used to it, but some of the characters seemed to change voices as they went along. Still, a monster movie from the ’60s, what’s not to like?
I was a little disappointed, though, because the words “pre-historic planet” made me think space travel would be involved, or at least a cool asteroid or alien spaceship landing. But, no, they were apparently referring to the pre-history of this planet. It probably sounded better in Japanese.
We open on a ship. One lady is sunbathing while some scientist-looking types are fooling around with beakers and test tubes. Scenes back on the mainland inform us of the mission. They are in search of exotic animals to populate a tropical paradise themed resort being build by a girly magazine which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. If that last bit got anybody’s hopes up, sorry. The girl sunbathing in the opening — in shorts if I recall correctly — is the only bit of flesh we get. (Not that I was looking.) (Although I wouldn’t have complained if a couple of those guys would have taken their shirts off.)
Soon the scientists and I think a couple of journalists (I knew I might be writing about this, but I still didn’t pay a great deal of attention. Hey, I need to relax on the weekends, too) arrive at a tropical island that coincidentally closely resembles the model of the tropical resort in the magazine president’s office. There they find a giant egg. I’m thinking giant omelet (hadn’t had dinner yet), but of course they think scientific find, something from millions of years ago. It does not occur to anybody that whoever laid the egg might still be around, even when it hatches, revealing a surprisingly cute baby monster, which, of course, they must take back to civilization with them.
I’m sure you see where this is going. It isn’t long before two big monsters come along looking for junior. Then people are fleeing as the monsters stomp on buildings. It’s pretty obviously done with miniatures, because the buildings are not very detailed and there are no people there while the buildings are actually being stomped. Still, I thought the effects were pretty good for the time. The movie spends a lot more time on building stomping than on character interaction, but you’ll have that.
There is some character interaction. The magazine president has a daughter who wants a mommy. There is a minor love triangle amongst the girl photographer, the journalist and the head scientist. This gives an opportunity for a little bit of anti-feminist rhetoric, but they don’t spend too much time on that. I don’t recall any lessons learned on not upsetting the eco-system, but parenthood gets a shout out.
What I did not understand was how the monsters became extinct except for those three. The things could fly, breathe under water and shoot lasers from their mouths. What could they not survive? I guess the ice age, but I’m no scientist.
It was a fun movie. I’m sorry it apparently did not spawn — or should I say hatch? — a sequel.
Mohawk Valley Girl 