Movie Failures, That Still Deserve a Watch (127)

4.0 (F+ MyGrade) = 4 IMDB

4.0 (F+ MyGrade) = 4 IMDB

Roger Corman and brother Gene spent about $72.50 on Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). I'm kidding of course. It was probably in the thousands, but still cheap. Roger also got composer, Alexander Laszlo, to do the soundtrack and had a cast, that included Playmate Linné Ahlstrand, in a small part. Corman was able to piggyback the principal photography for this film with another one of his films, Ski Troop Attack (1960). After coming up with a plot, that mimics that of Key Largo (1948), he added a monster, then landed the biggest star of the film, Deadwood, South Dakota. That's right, the best thing about this film is the shooting location. Beautiful, majestic, snow-covered, Black Hills mountains, that made Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), interesting enough to say, "check it out". The shooting of the film had to be treacherous, cold and scary.

If you are lucky enough to go get a Playboy playmate, a legendary film composer and picturesque locations, you should write a better script. Also, bring a better camera along, check your audio equipment and don't shoot the film in thirteen days. If you have no money for special effects, drop the monster idea. The effects in this film are atrocious and you could, easily have made a much better film, by taking one of the characters and making them a crazy serial killer or something. In closing, the acting wasn't too bad, but the creative technique just isn't there. The directing and editing is freshman at best. If it wasn't for the skiing scenes, the snow-covered landscapes and the cool, creepy cave locations, this film wouldn't be worth watching at all. In my opinion an IMDB rating of 3 or less is unwatchable, but I gave this a 4, because you need to see Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), to believe it. Also, look at this movie, as another chapter, in the legendary career of Roger Corman, which is a very important part of film-history.

PMTM Grade: 3.8 (F+) = 4 IMDB

Classic Mexican horror movies always had a cool atmospheric style to them. They also always had a strange or unique idea of the vampire mythos. They always seemed to be promising and then, the first line of awful dubbed English dialogue is heard and the film loses all its luster. If you can see these films in their original Spanish language track, complete with English subtitles, then do it. It should enhance the film experience with The Invasion of the Vampires (1963), much more (I was stuck with the dubbed version).

A lot of smoke is seen hovering over nicely built set pieces, as The Invasion of the Vampires (1963), opens up. Director Miguel Morayta uses some nicely framed, eerie shots, as well as, moon-lit lighting and even the costumes look alright too. There is some good stuff to this, but it ends up being a tediously boring adventure into the vampire realms of Mexico. One of the inconsistences with the Mexican translation/interpretation of vampire lore, is the main vampire (Count Frankenhausen), looks a lot like Burt Reynolds, with fake teeth in his mouth. Actually, all the vampires had really bad, fake teeth. There also is a weird thing going on with corpses walking around with stakes still in their chests.

One final thing. The giant vampire bat, that the Baron turns into, is the size of the coffin he uses. It's huge. For some reason, many filmmakers, even Hollywood, could never master the idea of the fake bat. The bat always looks fake. It's not until the 1970s, that they started to make the bat look more real. So, we can't really fault this film on that either. Aside from the other issues, with The Invasion of the Vampires (1963), the dubbing, dialogue and hackneyed script is what really kills the film. I really wanted to give this film a better rating, but by the time the film was over, I felt exhausted and so, I settled with my grade of F. Hopefully someday, I can see the Spanish version of La Invasión de Los Vampiros (1963), and maybe that will raise the grade up.

PMTM Grade: 4.0 (F+) = 4 IMDB