The Crater Lake Monster (1977)
"A beast more frightening than your most terrifying nightmare!"
Plot
The heat of a meteor crashing into Crater Lake causes a dormant dinosaur egg at the bottom of the lake to hatch, unleashing a giant aquatic dinosaur which soon develops a taste for human flesh.
Cited as one of the worst monster movies ever made, The Crater Lake Monster comes with a hefty reputation to live up to. It does sound like one of those old school sci-fi 'atomic monster' flicks that were all the rage in the 1950s but this one was made in 1977, no doubt as some kind of throwback during a time when interest in the Loch Ness Monster had been revived thanks to the exploits of Robert H. Rines's expeditions. If only The Crater Lake Monster had proven as captivating an attraction as the myth of Nessie.
Make no mistake about it - The Crater Lake Monster lives up to its bad reputation. With a shoestring budget and unpolished production values, it's the sort of 70s film that would have played well in drive-ins. Utter tripe from beginning to end, the film does at least have one redeeming factor in the form of the monster. But in order to get to the sporadic and brief highlights, you've got to slug it out with one of the genre's most awful creature feature films. A lot of the flak comes from the film's unnecessary focus on Arnie and Mitch, a couple of country bumpkins who live near the lake and provide the film's copious amount of comic relief. Glenn Roberts and Mark Siegel seem friendly and innocent enough but their characters should have had background roles. I'm not sure whether director William R. Stromberg was the only one who found their antics hilarious but no one else will. It's padding and blatant padding at that. The two men live up to numerous backwoods stereotypes as the dim-witted handymen who work for beer and each other's monotonous company. Desperate to stretch out it's running time to be classed as a full feature film, The Crater Lake Monster also features lots of random zooms and close-ups of the nice scenery. It sure looks like a nice place to visit but this is meant to be a film not a promotional video. It's not like anyone in the cast is any better though. Richard Cardella as Sheriff Hanson and Bob Hyman as Doc Calkins are both horrendous in their roles. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to believe that both men were the local sheriff and doctor respectively and got roped into shooting the film when the director turned up at the lake with a few crew members and asked them to star in a film. Cardella has no other screen credits to his name whilst Calkins only had a prior credit. Based on this evidence, cinema has not missed out on any tricks with either man.
With all of these 'actors' running around the lake and local town and doing anything and everything but encountering the monster, the film never gets going. I would say that the pace is off but there is no pace at all. Stromberg doesn't have any grasp of narrative or structure and just lets things pan out as slowly and as dully as possible. Coincidentally he also co-wrote and produced the film and has never directed, produced or written a film since. I guess that's all you need to know about the quality on display. Characters are introduced and then dropped. Minor characters become the main focus. There's no sense of urgency with anyone despite there being a monster on the rampage.
So the film itself is total rubbish but the actual Crater Lake monster itself looks fantastic. Brought to life with glorious stop motion to give it a realistic feel, the monster is a class above others in its genre and something more akin to a lesser Harryhausen creation. The man responsible, David Allen, went on to have a fantastic career creating the visual effects for such films as Q, the Winged Serpent (also featuring a stop motion dinosaur-like monster), Batteries Not Included and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It just proves everyone has to start somewhere in the film business and it is clear from this film that Allen had talent. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly given the practicality of stop motion, the monster isn't allotted anywhere near enough screen time and does little more than waddle about on its flippers and roar. The finale involving the monster battling the sheriff in a bulldozer is a big let down too. However in plenty of other scenes, the monster is simply represented with an oversized head floating around underwater. This looks nothing like the monster in stop motion form. But I suppose that is the least of the film's problems.
Final Verdict
The Crater Lake Monster is nearly as bad as its reputation claims but the brief stop motion special effects are worth one look, though I'm sure you could find a highlight reel lurking on Youtube to save you the ordeal of sitting through the full film. It's just a shame that these effects are wasted in this hokey micro budget film and are not displayed in something bigger budgeted and more professional.
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The Crater Lake Monster Director(s): William R. Stromberg Writer(s): William R. Stromberg (original story and screenplay), Richard Cardella (original story and screenplay) Actor(s): Richard Cardella, Glen Roberts, Mark Siegel, Bob Hyman, Richard Garrison, Kacey Cobb Duration: 85 mins |  |
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