A brand new segment to The Midnight Cinephile!
Terror on the Airwaves takes a look at the spooky tales that filter through the electric mist into your television set via weekly anthology style television shows.
Shows such as The Twilight Zone, Tales From The Darkside and Friday the 13th: The Series all gave us chills when they told us a new spooky tale each week.
For this edition I want to start off with a very special one.
Let me set up the scene for you.
It's sometime in the mid 90's. A high school aged Midnight Cinephile is sitting in his room flipping channels on a Saturday night.and I happen upon the 80's updated version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Having watched quite a few episodes of the older 60's show, I decide to give it a shot. The next half hour kept me riveted to my little 19 inch Zenith TV.
It was the episode The Gloating Place.
I could talk your ear off about it with tons of screen caps and such, but I think
that for this one, I'll just have you watch the episode for yourself.
The Giant Behemoth 1959 Not Rated 80 Minutes Alternate Titles
- The Undersea Monster (Brazil)
- The Monster of the Sea (Greece)
- The Dragon of the Abyss (Italy)
- Hippo: Sea Monster (Russia)
- The Monster of Loch Ness (West Germany)
Tag Lines - The Biggest Thing Since Time Began! - The Biggest Thing Since Creation! - SEE the Beast that shakes the Earth! LIVE in a world gone mad! WATCH the chaos of a smashed civilization! FLEE from the mightiest fright on the screen! NOTHING so Big as Behemoth!
This is very impressive, but I'm not going to perform surgery... I'm going to cut a fish. -Steve Karnes
I first saw The Giant Behemoth way back in the days when TNT was still running it's MonsterVision programming on sporadic weekends. This was even before Joe Bob Briggs took over. This was when they had that dude with the weird gruff voice and the claymation moon.
You remember this fella, don't ya?
Ahhh, memories!
Anyway, one night they were showing a bunch of old giant monster flicks...stuff like The Giant Behemoth, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Gorgo, Them, The Deadly Mantis....you get the picture....non-Godzilla big fellas...or as I like to call 'em American (or British) Kaiju. I suppose in the case of Reptilicus that'd be a Danish Kaiju....which sounds more like something your Aunt Barb would make around the holidays and bring to a party.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked (shocker, I know!). The Giant Behemoth is a UK/US film production starring Gene Evans and André Morell as a couple of fellas working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who catch wind of a story about a man found badly burned on the beach and a metric shit ton of dead fish. So off they go to investigate.
Steve here is giving a lecture on....er....nuclear stuff. I'm not even gonna try to paraphrase, that shit is WAY beyond my pay grade.
A fisherman comes home with his catch. His daughter, Jean meets him on the shore and he gives her some fish to bring back up to the house to clean up and prepare for a meal. Off she goes, happy as a clam. Old Man Fisherman™ hears a noise coming from the ocean and turns around to look. There's a bright light. He knocks his hat of trying to cover his eyes! OH MY GOD WHAT'S HAPPENING???
Sometime later, Jean is finished preparing the fish and Old Man Fisherman still isn't home. She figures he popped by the pub for a pint and goes to look for him there. He is not there. Her brother John is though and together they go to the beach to find their dear old dad. They find him. It isn't pretty.
He's all burnt and mumbling....and the mysterious shadow of a boom mic hovers in the lower left hand corner of the screen. Ah, professionalism!
I've captured that magic moment for you here:
Glorious!
Also.....dead fish. Lot's of dead fish. What a waste.
Our heroes arrive on scene and start questioning the local fishermen, including John. They head down to the beach with him and collect a few of the dead fish that hadn't been either swept back out with the tide or burned but the locals.
John shows them where he got his hand burned as well.
Speaking of John's burns.....
Well, that's just nasty.
The fish are taken back to the lab and inspected, examined and turned into a tasty sushi. A little tobiko will pair nicely withe radiation, don't you think?
Anyway, one of the fish, it turns out glows in the dark....which is to say the least a bit unusual for creatures that are not normally bio-luminescent. Man, we're breaking out the hardcore science words today!They do tests on the glowing part of the fish and discover that it contains DNA for an unknown radioactive animal.
We get our first look at the monster! I can see why The Loch Ness Monster was referenced in the West German title.
The Creature makes landfall and the fun really starts. This family is sitting here eating dinner when the dog starts to go nuts. So the father grabs his gun and Junior goes along with him to see what's causing all the commotion.
More bright lights and a minute later both the man and his boy are turned to ash! Holy crap! This thing is getting stronger! This isn't looking good.
After the man and his son are found dead, so is a MASSIVE footprint (when I say massive I mean it dwarfs a police car!) So our heroes go to talk to a paleontologist to help identify the footprints. It appears to belong to the brontosaur family and he estimates that the creature is between one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet long. Plus, you know, radioactive.
The Behemoth attacks a ferry killing a bunch of folks. And this was not just a "people in the wrong place at the wrong time, big ol monster doesn't realize what he's doing" type of attack. He maliciously overturns the ferry. I'm not sure if he ate anyone or not, but I would assume he did.
A meeting of the minds converges to discuss how to stop the beast. Because of it's highly radioactive nature they cannot risk blowing it up on land. Then they'd end up with radioactive chunks all over the place, which would be, needless to say, very bad.
It's decided that the best way to deal with the creature is to introduce radium into it's system. The radiation is already slowly killing the monster and the radium would act as an accelerant, killing the monster quickly, but it must be done underwater to keep the radiation out of the air. Or something like that. I would think that radiation in the water is just as bad, but what do I know. I review bad movies, I'm no scientist.
The Behemoth takes a stroll around town, destroying everything in it's path and irradiating everything as well. This was the last film that legendary stop motion animator Willis O'Brien worked on. O'Brien, in case you didn't know is the gentleman responsible for bringing King Kong to life in 1933
The monster looks much better in his animated form, definitely less goofy than the stiff plastic head that they had rearing out of the water earlier in the film.
Radiation burns and panic do not mix well. As the people flee from the destruction some of them get completely muckled by radiation like the dude in the first photo. Poor guy. He either trips and falls or dies...but either way, other people start tripping over him and things are getting worse.
The military fights back as best they can, but guns just aren't doing the trick. The creature lets out another burst of radiation and fries them all where they stand.
The aftermath of the attack is a fairly sobering image after the stop motion carnage that preceded it. I mean, it's got nothing on the stark imagery of the original '54 Gojira, but this is still quite effective.
Time to arm the sub and go into battle with the Behemoth under the waves.
He swims rather well. I suspect he may be part plesiosaurus because I don't think that brontosauruses can swim very well with their stocky legs. But I could be wrong. Again, I'm seeing where the West German Loch Ness Monster reference came in. It's no spoiler to tell you that they score a direct hit on the monster and it is SEEMINGLY defeated. Why do I say "seemingly"? Well, if you've ever watched these sorta films you KNOW that monsters never truly die....they are just stopped for a while. Plus there's a news report that there's dead fish washing up all along the eastern seaboard of the United States. So either the Behemoth went west, or they radiated the entire damn Atlantic ocean. Either way, that's how they end the flick. Gee, thanks England for sending us your monster!
Let's tally stuff up!
Monsters
A giant radioactive dinosaur!
T&A
In a giant monster flick from 1959? Er, no.
Gore
No gore to speak of but we do see a few radiation burns, which kinda look like silly putty on skin.
Fun Factor
Super high fun factor here! I mean you've got a giant stop motion radioactive dinosaur rampaging through England! What's not to love?
Final Thoughts
The Giant Behemoth is essential a rip-off of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Well, rip-off is a hard term. Let's just say that it shares more than a few similarities. Though I thought that the radiation angle (while nothing new) was nicely done and even Godzilla himself eventually borrowed the "slowly dying from radiation" gag in later films.
Any way you slice it, I have never met a giant monster flick that I didn't love.
If you love giant monsters and especially if you love stop motion animation then you really can't go wrong with The Giant Behemoth.
Grotesque 1988 Rated R 89 Minutes Alternate Titles
- Bloody Serious (Norway)
- Infernal Weekend (Portugal)
- Grotesque - Fight For Survival (West Germany)
Taglines
- There is a fate worse than death.
"If I said I wasn't trying to scare you, I'd be lying." - Orville Kruger
Oh man, this is a classic of the VHS rental era!
When I was growing up in my hometown of Fitchburg, MA we had a mom and pop video rental store called Video Paradise. When we bought our first VCR circa 1983 we immediately got a membership to the store and it was a part of my life right up until it closed in 2003. I even worked there for a while after high school.
Anyway, I can remember walking past the horror section to get to the children's section when I was a kid and I was a notorious scaredy cat in my single digit ages. Just seeing some of the box art gave me nightmares (there will be an upcoming article on that very subject!) I can vividly remember seeing Grotesque sitting there on the shelf and feeling that there was something horrible lurking inside that box. Was I correct in my pre-teen feelings? Let's find out!
While the credits are rolling we get a bizarro monologue from a woman talking about avoiding someone and being tired of fighting after so long, blah, blah blah....the whole time we're hearing this there's just an exterior shot of a house (or is that supposed to be castle?) at night with some nicely animated lightning flashing periodically. Finally, we switch to an interior shot where we see this woman sitting and brushing her hair haphazardly. Cut too this chubby deformed monk looking fella who is slowly stalking through the place. The woman is still droning on about not wanting to fight anymore and says "Take me or kill me, but I beg you...do it quickly." before lying down on the bed.
After lying down the chubby monk monster enters the room and at first I thought they were going to get it on, but instead he just gives her a fatal hickey. Evidently our friend here is part vampire or something. I'm very confused by this point. But wait, what's this?
Oh, it was a movie that was being screened by some Hollywood execs and apparently they loved it. They fellow in the back (with his shirt buttoned far too low) is apparently the boss-man and congratulates Orville Kruger (Guy Stockwell) on creating the best make up and special effects of his career so far promising a bonus when the money starts coming in.
The best make up and special effects? A putty faced vampire monk and a dollop of blood on the neck in the late 80's is considered the state of the art? I mean, I realize that this is a low budget flick but as you'll see this guy has far more effective monster costumes just lying around his house that he uses for fun! It's like he phoned this one in and everyone's going head over heels for it!
It's really not that big a deal because this introduction to Orville is really just that, an introduction, and has nothing to do really with the rest of the film except to inform you that he's a special effects guy that works with movie stars from time to time.
Orville says that he's going to his home in the mountains for the weekend for a family reunion. Cut to:
Lisa (Lind Blair) and Kathy (Donna Wilkes) who are enjoying a nice breakfast and or brunch. I'm not sure why, but Linda Blair always seemed to wear outfits with the biggest shoulder pads I've ever seen. I mean, I know shoulder pads were IN during the 80's, but even these seemed bigger than the norm. Ah well.
After brunch the girls hop in the car and we discover that Lisa is Orville's daughter and she's taking her friend along on their little weekend reunion. They stop at a Burger King to get some drinks in one of horror cinema's most superfluous product placement scenes of the late 80's. They just went out of their way to let you know that these girls were stopping at Burger King. I'm fairly certain that the drive thru server was an actual employee as well. It's a strange little detour in the flick. Check it out:
Anywhoo, the girls continue on their way and run into a group of punks in a VW Bus that's broken down. Little do they know that these punks are actually also on their way to Lisa's father's home because they heard about a big secret that he's got hiding up there. They figure it must be a stash of cash or blow. Cause, you know...punks. It certainly couldn't be anything else, could it?
The girls narrowly avoid getting robbed, raped or worse by pretty much just driving through the punks and forcing them to avoid getting run over.
The girls arrive at Lisa's parents home and her mother shows them up to what I guess is Lisa's old room. Lisa asks how her mother how "Patrick" is seeming very concerned. Who the hell is Patrick? I wonder if we'll find out. The girls put their bags down and decide to take showers to get ready for dinner. While Lisa takes her shower, Kathy decides to lay down for a few minutes. We see a shadowy form slowly ascending the stairs and turn the doorknob of the bedroom. The door bursts open and an aquatic monster menaces Kathy. Lisa rushes out of the bathroom and immediate puts on an "oh geez, here we go." face.
Yep. It's Orville.
After dinner, Orville takes Kathy for a tour of his den where he keeps a bunch of his work. Literally everything in this den is awesome and easily a thousand times better than what I saw in that faux film that started us off. There's masks of- hey wait.....is....is that the Pumpkin Mask from Halloween III??? IT IS! That may be a repainted Witch Mask on the upper right corner of the shelf as well, but I'm not 100% positive on that one.
After showing some old home movies that are really more like short horror flicks, it's bedtime. The girls settle in for the night upstairs and Orville falls asleep in front of a roaring fireplace. I'm not gonna lie, that fireplace is amazing and I'm jealous of it.
All is nice and cozy in the Kruger household, (Well THERE'S a sentence I never thought I'd type!) which means that bad shit must be about to go down.
Cue those damn punks from earlier. Evidently they got their VW back in working order and finally made it to the Kruger household. They gather the family in the living room and start demanding the money, refusing to believe that there isn't any. This escalate rather quickly. Lisa escapes into the snowy woods. One of the punks pursues her.
The family is slaughtered mercilessly. Unfortunately the punks don't realize that the "Big Secret" that the family is hiding is watching them.
"Oh hey! A hidden room! Surely this has all the money and blow we could ever want in it!"
Well, shit. Looks like that big bad secret is actually a deformed fella in a jumpsuit! Oh...is this Patrick? It IS! Well this is awkward. Wait...is that a tiny oven in his room next to the stuffed animal? What the?
At any rate, I don't think that this is going to get well for the punks.
Ooooh yeah. This aint' good. Right off the bat one gets crushed to death in a bear hug while the chick gets her neck snapped like a twig. Ooph! The rest scatter out the door. One is immediately dispatched when she is picked up and has her back broken against a tree! Owie!
Did I forget to mention the two punks getting it on in Orville's Den of Horrors?
Is this chick wearing the Skull Mask from Halloween III as she does the ol' bump n grind? I think it may be! What fun!
Now things shift yet again to a cat and mouse game between Lisa, one of the punks and also between Patrick and the lead punks, Gibbs and Scratch. This is like the fourth time the film has shifted gears, but you get used to it.
************SPOILERS**************
Okay, from here on out there are some pretty heavy spoilers, so if you haven't seen the flick and don't want the end given away stop reading here.
Still with me? Great let's continue on!
It's now morning. Lisa is still being chased around the woods. Gibbs and Scratch are still running around out there too as is Patrick.
Meanwhile, a family friend is headed to the house to visit.
There is a bizarre scene that switches between him driving and walking up to the house and shots of all the dead family and punks. It is actually a pretty effective scene but it plays on a bit too long and ends up reminding me of the scene from Rocky Horror Picture Show:
Here's the scene in question:
I think if they had just run through the cycle once it would have been much more effective but by continuing as long as they did, it gave it a more comedic edge....at least I thought so anyway.
After the bodies are discovered a search party is sent out looking for Lisa.
The punk chasing her meanwhile catches up to her and starts choking her. Patrick hears her cries and runs to help, and kills the punk. Gibbs and Scratch show up and Gibbs shoots Patrick in the back about 5 times. The search party shows up, see's Patrick and shoots him, thinking him the culprit. Seeing their opportunity to get off the hook, the punks play into.
After some good cop/bad cop play, the punks are let go, the police unable to hold them on anything more than circumstantial evidence for 48 hours.
This does not go over well with Orville's brother Rod, who basically informs the police that he's going to take matters into his own hands. The police, knowing that the punks are truly the guilty party have no problem with this.
Rod tracks down the two remaining punks and takes them at gun point.
He brings them back to Patrick's room at his brother's house where you discover.......
Well, you'll just have to watch the film and find out final twist for yourself.
Actually there's more than one final twist.
There's a twist within a twist within a twist.
It's really weird.
Time for the tally!
Monsters:
Well, if you want me to get all philosophical, the punks are the monsters. But on a technical level we get several monsters. There's the putty faced vampire monk from the faux film at the beginning. There's the aquatic monster that turns out to be Orville in disguise and then there's Patrick...the horribly disfigured man-child living in a secret room in Orville's house. There's also a few more monsters but you'll have to watch the film to figure out where and what.
T&A Just a tad bit of punk chick boob as she does the nasty in Orville's Den while wearing the Skull Mask.
Gore:
There's a bit of gore on display here. Nothing over the top, considering the subject matter but there's a decent amount of the red stuff once everything gets going.
Fun Factor
I had a lot of fun with this film. I'm a sucker for 80's Linda Blair as well as obscure horror flicks so this one was right up my alley. If you ignore some questionable acting and some questionable weather phenomenon (a raging thunderstorm immediately followed by a snowstorm? I mean I know that thunder and lightning can occur during a snowstorm, but not to this extent!) then there's a lot of fun to be had.
Final Thoughts
I kinda miss the days of flicks like this. They're dumb. They're wonky. They're cheap. But they're not pretentious. They know exactly what they are and they're not trying to be anything else. There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes on a rainy afternoon or late at night.
