Review of Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) by Allan C — 02 Jun 2018

B-Movie King Roger Corman had already started making some quality films by this point in his career, having made "Fall of the House of Usher" and "Machine-Gun Kelly," but this film feels more along the lines of his earlier schlocky films, such as "Attack of the Crab Monsters" or "The Brain Eaters.

" The story follows super spy Robert Towne (yes, that Robert Town, who wrote "Chinatown," "Tequila Sunrise," "Shampoo" and other modern film classics) as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150, who offers to help a group of Cuban nationals escape the revolution with their ill-gotten riches, but who is instead plotting to kill them and blame their deaths on a mystical sea creature.

But wait! Things get weird when said mythical sea creature actually show up and is actually a real thing! Written by Charles B. Griffith, who'd later go on to write or co-write "Death Race 2000" "The Wild Angels" and "Eat My Dust," the script thankfully doesn't take itself too seriously (some of the Spanish names are tells that they were not taking this too serious: Colonel Cabeza Grande [Big Head] and Isla de Barracho [Island of the Drunk]).

However, the production values on this Corman production are so cheap that the film really does look like amateur hour. It also doesn't help when the actors in front of the camera don't have much talent ("House of Usher" had Vincent Price and "Machine-Gun Kelly" had a young Charles Bronson).

Overall, this is more interesting to watch as a curiosity than it is as an actual entertaining film.