1966 science fiction movie
Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Fred: 2/5; Jeremy: 1/5; Johnny: 2/5; Josh: 2/5; Libby: no rating)
Rating: 7/20
Plot: The military's testing torpedoes, and a pair of reporters investigating the story spot some sort of mysterious monster swimming around. Further snooping gets them captured by the cheap-looking grown-up sea monkeys.
Hey! There's an idea--Sea Monkeys: The Movie. I'd watch the shit out of that one!
You might assume that the terror pictured on the poster above was drawn by a small child, but other than the color, that's actually what the fish guys look like. See:
I enjoyed this one a little better than my friends, mostly because of the fight choreography and general tone. It's from '66 and seems to borrow that general tone from the Batman series. You sort of miss the onomatopoeia during the fisticuffs actually. Although the costumed monster guys are silly looking and, despite engaging in target practice, shoot about as well as Stormtroopers in A New Hope, some of the effects used to show the transformation of man into fish-man ain't bad if you're grading on a steep curve. There's action, far too much underwater swimming shots, and a few explosions, but this movie's really about facial expressions. Sonny Chiba isn't known for subtle facial expressions exactly. I mean, Google Image "Sonny Chiba Face" and you're going to get stuff like this:
But in this movie, everybody's expressions and reactions to shocking things are exaggerated. Chiba's not even the worst offender. No, that title belongs to his love interest and fellow reporter played by Peggy Neal. Here they both are making faces:
That's during the aforementioned transformation scene which, probably because director Hajime Sato (that guy who did the pretty cool Goke, the Body Snatcher from Hell) wanted to show off his special effects budget, was entirely too long. Shot of poor soul growing gills, shot of these two making some face, another shot of guy getting all rubbery, another shot of these two making an equally ridiculous face. And so on. The big villain is Dr. Moore, played by somebody named Erik Neilson, and you can tell he's evil because he wears his sunglasses indoors in an undersea laboratory for the entire movie. And yes, he overacts, too. And over-reacts. A few BMCers had issues with some of the science in this movie, but I'm sure something called "marine snow" actually does exist. Anyway, a pretty average bad movie, but Sonny Chiba completists will definitely want to check it out. Or Peggy Neal completists.
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