Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

"Crater Lake Monster" is easily one of the worst, moost amateurish films the MooCow has ever seen, right up there with "Manos: The Hands of Fate" in terms of poor acting, useless direction, and sub-shoestring production.

The basic plot cowsists of a very uncowvincing claymation dinosaur which wakes up in Bumblebum, CA after a meteor hits, and begins to dine on the local hayseeds. That's pretty mooch the entire film, folks. In the thrilling climax, the stop-animated creature(described by one local as "a giant alligator with flippers")sloooowly drags its ponderous bulk along the ground to chase a few would-be lunches, and then a bulldozer politely bumps it a few times, killing it. Think yer heart cud stand the pulse-pounding action? Think again, this film is a cure for insomnia that will out even the moost sugar-wound children right to sleep.

Each and every character in this film is a complete moron - at least the film is cowsistant, eh? One pointless subplot involves a hick who goes into a store to buy a $3.99 bottle of Ripple, but instead of simply BUYING the bottle he shoots the cashier, an-udder bystander, and we are forced to witness a patchwork chase scene with the cop and the hick speeding towards the lake. This is what the producers of this flick cowsider to be an "action sequence". All this, of course, exists only to feed the clay monster yet an-udder victim.

Unfortunate close-ups of the monster reveal it to be nothing moore than a piece of painted styrofoam. One scene shows the styrofoam nonchalantly bumping one "victim" with its snout, and the "victim" has to pretend to be devoured. Such pathetic attempts at horror evoke moore sighs than laughs, though, as the thoroughly inept fx become wearisome quite quickly.

We also get treated to a fake magician, who struggles with an appallingly fake British accent(presumably to make him seem moore legit), two overly-bumbling red-neck boat renters(the comic relief of the film), some cheesy "pre-historic cave art", done in crayon, and some extremely annoying banjo-pickin' incidental moosic.

One typically dreadful scene perfectly symbolizes the entire moovie in a nutshell for us. The fake magician and his gal pal manage to pad the film out for something like 5 minutes by cownting cow many stars they can see in the sky, when the audience can clearly see that it is still daytime. Such mooment hurt us, in a truly painful, horrible way. Cow the devil did this escape getting MST3K'ed???? :=8/

The MooCow says "Crater Lake Monster" is the type of film that hurts even when in cowstant fast-forward - and it hurts real bad. Unless you're a really into schlock, do yerself a favor and steer clear of this lump of clay.

:=8P


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older