When gangster Renzo Capetto (aka Capo Rosetto aka Ratto Pazetti, aka Zeppo Staccato, aka Shirley Lamour) is hired by the Cuban government to sneak away with the Cuban treasury in order to keep it safe from revolutionaries--in exchange for one quarter of the total--Capetto (Antony Carbone) decides one quarter isn’t enough. So he decides to trick the Cuban soldiers accompanying him into changing course in order for Capetto to hide the strongbox holding the gold and kill the Cuban’s so he can make off with the loot. His plan is foolproof. He has two of his cronies kill one of the soldiers and make it look like they were attacked by a sea creature. The plan works brilliantly, only instead of the one soldier, two wind up dead, because unbeknownst to the crew, the sea creature is real and had chosen that exact moment to climb on board and do away with a Cuban soldier of his own. Meanwhile, hiding amongst their crew is American Special Agent XK-150 (Robert Towne, credited as Edward Wain), sent to keep an eye on Capetto and the treasury. This is the premise of one of the most ridiculously funny “horror” movies I’ve ever seen, Roger Corman’s CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA.

Released in 1961, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA is 75 minutes of insanity, with such goofy tongue-in-cheek dialogue (“It was dusk. I could tell cuz the sun was going down”) and square-jaw deadpan delivery, it’s obvious from the beginning Corman and crew were just out to hopefully make a little money and have a lot of fun. I mean when you see the monster suit they put some poor guy in, you know they didn’t expect the audience to take this thing seriously.

This movie’s got everything: spy gadgets (XK-150’s radio is disguised as a lunchbox, complete with hot dog control knobs and tubes inside pickles), romance, betrayal, even a musical number. The only thing you won’t find here is quality. The DVD transfer is horrible. The editing is choppy (one scene, about 5 seconds, is played twice in a row), the subtitles are almost unreadable, and the sound is so muffled in some places you have to guess at what the characters are saying. And that’s the drawback. Because I think CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA is such goofy fun, I want to share it with everyone, but the quality is so cheap and makes it so hard to understand at times, I’d almost feel bad making my family sit through it.

The star of this movie is definitely Robert Towne (who would later go on to write the screenplays for the first two Tom Cruise MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies as well as THE FIRM and DAYS OF THUNDER) as XK-150. He plays so straight, but still has a completely inept quality about him. He never utters a line expecting a laugh, he’s playing as straight as possible with the lines he’s given, but there’s something just under the surface that tells you he knows exactly what he’s doing and while his face is straight, he’s laughing along with us on the inside.

The rest of the cast, Antony Carbone and Betsy Jones-Moreland: (as Capetto’s girlfriend Mary-Belle Monahan, aka Mary Monahan Belle, aka Belle Mary Monahan, aka Monahan Mary Belle) offer similar performances, not playing for laughs, but getting them anyway because we detect that sly smile or hint of sarcasm in their delivery, but still it’s Towne who really gets our attention.

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA is considered a horror movie--I assume by association, being a Roger Corman film, and having the words “creature” and “haunted” in the title--but don’t believe it. This is straight comedy, and should be viewed as such. Anyone watching this expecting a good old horror flick is going to be sorely disappointed and come away wondering what they just saw.

Again, another movie included in my HORROR CLASSICS collection that’s left me wondering what criteria was used in the judging. Considering Corman’s made so many other, more popular and more deserving, movies, I find it hard to believe this one earned its place among some of the others in this package (which includes true classics like NOSFERATU, and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) on horror merit alone.

But that’s neither here nor there. CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA may not be what I would call a horror classic, but it’s definitely a movie worth seeing--if you can overlook the flaws brought on by budget and technology constraints.


other Horror Classics
Carnival of Souls: http://www.epinions.com/content_403446140548
Atom Age Vampire: http://www.epinions.com/content_403512856196


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older