"Looks fun. You guys seen a fish woman round these parts?"
This is some classic black and white monster movie goodness right here. It's got all these Corman favorites I have learned to look out for. What are these, if you're unfamiliar?
2) lots of dialogue - sure, it is usually plot dialogue, and one could argue that it's needed, but man is there lots of dialogue and talking.
3) Tomboys - going back to that female thing, there is usually a tomboy in a Corman movie. This girl will wear jeans, plaid colors, and sometimes be called by a nickname like "Princess" because hahahaha, it's FUNNY! They're calling HER princess!!
4) As little monster scenes as seemingly possible - Yes, please do save the monster for the last 2 minutes and have it only appear like twice in total. NO! We want to see the monster!
5) Ma and Pa - there's a tradition of old-timey-ness in Corman movies. So usually Ma and Pa are there, and usually they are still in love as they were when they got married. Pa sometimes has to hold her shoulders and shake her when she's afraid; but it's the fifties, that's what women were for.
6) The halfwit - my least favorite and surprisingly common character to show up in any movie. This guy is usually unexplained, or just explained as being "slow."
7) Criminals as the stars of the film, or the main characters committing criminal deeds.
Part of the story of the making of this movie is that Corman went to Puerto Rico to film The Last Woman on Earth and Battle of Blood Island. He had extra footage left over at the end of those shoots, and in true Corman fashion he took the extra footage, and decided to use it with a new movie. How? Easy! Cram the rest into a 5 day shoot and do it for as cheap as possible of course!
Anthony Carbone (A Bucket of Blood) is looking to make a boatload of money when he decides to let Caribbean loyalists escape on his boat, kill them, and blame their death on a made up sea monster. But what if the sea monster was real? And showed up, in it's ping-pong ball eyed glory to start killing folks? Well, that's exactly what happens!
It's a lot of dialogue, and it's a lot of nonsensical underwater footage in the meantime. I did have a thought as I was watching it... what the hell did the underwater cameras of this era look like? Cameras that actually used film, and could go underwater? The underwater footage is the easy highlight, and the rest is all exactly what you expect, which should be low brow, easy to digest, but blessedly short filmmaking. It's enough to entertain you, if you're into this sort of thing.
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