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DVD The Black Scorpion
Fans of '50s science fiction should be pleased by this "big bug" chiller, which offers a fine showcase for the talents of special effects master Willis O'Brien (King Kong). The Black Scorpion follows closely in the multiple footsteps of Them!, produced three years earlier by the same company (Warner Bros.)--again, giant insects threaten mankind, though here a volcano is responsible for unleashing them, and the metropolis in peril is Mexico City. Though direction, acting, and scripting aren't on par with Them!, O'Brien's title creatures (which sport implausible yet creepy faces) are memorably monstrous, especially during hero Richard Denning's visit to their nightmarish underground lair. Warner Bros.' DVD features a surprising amount of extras for an older title. "Stop Motion Masters" is a short tribute to O'Brien by his famed student Ray Harryhausen; also included is O'Brien's dinosaur-laden opening for Irwin Allen's The Animal World documentary, and legendary test footage for two unfilmed monster projects by O'Brien's assistant, Peter Petersen. --Paul Gaita
Don't let these old flicks fool you; very often the imagery is just as horrific as anything that could come out of Hollywood today. Spielberg, in his recent War of the Worlds visually paraphrases from this movie. It's cribbed from one extremely disturbing nocturnal scene of these giant scorpians attacking some helpless folks--I won't spoil it for you. The older style acting and plot devices actually underscore the horrific moments.
Some see these flicks as just old and funky B-movies but I'm lately arguing that if you accept them on their own terms (kind of like accepting old literature or art on their own terms) they're pretty remarkable. Heck, the original King Kong still gives me the willies at times.
Black and white is perfect for horror. It tends to simulate the dream state. Old scenic work and effects, as opposed to the modern and sometimes too literal ones, often have a surreal quality. Think of that burning windmill at the end of Frankenstein. Poetic in a way no modern film can approximate. Interestingly, Spielberg nods to all of this in his last film--it's a conscious tribute to the artistry of these older films-- which is why it may ultimately be the grandest of all sci-fi/horror films.
no sting to this one!
Hey, I love those B&W "B" movies, but this one should be called the scorpion with no tail! It starts out with some good tension and what looks to be some good character development. Then we get some preposterous situations. The punch to this movie is the awful special effects! They should have left out the stupid close-ups of the drippy-mouthed scorpion! I lost track of how many times they showed that SAME close-up, and it never matched the rest of the scene that was occurring at the time. Hello editor! I guess I was supposed to be so busy screaming with horror that I wouldn't notice how cheesy it was. Sorry, I was too busy falling asleep on this dog!
Get "Them" or "The Lost World" or "The War of the Worlds" (or even "The Blob" if you can handle cheesy special effects with a decent plot and decent characters).
Strange goings-on in Mexico City! Calling Willis O'Brien!
"The Black Scorpion" is a prime example of a how a big bug film can be made on a low budget and still retain the big-studio gloss. From those fun folks at Warners, who's history of big stars and big films at the time was renowned, this story is set in the Mexican desert outside Mexico City. An unhealthy dose of atomic radiation has mutated a horde of black scorpions to giant-size proportions and set them on a path of destruction toward the heart of Mexico City. Bringing the scorpions to life is the stop-motion animation of the legendary Willis O' Brien. O'Brien is best-known for his work animating that hairy guy Kong in the 1933 classic "King Kong". As the 1950's rolled around, O'Brien had started to ride a bit on his past success with films like "Kong" and "Son of Kong", and his output was a bit spotty. His "Beast of Hollow Mountain", done a year prior to "Black Scorpion", featured some of O'Brien's most sub-standard effects work. It resembles the clay-mation process of the 60's more so than stop-motion work. But in "Scorpion", he is back in fine form. A great more detail has been given to the creature models and they actually feel real on screen. It gives the film a tension that other 50's "big bug" efforts lacked.
Ably supporting O'Brien is a cast of 50's stalwarts, including Richard Denning as the iron-jawed hero, Mara Corday as the pretty heroine, and Carlos Rivas as Denning's friend and right-hand man. Even 50's favorite Nestor Paiva (the boat captain in "Creature From the Black Lagoon") pops up to remind us of the camp value of the film.
This film has been unfairly criticized for its similar plot-line to the earlier Warners effort "Them". Frankly, "Them" set the tone for a lot of 50's "big bug" films. Unlike many of the others "Black Scorpion" holds its own against its 1954 cinema brother. As directed by Edward Ludwig, the film achieves a grittier feel than "Them". You can almost feel the hot, arid desert where the action takes place. And the scorpion attack scenes drip with tension.
The film does suffer from the occasional bit of banal dialogue, but then, so did a dozen other sci-fi and horror flicks in that decade alone! it seems that a pre-requisite of the time was to not do the script until the plane ride to the set the day before shooting begins! But this is a minor sting (pun intended) against a fine genre effort.
That ol' cinematic devil the A-bomb has spawned a colony of giant murderous ants bent on destroying humanity in this, the seminal big bug movie (an obvious and oft-credited influence for Alien among countless others). The special effects may be dated, but this brilliantly rational-sounding film has held up wonderfully in all other regards, including some starkly effective location work in the high Arizona desert, a genuinely inspired sound design guaranteed to bring on the creepy-crawlies, and an unexpectedly dry sense of humor (mainly personified by Grade-A egghead scientist Edmund Gwenn). This is essential viewing for all those who consider themselves science fiction or horror fans. Heroic hardcase James Arness previously played for the other team as the titular character in... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): James Whitmore - Edmund Gwenn Director(s): Gordon Douglas DVD Release Date: Released the 06 August 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A matinee programmer with lofty ambitions, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is best appreciated as a vintage showcase for the stop-motion animation of special-effects legend Ray Harryhausen. The hoary plot follows the cold-war formula that dominated science fiction movies of the 1950s: After an atomic bomb test in the northern polar ice cap, a gigantic dinosaur--the fictional "Rhedosaurus"--is awakened from eons of dormancy, plots an undersea course for the Eastern seaboard, and proceeds to wreak havoc on New York City, culminating in a showdown with military marksmen at the Coney Island amusement park. Stock footage and tissue-thin drama make this a by-the-numbers monster flick, further hampered by Eugene Lourie's lackluster direction and a wooden B-movie cast. And yet, Harryhausen's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Paul Hubschmid - Paula Raymond Director(s): Eugène Lourié DVD Release Date: Released the 21 October 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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OK so this thing starts out with the intrepid girl reporter bumping into a road block and a friendly Marine telling her to go back. This is the kind of thing that gets IGRs hopping along (pun intended) in these kind of movies. After a couple of skirmishes with The Man an old geezer Army Dude takes a liking to her and spills: the whole town was destroyed and all the people are missing. Cut to Peter Graves and his "this-dog-is-gonna-die" research assistant at the Giant Inedible Fruit research lab. Oh ho ho, it's so hard to keep the snails and ...uh...grasshoppers out of the giant-fruit-making equipment. But the shoe doesn't drop. Later, the assistant gets eaten by a giant grasshopper, Peter and The Girl go to Washington and get dissed by some generals until someone calls on the phone, Pete... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Peter Graves - Peggie Castle - Morris Ankrum Director(s): Bert I. Gordon DVD Release Date: Released the 25 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"The Crawling Eye" is one of those movies that people like to lump in with campy fifties monster movies like "The Brain that wouldn't Die" or "The Giant Gila Monster". It's actually several cuts above those films due to the intelligent script and the beautiful cinematography--the Swiss Alps never looked better even if it was all shot on a set. Forrest Tucker makes a capable leading man as he does in "The Abominable Snowman". The sinister cloud was apparently done by filming a piece of cotton attached to a photograph of a mountain, but it is amazingly effective. Less successful are the "crawling eyes" themselves at the end of the film--they look like white, veiny cabbages waving their leaves around. Particularly unimpressive is the climactic shot of them gathered around the obviously... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Quentin Lawrence DVD Release Date: Released the 04 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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