For years, I really believed I had dreamed this entire movie. I vividly remembered the blood sucking seaweeds, the giant crab attack, and the weird Spanish Inquisition bad guys. Not to mention the snow shoe balloon transportation. I think I saw it one Saturday afternoon on like Superhost or maybe Channel 61's Ghoulardi
revival. Either way, when I would ask people if they ever saw anything like this movie, I would get a bunch of blank stares or maybe a furtive "Sounds like Mysterious Island, huh?" No. Because they did not slog around under two balloons strapped to their shoulders, now did they? Anyway, thanks to the internet I was able to track down the title of this movie long ago. I have only now gotten around to re-visiting it. In part because I know it would be terrible. And in part because once the mystery was solved, I was content to live with the happy memories of the weirdness, secure in the fact that I did not misremember some other B film. I made Noelle watch this tonight for subjecting me to a weekend's worth of Russell Brand stories, youtube clips, and podcasts. She did not make it through the whole thing. In fact, she got so disgusted by the crab and scorpion monster fight that she shuffled off to take a bath. Brand's My Booky Wooky safely tucked under her arm.This movie, like so many of it's fellow Hammer House Horrors, takes an awful long time to set the stage for the horror. An awful long time. So much time is spent on the set up, I think they had to either cut out a major section at the end or more likely just left that part of the script un-filmed. Specifically, how the heroes manage to build a raft, a catapult, and then find the bad guys gallery just in time to save their buddies. In addition to being a completely worthless group of people - all with "terribly" scandalously British deviancy (rich nympo, disgraced mistress, lecherous bounty hunter, perverted father, terrible sailors, alcoholic piano man!) - they are completely unflustered by the most shocking things. For instance, when the weed attacks Lansen, everyone just sits there, bored. Barely caring enough to check to see if he is okay or what the seaweed managed to inflict. Then when the cook goes overboard into a bloody mess, the whole lifeboat is like "oh dear, did something happen?"This is not to mention probably one of the worst shark attacks ever filmed. Seriously dreadful.The only saving grace other than the balloons is really Ricaldi's slimy presence. Too bad he gets pulled off the boat by some green glowing eye tentacle monster. I would have liked to have seen more of both of them things.
January 9, 2012
