Monster From The Ocean Floor – A great 1950s sea creature movie

 

--

Roger Corman's first produced film, Monster From The Ocean Floor (1954), is a tightly directed and entertainingly low-budget creature feature. The man behind the camera, director Wyott Ordung, is also responsible for writing the 1953 monster classic – Robot Monster. Ordung also plays the role of Pablo, a Mexican native to a small coastal town whose citizens believe in a sea creature who emerges from the depths of the ocean to murder some of the villagers.

Julie Blair, played by shapely blonde beauty Anne Kimbell, is enjoying some rest and relaxation at the ocean when she encounters a Mexican boy who tells a story of his father being abducted by a sea creature near an ocean cove. Blair dismisses the boy's story as a wild imagination. Blair also encounters a handsome marine biologist named Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade) who invites her on board his boat to discuss his work in marine biology. Dunning navigates the ocean in his small self-propelled mini submarine. Blair hitches a ride on top of the submarine to get to Dunning's boat.

Blair soon becomes intrigued by accounts of local villagers claiming to witness a sea monster. She goes to Pablo (Wyott Ordung) to hear his account of the sea creature. Pablo says the sea creature first appeared around 1946, about the same time that nuclear tests were being conducted in the ocean. A villager named Tula (Inaz Palange) claims the sea creature abducted her beloved dog Alfredo, leaving the dog's collar behind on the beach.

Tula convinces Pablo that in order for the sea creature to leave the villagers alone, a human sacrifice to the creature is necessary. She suggests that Blair be the next sacrifice to the creature. Pablo fails twice to offer Blair as a sacrifice to the creature. He first drips some of his own blood into the ocean to attract the creature as Blair is under water swimming. He fails a second time by draining oxygen out of Blair's scuba tank.

The underwater sequences in this film are quite well done for a low-budget film and appear to not employ stand-in actors or stock footage to replace the main actors. We see a number of scenes of actress Anne Kimbell swimming with her scuba gear in the ocean, and it is obvious that it's her and not a stand-in actor. Actor Stuart Wade also appears to be doing his swimming sequences at the end of the film, instead of a stand-in actor.

Animated sequences of the sea creature in the ocean seem to match quite well with the footage of divers in the water. The sea creature looks a bit similar to the eye creatures in The Crawling Eye (1958, aka The Trollenberg Terror), with his outstretched tentacles and cyclops appearance. Dunning steers his mini submarine directly into the eye of the creature. Blair manages to hook a chunk of the sea creature onto her boat anchor and uses it as proof to Dunning that the creature exists.

Every time I watch Monster From The Ocean Floor, I can't help but think of the 1975 classic – Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg. Although Jaws is a much bigger budgeted film and is listed as one of the best films of all time, Jaws borrows some of its plot from a film like Monster From The Ocean Floor. Writer Peter Benchley may have been thinking of low budget films such as Monster From The Ocean Floor when he wrote Jaws in 1974. Bigger-budget Hollywood films often borrow many elements from low-budget science fiction and horror films.

Jonathon Haze, an actor who would go on to star in a number of Roger Corman films, plays the role of Joe – a Mexican fisherman whose friend is the first victim of the sea creature in the film. Haze is best known for his hilarious role of a florist – Seymour Krelborn in Little Shop of Horrors (1960).

Monster From The Ocean Floor played on a double bill in drive-in movie theaters with the 1952 film – The Queen of Sheba. Although the film was not well received by many critics, Monster From The Ocean Floor is significant because it was the start of Roger Corman's career as a low-budget auteur and launched him into the realm of directing. Happy viewing.

Steve D. Stones

Peter Lorre's The Face Behind the Mask has a finale that punches viewers in the gut

 

Review by Doug Gibson

"The Face Behind the Mask," 1941, may be Peter Lorre's most understated masterpiece. He's superb as kind, pacifistic immigrant Janos Szabo, who is disfigured in a fire. His appearance kills his career as a watchmaker, so he embarks on crime and is very successful, buying a mask to alleviate his appearance.

One day he meets a beautiful blind working woman, played by Evelyn Keyes, and they fall in love. Szabo leaves his crime gang, but they won't let him go. The final 20 minutes or so of this film has the impact of a punch in the gut. Ironically, I learned on TCM's commentary that Lorre hated the film.

Lorre signature menace is excellently portrayed here, despite his then-slight figure. He’s initially an idealistic immigrant from Hungary, eager and optimistic. It’s powerful to witness his despair and loss of idealism that turns him into a reluctant crime leader.

Above and below are 1941 newspaper clippings on the film, from the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram, the Oakland (Calif.) Post Inquirer, and the Daily Times-Advocate, from Escondido, Calif. Plan9Crunch thanks David Grudt, of Long Beach, Calif., for unearthing these gems.

Grimm Episode 2 Review and Plot Hole Discussion

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction

 

We have already reviewed the pilot for NBC’s Grimm, with a section in that post explaining some of the context of the show and why we are talking about it. I would advise you to read that before proceeding here, and you can follow this link: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/01/nbcs-grimm-reviewing-pilot.html

 

Bears Will Be Bears Review

 

As the opening quote, “She looked in the window and then peeped through the keyhole; seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch,” relays, this is the Goldilocks story, but specifically the original 1837 Robert Southey version “The Story of the Three Bears.” In this original version, the bears are three bachelors (which maps onto this episode’s title being “Bears Will Be Bears” after the “boys will be boys” masculinity motif that the episode will have some commentary on), and Goldilocks is not named Goldilocks and is in fact not a child but an old woman. That said, this is still inextricable from the context of the later Goldilocks alterations because the woman here is named Gilda (gilded = coated in gold). Why Gilda is aged up (though not fully to old woman status) seems to be either to be more accurate to the original or simply because there was already a young girl in danger last episode, so it would seem repetitive.

 

Gilda and her paramour Rocky (I guess naming the character Locke would have been too on the nose) immediately break and enter into a nice house littered with bear iconography and symbolism. They sample the clothes, food and wine before trying out multiple beds in a PG13 (or rather TV14) fashion. This kind of lower class decadent cosplay of the rich is a valid modernization of the original old woman’s actions as well as on the class commentary some Grimm stories include (video on The Hare and The Hedgehog coming soon to our YouTube channel Plan9Crunch, link here: https://www.youtube.com/@Plan9Crunch).

 

In any case, the family has arrived home. Just as the old woman of old, Gilda leaps out of the window, but some roaring thing gets its hands on Rocky before another one chases Gilda to her truck, and she drives off.

 

In the hospital, a doctor examines Nick after he took the syringe meant for Aunt Marie last episode. It is a little unclear whether Nick survived the neurotoxin in the syringe because he is a Grimm or because Adalind and Renard prepared just enough to kill an old woman in a coma with it (Renard, given his backstory as well as current job of Police Captain, should know to stay under the radar with his moves, and, thus, I find it likely it was the bare minimum required to kill an old lady so that it would not arouse much suspicion. If the feeble woman covered in scars happens to have slight amounts of a neurotoxin in her system it adds to the mystery, but, if she was obviously poisoned, that would supersede her feeble status and mysterious past to drive an investigation somewhere rather than nowhere).

 

After some banter with Hank, Nick sees Aunt Marie being moved into surgery, and Renard swoops in to “secure” the scene. The three go off to look at the security tapes to look for Adalind, and Renard asks Nick specifics about his relationship with Marie before subtly undermining their efforts on the Adalind case by stating that it will be difficult to get an ID from the back (he must have ensured that she would only be visible on the cameras from certain unhelpful angles before letting her go in there).

 

Hank has Nick do the same “analysis from afar” trick he used on Adalind last episode on Gilda. Many commentators on this series have stated this “Sherlock Scan” to be a dropped character trait and an example of “Early Installment Weirdness,” but I do not buy that because, going forward, it will be a consistent trait of Nick’s role as a Grimm that he has to make judgements off of quick moments relying on what he can read of a person from the split seconds of seeing their mannerisms or later on their Woge (which is what it is called when their Wesen form reveals itself). Including these scenes now reinforces how he will be able to use his present skills as a Grimm later on; including more of these scenes later would be redundant alongside the episodic Woge scenes. (There is also more to be said about how the backstory implications Nick highlights in Gilda and Adalind might mirror the lived experience and often rough home life of a Wesen and how his profiling might not be merely the same mechanism but just the same action; however that is season 5 territory more so than season 1.)

 

Gilda leads Nick and Hank back to the house, where their coworker Drew Wu is already there on account of the family, the Rabes, reporting breaking and entering upon arriving home from Seattle. (The timing of their arrival is coincidental but does not qualify as any plot issue because it is literally the inciting incident of this story; if they had not arrived back precisely when they did, the entire story would not have happened, not just some parts of it. I will elaborate on what plot points I do take issue with in the “plot holes in Grimm” section of this review.) Rabe is, of course, an anagram for Bear, and Hank identifies their aboriginal art collection while Nick grows more and more suspicious based on claw marks by the window. Mother Rabe brings up respecting their ancestors, while Father Rabe tries to shut her down. This will play into some of the larger themes: the name is Rabe, not bear, an anagram of bear nonetheless, but the patriarch whose name the rest bare is the least interested in being a bear, and so he is Rabe. The son is named Barry (a homophone of bear) so guess where he stands on the issue (I am not arguing that the characters are aware of the philosophical coding in their names; it is the storytelling priming us for their later roles).

 

Cut to Rocky in a den being menaced by a bear, likely this missing Barry, and, now is a particularly late title card (10 minutes in) just simply showing the word Grimm and a brief flash of Adalind’s Hexenbiest face (in this episodic procedural, Nick and Adalind are the main players in every title card. That will be important). At the station, Nick and Hank finally get Gilda’s statement, and it seems a little weird they are only doing this now, but the brief excursion to the Rabe house did reveal her guilt, so this could be them finally booking her. Nick is more sympathetic than Hank and asks, once Hank leaves the room, if she can identify what chased her. Wu reveals Rocky is definitively poor, lacking a phone, which will make it even harder to find him in the Rabe den, but Nick is determined to go back there until Marie calls him.

 

Marie tries to console Nick, calling him to hunt down the bad Wesen. (She indicates that there is a reason he is a cop, and this could be about his sense of justice or my idea that he is already using the playbook of a Grimm, or perhaps both.) She is paranoid about the Reapers and exposits briefly on that organization as well as the importance of keeping the trailer secret.

 

Nick and Hank, returning to the Rabe residence, stumble upon three bikers each wearing a primary color. These are Barry and his friends, and while Hank interrogates the Rabes, Father Frank Rabe watches Nick watching Barry woge. Frank immediately becomes hostile to Nick, who reflects on the bear symbology on the premises (specifically a totem pole he researches on his home computer with Juliette a couple scenes later).

 

Renard meets with Adalind under a bridge, and their dialogue explains part of their aims. Renard cannot allow Marie to tell Nick anything more, because Renard wants Nick on his side in regards to some unspecified conflict. Renard wants Adalind to outsource this hit to humans, specifically so that they do not get excited and woge. Now what Renard is in this world is a mystery for a little while, but this shows him to be knowledgeable about the woge, meaning that if anybody could stifle their woge long term, it would be calculating Renard. Someone threatens Adalind under this bridge, and Renard rolls his window up as she kills or at least probably maims the man.

 

After a scene reminding us of Nick and Juliette’s relationship, Barry and his friends prepare a sacrifice pit (remember the bears will be bears title; it’ll be important to these characters), and Nick dreams of Aunt Marie advising him in the trailer and stabbing his hand with a knife. Juliette tries to support and comfort Nick, and this might be the first confirmation of her job as a veterinarian, which will have plot relevance toward the end of the season. In the trailer, Nick finds a bear hand item just like one the Rabes had, and he visits Monroe mid-workout.

 

As I mentioned last time, much of the structure of season one is devoted to deepening the friendship and partnership of Nick and Monroe, so this mostly comedic scene of Nick asking for Monroe’s help has some tension but also displays the characters’ chemistry. Monroe sighs when he opens the door to see Nick, but he also sighed when he paused his pilates to get the door, which makes sense insofar as the last episode indicated Blutbaden have a very heightened sense of smell, so he probably knew Nick was there before opening the door. Monroe identifies the Jagerbars by the item Nick has as being important to the Jagerbar coming of age ceremony the Roh-Hatz, and Monroe voices fear about the proposition of Aunt Marie being in town and hunting him (after Renard pulls the guards, Nick will task Monroe with protecting Marie in the hospital as the comedic subplot for this episode).

 

The Roh-Hatz is explicitly masculine and about connecting with the inner beast by chasing victims. Aunt Marie fills Nick in on the rest of the procedure, such as that it happens at sunset. When Gilda returns to the Rabe’s with a gun to get some answers about Rocky, Barry woges and restrains her, prompting the reveal that his traditional mother is in fact the one organizing the Roh-Hatz for them. The presence of a trio of Jagerbar bachelors in Barry and his friends should have clarified to anyone familiar with the original tale that the family of Rabes would not be the trio of bears, but the earlier disagreement between Father and Mother Rabe indicates that only the Father is truly innocent of this. Now, the title, once again is Bears Will Be Bears, and Barry’s mother is taking this attitude toward Jagerbars, not only insofar as bears will be bears but bears must be bears for their society and family unit to work. Barry’s father contrasts this style of masculinity by neglecting that side of themselves and what they can do/have done historically. Instead, the Rabes are quite wealthy collectors of Jagerbar artifacts, and this would be because Father Rabe is not concerning himself with rituals to justify killing people, instead being a lawyer.

 

Nick and Hank arrive back at the Rabes trying to intercept Gilda, and, once Hank leaves, Nick and Frank talk about what they are and who that means they are to each other. Mother Rabe refuses to yield to her husband when he asks her to tell Nick where the boys are keeping Rocky (clarifying the type of masculinity she responds to), and Frank Rabe takes Nick with him in his 4-wheeler to find Gilda and Rocky. Meanwhile, Hank finds Gilda’s truck. Frank makes Nick promise not to hurt the boys if he does not need to. Cutting to the bear boys, part of their ritual is cutting themselves to put their blood on the victims.

 

Monroe confronts a sleeping Marie, who awakes and threatens him, but in doing so, he foils an attempt on her life, so he goes off to follow the would-be assassin. The assassins beat up Monroe until he woges, rips off one of their arms, and says things went too far. Monroe, in wanting to avoid violence but still being aware of his cultural heritage (briefly wanting to kill Marie because a Grimm killed one of his relatives), represents the same kind of masculinity as Frank.

 

Frank and Nick find the den, but the hunt has started. Frank woges, prompting Nick to pull his gun on him, and Frank runs off to try to intercept the boys. Nick finds Gilda and Rocky, kicking the boys down and firing his gun in the sky to try to get them to stand down. Frank comes between Nick and Barry, who stands down, but Mother Diane Rabe barrels out of the forest as an actual bear (I’ll get to that), and accidentally impales herself in the sacrifice pit trying to kill Nick. As the boys, Gilda and Rocky are arrested, and Diane is taken away in an ambulance, Rocky is aware he has done something wrong, Diane insists that they have to respect their ancestors, and Frank responds, “Not like this.”

 

At the hospital, someone dressed as a reverend attacks Marie, and she dies killing him. Juliette watches on as Nick moves the trailer and visits her grave in a time lapse. Some Wesen watches Nick at the grave from within the bushes, and, if I had to guess, it seems like it would be Steinadler (bird Wesen) Farley Kolt, played by Titus Welliver, who has a role within the overarching plotline of the season and a past with Aunt Marie.

 

Episode two is more ambitious than the first in terms of thematic content and juggling the amount of characters and the moralities of all involved. However, my predisposition to it is a little negative compared to the first episode because of the moment where Diane Rabe turns into a full bear and not just full Jagerbar, so the back half of this post will be about the plot holes in Grimm and why, while frustrating, they do not ruin the show.

 

Plot Holes In Grimm

 

I will have to spoil certain things in talking about some of the plot holes of this show, so, unless you want spoilers pertaining to mostly random oddities and contrivances scattered throughout the show, you can stop reading here.

 

As I was flipping through a collection of The Brothers Grimm stories, I noticed one called Mother Hulda, which was interesting because Marie's attacker in the pilot was named Hulda, but, as far as I could ascertain, Hulda would be closer to a witch (or prophetess via Biblical allusion) than a male assassin. It does make me wonder why the showrunners didn't use that name for a Hexenbiest, especially for Henrietta whose name already started with H, but it does not appear that the name meant anything after all. (This is not a plot hole by any means, just a curiosity and additional paragraph to give you a chance to leave if you do not want spoilers for the show.)

 

According to a tie-in book called The Icy Touch, the Brothers Grimm do exist but are not actually Grimms. The novel, from Titan Books, allegedly has many explicit continuity issues (mistaking Hasslichen for Reapers and conflating Siegbarstes and Hasslichen) including worsening a would-be plot hole in the main show by referring to Sean Renard as part Hexenbiest. (He is not, in fact, a Hexenbiest, but half its male counterpart Zauberbiest and half Royal.) 

 

The possible plot hole comes in season 2, where, after it is made explicit that ingesting a Grimm’s blood negates a Hexenbiest's powers long term, Renard ends up ingesting Nick’s blood with no power loss. (I am more than fine to give the show benefit of the doubt on Hexenbiests and Zauberbiests having separate material properties because there is a name distinction between them, but writer John Shirley evidently thinks that Renard is a Hexenbiest and thus, retroactively applying cause and effect, should have lost his powers in season two.)

 

When I think of a plot hole or contrivance, there are obviously different levels to it, but I generally think of something that is impossible or highly improbable based on the established rules. There is some leeway if an event is circumstantial enough to be just a coincidence and not a contrivance, but even coincidences can stack into an overall contrivance. In this episode, Wesen are capable of fully becoming the animal they embody as we see with Mother Rabe. Now, technically speaking, when viewed in the context of the rest of the show, this seems like a trait of merely the Jagerbars. I recall seeing a claim that some early season one interview implied Monroe was also capable of this “if he got angry enough,” but I could not find any citation (in this episode though Monroe is stifling his true power, so there is nothing in the episode to say that a fully centered and bloodthirsty Monroe would not be able to turn into a full wolf). Throughout the show, there are moments that would drastically change if just any Wesen were able to do this, but, as the viewer, we can construct a minimally invasive headcanon to create greater organic unity.

 

In the first episode for later payoffs in catching the Postman to work, Oster’s ipod must keep playing Sweet Dreams continually from the moment she dies to the moment Nick and Hank find her body and ipod or have cycled through an entire playlist back to that song precisely when they show up. As audiovisual storytelling and shorthand, it is a good writing decision to keep that song playing as a motif through the episode, but placing plot importance on it risks damaging the overall cohesion.

 

The Reapers altogether disappear from the show after season one, and, while Nick puts up a credible defense against them, even landing a major victory, it does not make sense that a successful and storied organization would cease just on the account of one man they failed only a few times against. The later Royal family arc shows the international political scale of such factions, and the Hadrian’s Wall and Black Claw war of season 5 shows an efficient way to marry large international organization status with the personal stories of a few key players (that, if destroyed, mean the functional destruction of their causes), but none of the thought that went into these plotlines can retroactively work to explain the Reapers, and so I must conclude it a poor mark on the overall show.

 

In season two, supernatural shenanigans place a major strain on Nick and Juliette’s relationship to where they do not sleep in the same bed anymore. Consequently, Nick is forced to sleep on the couch or at Monroe’s house, but season three reveals they had a spare bedroom the entire time. The best defense I have heard for why Nick does not sleep in the guest bedroom is that it is their routine to sleep on the couch during disagreements, but that does not hold water, because the reason for this spat is that Juliette has literally forgotten everything about Nick and their cohabitation (it makes more sense in context). Clearly, the guest bedroom did not exist yet and would have changed season two if it did.

 

I notice fewer issues with the show in its later seasons, but even these earlier examples are contextual and only an issue based on specifics. I do not like plot holes and like even less playing defense for plot points I can’t even argue are mere coincidences, but it is also about a story’s overall cohesion. The contrivance that allowed for a payoff is not the only notable feature of the plot; we must also evaluate the strength of that payoff, since it was evidently so important to get to that point that logic was allowed to falter. Most stories do not manage to have great payoffs built on the shaky sand foundation, and that is why plot holes are as big a deal as they are, but this show is very good at using all of its pieces to tell a cathartic and fresh story, so it is not the biggest deal. The presence of plot holes and, at that, ones that affect the entirety of seasons means to me that I cannot give the show a 10 out of 10, because a perfect version of this show would inevitably be different, but the execution of ideas good and bad in this show are so strong that I could give it up to a 9 out of 10...pending another rewatch of course. We likely will not cover any more episodes with in depth reviews on this blog, so I invite you to watch this show for yourself on Amazon Prime Video.

 

The Invisible Ray: Lugosi and Karloff go science fiction

The Invisible Ray, Universal, 1936, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton. Directed by Lambert Hillyer. 3 stars - One of the classic 1930s Universal pairings of Karloff and Lugosi. A trailer is here.

This film is unique in that it is a science fiction film, rather than a horror film. Karloff and Lugosi are scientists who travel to Africa to find "Radium X," who Karloff has proven crashed into earth millions of years ago. 

"Radium X" is discovered, but contact with it turns Karloff radioactive, and deadly to the touch. Lugosi prepares medicine that counters the poison, but when Karloff's wife, (Drake) leaves him for an adventurer, Lawton, Karloff, going slowly insane, shirks the medicine and goes on a killing spree. Violet Kemble Cooper is creepy as Karloff's mother. 

This a post pre-code 1930s Universal chiller with Lugosi and Karloff and it lacks the more overt horror and sadism of the pair’s earlier pre-code films The Black Cat and The Raven. While not as popular today as those two earlier films, it’s still a strong film. It’s a better film than their final Universal co-starring film, Black Friday.

Lugosi plays the good character, and he shows that his acting depth went well beyond just the horror genre. Karloff is effective as the determined scientist gone mad.

Easy to buy and usually on TCM once a year.

-- Doug Gibson

Bela Lugosi produces menace, chills in Invisible Ghost

 

By Doug Gibson

Once,  I spared a paragraph on "Invisible Ghost," Bela Lugosi's first Monogram film. Ironically, it was the first Lugosi Monogram I ever saw and years ago I was rather dismissive of the film, particularly Lugosi's insane murder moments. Watching it again, as recent as last night, and comparing it to other Lugosi Monograms, I re-evaluate it as technically, the best looking Lugosi poverty-row offering of the 1940s, if not the most campy or cultish. That notice still remains with "Devil Bat," "Bowery at Midnight," and "The Ape Man."

Here's what I wrote on this blog: "THE INVISIBLE GHOST, 1941:

"Lugosi's first Monogram has a convoluted plot but benefits from above-average direction from Joseph H. Lewis. Lugosi plays a kindly man whose wife deserted him. Unbelievably, she still lives on the grounds and he goes quite mad when he catches glimpses of her. The deaths lead to the execution of one innocent man whose brother (same actor) comes to the house to seek justice. Lugosi's hypnotic walk when under the murder spell of his wife is campy but the actor also brings pathos to it. Former silent star Betty Compson plays Lugosi's estranged, insane wife."

Lewis' direction is superb, and he throws in touches that other, run of the mill cheapie directors do not do, including interesting shots from a fire place, with the flames dancing in front of the actors, and excellent forward shots of a horrified Lugosi seeing his wife Compson through the window in a storm. The acting is better, particularly black actor Clarence Muse as Evans the butler who acts with dignity, and not a Stephen Fetchit portrayal. And the film's love interest is the talented Polly Ann Young, the least successful of the sisters in Hollywood trio that included Loretta Young and Sally Blane. Also, the sets seem of better quality than an average Monogram film.

One the minus side, the script is weak and convoluted, and mildly confusing. I think quality of scripts are the biggest difference between Universal B films and poverty row offerings in the 1940s. The other distinction is depth of acting talent in the films. Also, although Lugosi is excellent in his role -- even now I see the restraint in his insane moments that I missed on my first viewing, his playing of Mr. Kessler is not a role that demands any particular expertise or trait that made Lugosi unique. For example, the role could easily have been played -- at 90 percent of Lugosi's strength -- by George Zucco.

The film has Lugosi as a usually decent man who has temporary insane moments believing his long-departed wife is living in the house. The wife, played by Compson is actually on the grounds, being cared for -- without Lugosi''s character's knowledge. However, he occasionally sees her through his house's windows. That prompts him to go into a trance and kill whomever is in his sight. Early in the film is a genuinely scary scene where Lugosi, in a murderous trance, kills a maid in her bed. Director Lewis films this superbly, with a leering Lugosi coming closer to the terrified girl on the bed, and lifting a garment as a murder weapon. A radio playing pleasant music adds to the creepiness of the scene.

One more thing to add: Compson does a very good job as Lugosi's insane wife, who wanders around the Kessler estate. The poor script offers very little in how she could manage this so consistently, but as mentioned, scripts were not a priority on poverty row.

I highly endorse "Invisible Ghost" as a strong Lugosi poverty row offering. It appropriately belongs in the top tier of the Monogram cheapies and comes the closest to looking like a Universal B offering.

NBC's Grimm: Reviewing the Pilot

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction

 

Hi and welcome back to Plan9Crunch, where today our exigence is a little different than usual. Cult followings are often established over time, sometimes long after the stimulus itself has even ended. NBC’s Grimm was a show running from 2011 to 2017 that unfortunately failed to leave the same cultural impact as Buffy or Angel (despite being better than both of them), but the reason we are talking about it today is because of the recent news of a Peacock revival movie (and its small but passionate fan-base makes it the kind of cult we talk about here).

 

Lasting six seasons, it is very unlikely we will ever cover all the episodes here. Today, I will review the first episode of the show, share my thoughts on season one as a whole, and basically write to convince you to watch this show if you have not already (and even if you have, the rewatchability of this show is great, as I also hope to demonstrate).

 

Grimm is the story of Nicholas Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), a Portland cop, who realizes that he is a Grimm/Decapitare, which means he can see the Grimm’s fairy tale monsters living amongst humanity (and the traditional role of a Grimm is to decapitate or otherwise dispatch the violent monsters called Wesen). His coworkers allow the show to explore the ramifications of revealing or keeping secret this hidden knowledge about the world, the Wesen friends he makes allow for exploration of the different cultures that exist in this world, and scheming police captain Sean Renard (Sasha Roiz) demonstrates the aspects of both the criminal underworld and high society. There are a lot of moving pieces, and I will get into what I think sets this show apart from the competitors at least in regards to season one at the end of this review, but, if any of this interests you, please check the show out on Amazon Prime Video or the physical six season box set available through Walmart among other places.

 

Grimm is evidently a multimedia franchise already, as my forays into the Grimm wiki looking for trivia on the first episode led me to the discovery of multiple series of comic spinoffs, some as prequels following Marie Kessler (Kate Burton) and others are midquels about Nick and his friends as we see them in the show. The movie is not even the first time a revival concept has arisen, but, hopefully, this movie does come out. Funnily enough, Wikipedia describes the show as not only a police procedural but also “occult detective fiction.” A much clearer designation to me is urban fantasy (where fantastical elements blend with real world settings) or possibly paranormal romance (urban fantasy that focuses on love) if you gaze deep into those subplots and imagery, but the day to day episode to episode conflicts are very much procedural dramas.

 

The pilot of Grimm is the Little Red Riding story adapted to police procedural format. We have read from Little Red Riding Hood on our YouTube channel already, link at the bottom of this article. Little Red Riding is, simply put, the story of a young girl drawing the attention of a ravenous wolf that outmaneuvers her, impersonates her loved one and finally eats her. The earliest known recorded version (from Charles Perrault) simply ends there, but the version recorded by Jacob and Wilhem Grimm introduced a happier ending: a hunter figure emerges to save Little Red Riding Hood. That makes this the perfect pilot for a show about this mythical hunter of the fairy tale creatures. If there was any doubt of the inspiration, the episode begins with a quote from the tale “The wolf thought to himself, what a tender young creature. What a nice plump mouthful…” The wolf’s predatory behavior, in some versions of this tale, is sexual or purely hunger induced. The wolf’s motivations in this pilot will oscillate accordingly, where he feeds on one victim and kidnaps the other for different reasons.

 

Cold Open

 

The cold open centers on college girl Sylvie Oster jogging through a wooded region of Portland to Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams wearing a bright red jacket. A small toy/statue distracts her, and, suddenly, a big bad wolf whizzes past to brutally murder her. We do not see much of the actual attack or the wolf itself; it is a jarring image meant to set our expectations of the show, as the shot returns to the IPod playing Sweet Dreams. The murder was quick, brutal and realistic, but the show did not revel in the grit and gore, and that describes this show exceedingly well (with the exception of a season 4 arc that is meant to be uncomfortable to watch by contrast to the rest of the show due to that arc’s heavier themes).

 

Character Establishing Moments

 

Next is our introduction to Nick and his partner Hank (Russell Hornsby, who you may know from small role in Creed II), and this is very significant in a way that it is easy to overlook. Nick has all sorts of childhood baggage that the show will later explore, but that is not our first vision of him. He has procured a ring with which to propose to his girlfriend Juliette Silverton (Elizabeth Tulloch, probably most recently known for her version of Lois Lane in the show Superman and Lois), but that connection is not the focus of the scene. 

Nick’s faithfulness contrasts Hank’s womanizing, and yet Nick’s eye does wander to Claire Coffee’s Adalind Schade. Nick justifies this by studying her personality based on her appearance and his gut (this is the playbook he will use as a cop but also as a Grimm), and he is mostly correct with his assessment: she does make money and is falling for an older man (just not a senior partner). 

 

However, she then becomes a horrifying hag in front of him, another thing that only he sees in her, seeing it instantly. Adalind is a Hexenbiest (essentially a witch), and their rivalry will be a major part of the show, but it is Nick’s fluctuating perception of her and her background that will define their rivalry over the course of the show. I do not want to spoil the character work between them, but she was Nick’s first steps into this world, and this chance meeting affects the entirety of the show from here on.

 

Nick and Hank arrive at the crime scene and then back to the station where Nick sees another Wesen and literally bumps into coworker Drew Wu (Reggie Lee). The show employs some tension when bald woman Marie Kessler brings her trailer to and breaks into Nick’s house, while Nick and Hank identify Sylvie Oster officially. When Nick finally arrives home, the scene is dark with foreboding music. Blue and red dominate the shot, while Marie sits at a table chopping a tomato, but it turns out Marie is Nick’s aunt, and Juliette is also in the kitchen. Accordingly, the colors of the scene become less hostile and more well-lit and vibrant.

 

Aunt Marie takes Nick for a walk, explaining that due to her cancer, she does not have much time left and needs to exposit to Nick about Grimms. She warns Nick that he must end things with Juliette. Notice how Juliette is treated in this episode: there is no meet-cute, Nick is introduced checking out another woman, and now whether or not the relationship will continue is up in the air. This makes for effective tension about the relationships of these characters, because we cannot rely on a sappy clichéd “love conquers all” that got set up before the actual stakes arose (like it is in so many shows). Anything could reasonably happen here, making it harder for us as the omniscient audience to predict what happens, which grounds us in Nick’s perspective, making him a singularly relatable character).

 

Suddenly, a Wesen known as Hulda (Danny Hernandez) attacks Aunt Marie and Nick, gravely wounding the former. Hulda wields a scythe and is hunting the hunter. He is part of a faction called Reapers that unfortunately drops out of the story around the end of season one. Nick finally kills Hulda with several gunshots (by season six, guns are framed as one of the most effective weapons against Wesen, but this discrepancy technically makes sense because Hulda is an elite Wesen that has already survived multiple encounters with Marie, and, honestly, the early season one Wesen that require several shots or a special gun to go down are probably still some of the strongest ones encountered by the end of the show).

 

Aunt Marie tells Nick his parents did not die in a car crash and gives him a key, explaining that Hulda’s people will be after it (even though the Reapers leave the show, other factions remain focused on attaining the key and what it unlocks, so the stakes still map to the rest of the show). They continue their conversation in the hospital. While Marie alludes to “the stories" being true, I do not think there is evidence to support that she means the Grimm Fairy Tales we know about it in our world, since she directs Nick to her trailer containing different books and different stories than what Jacob and Wilhelm published. Grimms are their own thing in this universe, but there are some later moments in the show that I can recall do imply the Brothers Grimm exist (hopefully I'll have an answer if I do another one of these).

 

Police Captain Sean Renard checks in with Nick after the latter’s shooting of Hulda, and, while I have already shown my hand about Renard’s shiftiness, it enhances the scene to know that (and it is revealed by the end of the episode anyway). The first thing we hear Renard say is that Nick chose the right person to shoot. As we will learn, Renard is aware of Reapers and the other organizations after the key (and not necessarily on the same page as them), but there is also an interest he takes in his subordinates (insisting Nick see the police psychologist and get some rest) that can communicate either a fatherly disposition or a calculating one. The subtle tension Nick has with the Captain clarifies which we should read it as, but the dichotomies we can see in the different motivations Renard acts on motivate much of the drama in the show.

 

Nick dreams of Juliette in danger from a Wesen, and that motivates him to go into Marie’s trailer where he learns the word Hexenbiest and reflects on Adalind. Some viewers have voiced confusion about the dream as foreshadowing a future event as a dropped plot point. Maybe that was the intent, but the dream itself in context seems like the clearest way to visualize Nick’s burgeoning struggle to keep her separate from this new world that will define entire seasons of this show. Can he keep her out of danger while still keeping her near? Check in to NBC every week for the answer.

 

At the precinct, progress into the investigation is poor except for the realization that the killer wears a specific boot, and we now see the owner of this boot (obviously a Wesen but specifically a Blutbad) chance upon a young girl wearing red while dressed as a postman. He begins to follow her. Meanwhile, Marie, in a coma, is revealed to have sustained many knife wounds despite being a librarian (more evidence to support the mounting case for Nick that monsters are real), but Nick has to go to the crime scene about the kidnapping.

 

Later, Renard holds a meeting in the precinct breaking down the details of the kidnapping, which sends Nick and Hank to the area to scope around the perimeter including a wooded park. Nick and Hank splitting up leads Hank to discover the girl’s backpack labeled RH for Robin Howell (or Riding Hood) and leads Nick to discover the Blutbad Monroe, who Nick tackles.

 

Monroe was originally named Eddie Monroe, but Eddie must have changed around the time that Captain Ericson changed into Captain Renard. Based on clues later in the show, it makes the most sense if Monroe’s name is Monroe Monroe, but that seems very strange. Nick is convinced that Monroe is the kidnapper because he is a Blutbad (I personally would hold off on reading cop race relations into the show until season 5, but it is a valid reading of this meeting), and, as Nick’s next steps into his journey, he ignores Juliette in order to spy on Monroe. Monroe outmaneuvers him, jumps through the window to tackle Nick…and then invites him inside for a drink.

 

 

Two Blutbaden Not One

 

It turns out Monroe is not a pedophile kidnapper but instead aware of Grimms as a bogeyman type figure from his family’s bedtime stories and religious texts. Monroe is under the impression that a family member has to die for a Grimm to activate, and that might be true, but Monroe is by no means the authority on Grimms, just a well educated “reformed Blutbad.” It surprises Nick to learn Monroe goes to church, and, actually, jumping ahead, the differences between his religion and Judeo-Christianity become important in the final arc of the show. Monroe’s backstory gets some later focus too, but the show (mostly) has a great attention to detail especially in terms of the mechanism for how Wesen recognize Grimms clearly demonstrated when Monroe first lays eyes on Nick but not explained until season 3.

 

Now that the show has revealed that the Postman, played by Tim Bagley and known as Errol Ditmarsch in a previous draft, is a different character than Monroe, we see his hideout, a moss covered cabin in the woods where he holds the little girl captive in the basement. I know Bagley primarily as the comedic character Harold Krenshaw on Monk, so the revelation of his chilling pedophile character on this show was truly surprising. Monroe explained earlier that Blutbaden lose control with the color red, and the Postman removes the girl’s red jacket to hang in a closet alongside other identical ones.

 

Monroe and Nick take great lengths to obscure their arrival, lengths that no one will ever go again after this episode, and that is Wolfsbane to hide scent and wading through the river rather than walking down. Monroe even has to leave to avoid the pack instinct. These are mostly dropped concepts, but Monroe and Nick’s caution is appropriate for this point in their respective journeys. (Just because it might seem a bit contrived the way that I explained it, I should clarify. Monroe's involvement as it runs counter to the Postman is not a contrivance: Monroe is important to the story because Nick sought him out, thinking he was the other Blutbad. All else is the natural consequences of Nick profiling Monroe, and Monroe convincing him otherwise.)

 

Nick calls Hank in, and the sequence is mostly tension built from the Postman managing to seem normal, which makes Nick seem unreasonable. As I mentioned, much of this show seems focused on grounding us in Nick’s perspective. He has a very limited view of the world that increases over the course of the show, and there is a certain utility toward that end in drawing frustration from the lead being correct but unable to prove it. The Postman does give himself away eventually, and the cops kill the wolf, setting R H free.

 

The episode closes on Nick talking to Aunt Marie in the hospital as a cover of Sweet Dreams begins to play. A mysterious blonde girl preps a syringe for Marie, and it turns out to be Adalind, who sticks it into Nick instead after a struggle, knocking him out. Adalind joins Captain Renard in a car, revealing their connection and intentions. 1. They want Marie dead for some reason. 2. Sean Renard is the older man Adalind has fallen for (though that gets confirmed only later in the season).

 

Grimm Season One Thoughts and Conclusion

 

This is not exactly a traditional pilot that pitches you on a specific arc mystery based on a specific childhood trauma interspersed with a specific romantic goal. Nick’s parents’ deaths are important and do eventually feed into one of the season’s plot threads, the romantic connection with Juliette is an important component, and there are ongoing mysteries unfolding throughout season one with the keys and Renard, but the focus was on Nick entering this world and us along with him. The lore and worldbuilding of this series is rich, but it does not go for a title crawl info dump either. The season as a whole reads to me as “we’ll build up the friendship of Nick and Monroe and the rivalry of Adalind and Nick, and see how that weaves us into the finer details of how this world works.” I find that very unique and compelling as a format.

 

If any of this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to watch the pilot. Obviously, I have a deep respect for the show, built in large part on where the show goes from here, to the point that I can gloss over or retroactively justify some of the elements that do not fit as cleanly as I would like, and I will own up to that. If/when I review episode two of this show, I will take some time to give an overview of the largest plot holes I can recall on the show and how those do impact some of the payoffs, but Grimm, as I see it, is this extraordinary show that takes a source material so ingrained in our culture that following it verbatim would come off as cliched but warps it into a unique take with fascinating storytelling decisions I have not seen elsewhere. It is also a show that gets better as it progresses. In my estimations, the show’s quality peaks during season five into season six. On our YouTube channel, we have read from Grimm’s Fairy Tales (so this is not entirely out of left field for us to cover), and you can watch that by following the link here: https://youtu.be/51qOdmtau6g?si=6HSS7ulZHsy4uaW9