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

Little Shop of Horrors (1960) – A Humble Flower Shop On Skid Row

Review by Steve D. Stones

If you're a fan of director Roger Corman, you can't help but recognize the plot similarities of his 1960 film – Little Shop of Horrors to his 1959 film – A Bucket of Blood. Both films are great fun and make an entertaining double feature.

Actor Dick Miller, who played the struggling coffee house waiter and sculptor in A Bucket of Blood, plays a floral shop patron who eats flowers by sprinkling salt on them. Myrtle Vail, who played Miller's annoying landlady in A Bucket of Blood, is also cast in this film, only this time she is Seymour Krelboin's hypochondriac mother. 

Pay close attention for an appearance by very young Jack Nicholson as Wilbur Force.

Seymour Krelboin, played by Corman regular Jonathan Haze, works as an incompetent floral shop clerk owned by Yiddish owner Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles). Mushnik blames Krelboin for his slow business, even though it is located in a run down part of town known as skid row. He threatens to fire Krelboin for the slow business. Krelboin pleads for his job by telling Mushnik that he has invented a unique plant by crossing a butterworth plant and a Venus fly trap. He believes this new plant will attract new customers to the flower shop.

Krelboin brings the plant to the shop and names it after Mushnik's daughter – Audrey (Jackie Joseph). Mushnik and Audrey are pleased with the plant and Krelboin is able to keep his job. Audrey is greatly flattered that Krelboin would name the plant after her, so she gives him a kiss and the two become very close and eventually engaged. The plant begins to look unhealthy, so Mushnik once again threatens to fire Krelboin if he cannot nurse the plant back to life.

That evening Krelboin pricks his finger and accidentally flicks blood on the Audrey Jr. plant. The blood brings the plant back to life. The plant even talks to Krelboin by saying “feeed me!” and “I'm hungry!” Krelboin eventually pricks all his fingers to provide blood for the plant. This makes for a funny scene when Mushnik asks about the cuts on all ten fingers and Krelboin tells him it is from ten bee stings.

Krelboin feeds the plant body parts of a town drunk, a prostitute he accidentally kills, and his murdered dentist – Dr. Forbes. The plant grows bigger and bigger with each feeding. This begins to greatly concern Mushnik, who witnesses Krelboin feeding body parts to the plant one evening when he returned to the shop. The growing plant catches the attention of the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California and two giddy teenage girls who want to purchase a thousand dollars worth of flowers from the shop for a high school parade float.

When the chairwoman of The Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California arrives one evening to give an award to Krelboin for this plant, some of the buds open up on the plant to reveal the heads of victims fed to the plant. Krelboin then flees the shop. Two police detectives named Fink and Smith chase after Krelboin through a tire factory and toilet accessories warehouse.

Like the ending of A Bucket of Blood, Krelboin returns to the scene of the crime and offers himself as a sacrifice to the Audrey plant by killing himself inside the plant. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) in A Bucket of Blood also returns to his scene of the crime and hangs himself in his apartment where he made sculptures molded from his murdered victims.

Both Paisley and Krelboin in both films are shy, quiet, constantly hounded by their boss, and later paid great attention to by the opposite sex for creating something unique. Both characters are also investigated by police detectives and chased through warehouses at the end of the film.

It's interesting to note that director Corman completed this film in only two days, which was a record for him at the time. He quickly utilized sets from another film that were soon to be torn down. Budget estimates for the film range from $22,000 to $100,000 according to Danny Peary's book – Cult Movies (Gramercy Books – Random House 1981). The film was later remade in 1986 as a big budget musical starring comedian Steve Martin in the role of a dentist named Orin Scrivello. This 1986 version also has a strong cult following of fans. Happy viewing!