Movies That Suck/Dino Flicks: The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

None of those people are in this movie.

This is a very special installment of Movies That Suck, as this movie was one of the biggest disappointments of my film-loving life. I'd wanted to see The Crater Lake Monster for many, many years, ever since I saw the trailer in Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies. A number of the trailers in that compilation were pretty creepy to a kid who wasn't more than six at the time but that one really did scare me, mostly because it had some really creepy music that genuinely gave me cold chills, even if the movie itself looked like a standard monster flick that used stop-motion (I recognized those effects as being the same type used in The Lost World, King Kong, and other such movies on that tape, even if I hadn't yet learned what the term for them was). Looking at that trailer now on YouTube, it's still effectively edited and narrated, opening on a misty shot of the lake, with the faint sound of the monster roaring, as a narrator dramatically states, "What is the shuddering terror that strikes deep into the minds and bodies of these residents of a remote mountain community?" You then see a shot of the woods, with the monster bellowing nearby, and then the sheriff and the doctor looking at the marks it left in the mud, as that really creepy, distant droning music comes in and the narrator says, "Crater Lake Monster. A creature from the dawn of time, unleashed by a freak of nature to prey on an unsuspecting world." Mom almost considered taking that VHS back to Wal-Mart when I told her how scary the trailer was to me! After that, The Crater Lake Monster became yet another of the dozens and dozens of horror and sci-fi movies I wanted to see as a young child but wouldn't until many, many years later. And as also happened with many of those movies, when I got older and matured enough to understand film criticism, I read up on it and learned its reputation was far from glowing. Every single review blasted it, calling it stupid, terrible, and one of the worst monster movies ever. Still going on nostalgia from that trailer, I thought to myself, "Did they see the right movie?" By this point, I'd learned that a lot of the films I'd watched and thrilled to when I was young weren't exactly classics but, still, I was like, "It can't be this bad, can it?" Well, I found out in 2008, when I was 21 and finally saw The Crater Lake Monster.

My God, does this suck major asshole! Make no mistake, it's very deserving of its moniker as one of the worst giant monster movies ever made, as it fails on just about every single level such a film can: there's not nearly enough of the monster, the characters have nothing to them and the acting is nothing to write home about, the constant comic relief is stupid and groan-inducing, accomplishing nothing except stopping the movie cold, and it's not even entertaining on a cheesy B-movie level. I've since learned there were a number of problems concerning Crown International Pictures, the film's financier and distributor, who've been accused of completely squandering any potential it may have had. But, while there's no doubt that it could've been a lot better, I still have to judge it on what it is, which is a horrendous, disjointed mess.

One night, as he's relaxing at his cabin near Crater Lake in Northern California, local MD Dr. Richard Calkins is visited by his friend, paleontologist Dan Turner, who excitedly tells him that he and his girlfriend, Susan Patterson, have made a remarkable discovery. They bring him to their digging site, an ancient Native American cavern turned into a mine, and lead him down to a newly discovered tunnel that contains cave paintings depicting humans fighting off a Plesiosaur. But, at that moment, a meteorite crashes into the lake, causing a cave-in that the three of them just barely manage to escape. The next day, Steve Hanson, the local sheriff, takes the young scientists out onto the lake to search for the meteorite. They find the spot, but the rock is still too hot to get near and has raised the temperature of the water up to 90 degrees. Little do they and the rest of the residents know that the impact also unearthed a Plesiosaur egg that was resting within the mud on the bottom of the lake, and the increased water temperature, combined with the sunlight, acts as a natural incubator. Months later, the now hatched and full-grown monster begins eating not only the fish but anything he can get, venturing out of the lake to prey on livestock and even people. Various people who rent boats from a pair of friends, Arnie Chabot and Mitch Kowalski, also encounter the monster, some with lethal results. As the number of strange incidents around the lake rises, Hanson is at a loss to explain it and finds himself agreeing with Calkins' belief that there's something deadly in the lake. Eventually, he encounters the monster himself near the shore and tells Calkins, as well as Dan and Susan, of what he saw. Though Hanson would like nothing more than to kill the creature before he gobbles up every last resident, Dan and Susan hope to keep him alive due to his scientific significance. But with the monster coming ashore to find food more often now, the situation may be completely out of the scientists' hands.

Even though it did surprisingly well on the drive-in circuit (it grossed $3 million against a tiny budget of just $100,000), the movie killed the careers of many involved, chief among them director William R. Stromberg. Aside from working as an effects camera operator and stop-motion animator for the 1985 film, Night Train To Terror (which I know of due to its awful reputation), The Crater Lake Monster is the only film on his resume, and that also includes co-writing the screenplay and producing. And, unfortunately, that's all the background on him I could find, except that his sons, Robert and William T., have done much better in their respective careers, particularly Robert. He's a very successful visual effects artist and production designer, having done work for a number of big movies like Avatar, Men in Black II, Pan's Labyrinth, and 3:10 to Yuma, just to name a few. While William T. Stromberg, who's a composer, has worked mainly on little-known documentaries, shorts, TV movies, and direct-to-video films (one of them being Starship Troopers 2... yowza!), at least he has more than just a couple of obscure credits on his filmography (I'm not trying to be mean to be a dick but it astounds me how this movie really did tank Stromberg's career and he never made another movie himself again). Knowing that most of its shortcomings were a result of Crown International's incompetence, it's rather hard for me to say whether or not Stromberg was actually a bad director. But, that said, the film does have some problems with the characters, acting, and shot composition that I feel was his responsibility to get right.

Like Stromberg, the career of lead actor Richard Cardella, who plays Sheriff Steven Hanson, and also wrote the movie with Stromberg, was destroyed by this movie. It's a shame too because, for me, he's the only person who's even halfway decent. His acting isn't the best but, if nothing else, it feels like he's trying to make Steve likable and someone you'd want to root for. He's just a typical small-town sheriff, operating in virtually the middle of nowhere, and is someone who's clearly well-liked by the townspeople. But then, suddenly, he's faced with a bunch of bizarre happenings, including people and livestock disappearing in and around the lake, as well as people turning up dead, and he sincerely tries to find out what's going on and keep everyone safe. He's also having to deal the repercussions of one of the victims turning out to be a senator, with the county coroner demanding answers and the FBI possibly coming to town, as well as constant phone calls about the other disappearances. Though initially skeptical about the idea of there being a monster in the lake, Steve becomes a believer when he encounters the Plesiosaur on the shore and just manages to escape. Extremely rattled about it, when he discusses it with Dr. Calkins and the two paleontologists, he proves to be the most sensible one in the bunch, wanting nothing more to destroy the monster. He has no time for Dan Turner's scientific interest (when Dan asks him how big the creature was, he responds, "Dan, I really didn't take time to measure it,") and thinks both he and Susan are completely crazy with their desire to keep the creature alive. When they come up with a possible means of containing him in a narrow bay, Steve is talked into, reluctantly, going along with them. But when the monster crawls out of the lake and attacks a defenseless man, proving he's just too dangerous to be left alive, Steve does the smart thing and decides to kill the creature himself.

When I said the film's comic relief does nothing but bog the movie down, I was referring to two dumb rednecks, Arnie (Glen Roberts) and Mitch (Mark Siegel, who went on to have a successful career in visual effects and art direction), who get far more screentime than they should. They own a boat-rental business but when business starts to go bad, they become desperate and rent out to almost anyone who comes along, which leads to one guy getting eaten and a performing couple from Las Vegas narrowly escaping the monster. When you first meet them early on, they don't seem that bad, mainly because it looks like they're just going to be occasional, comic supporting characters. But when the movie starts to spend an egregious amount of time on them and their shenanigans, they wear out their welcome very quickly. For one, they're such stereotypical dumb, sleazy hicks, particularly Arnie, that it's cringe-inducing. He's a big blowhard with a really thick beard who thinks he's a lot smarter than he is and tends to boss Mitch around. He's also the one who's most determined to get some money out of this rapidly disintegrating business, even if it means not telling people that the fishing in the lake is no good or that a boat's outboard motor doesn't work. Mitch has a little more of a conscience, as he doesn't feel right about doing that kind of stuff, but he's still as dumb as Arnie, not knowing how to fix a boat motor, despite it being crucial to their business, and thinking that Arnie spelt the word "bait" wrong when he actually spelt it right.

Arnie and Mitch's antics really do nothing but stop the movie dead in its tracks. I originally wrote that a couple of these scenes go one for like ten or fifteen minutes but, after going back and running through the film again on YouTube, I've realized they're actually more like three to five minutes. That's amazing, as these scenes sure do feel a lot longer, be it when the two of them get into a fight by the lakeside, leading to their discovering the head of one of the monster's victims, or a very

drawn-out scene where the two of them sit around outside their house, all crestfallen because of how their business is going down the tubes, and then proceed to get drunk and wander around the woods, before being scared at the sight of a fallen tree (yes, you read that right). Given the similarities, I think the inevitable question is, who do I find more annoying: these guys or those idiot cops in The Last House on the Left? If you've read that review, you'd know that I, like a lot of other people, despise those characters, as they're just

intrusive and make you sigh and roll your eyes whenever they appear. Personally, I would have to say I dislike the cops more, as they interfere with that film's very brutal, gritty, exploitative tone (as do other aspects but let's not get off-topic), whereas this film is nothing more than a typical monster movie and Arnie and Mitch do fit the environment that's depicted. Still, they get just as tiresome after a while and it makes you wish the movie would go back to, you know, the monster! This is The Crater Lake Monster, not the The Crater Lake Rednecks.

They also try to give Arnie and Mitch's relationship a tragic twist when Arnie gets himself killed by the monster at the end. Throughout the movie, Mitch keeps telling Arnie that the boats are "theirs," not just "his," and after he's killed, one of the last shots is Mitch sitting just a few feet from his corpse, quietly saying, "Our boats, Arnie. Our boats. Damn you, Arnie." But, you see, there are three things wrong with this. First, I would care a lot more if their friendship had been emphasized, instead of

their coming off as complete buffoons who fight more than anything else. Second, they ate up so much of the movie's running and made me sick of them that, when Arnie died, I didn't care at all. Going back to The Last House on the Left, it would be like if one of those cops got killed when they burst in on the parents' revenge on Krug's gang and the ending was spent on the other mourning his loss. I wouldn't give a single flying crap because, after all their dumb, distracting scenes, I don't, want to see them ever again. And, finally, what

exactly does Mitch mean when he sits there and says, "Our boats, Arnie"? Is he upset that Arnie ended up getting killed because, seeing the monster as a golden goose, he was trying to protect his interests and no one else's, including Mitch? Is it because Mitch felt Arnie was trying to break away from their partnership and make money from the monster all by himself? Again, don't know, don't care.

For better or worse, Steve, Arnie, and Mitch are the only characters who have some substance and memorable personalities to them, as everyone else is just cardboard. Dr. Richard Calkins (Bob Hyman), the local MD, does everything you'd expect from this type of character in a monster movie: talk about how dedicated his friend, paleontologist Dan Turner, is to his profession, how significant his discoveries are, and how he's utterly baffled by the strange occurrences around the lake, suggesting that there might be something dangerous in it that they can't begin to imagine. I think his cliched, over-dramatic line, "We're up against something that goes against every natural law," sums up everything you need to know about the type of character he is. I'm also baffled at how quickly Calkins is to side with Dan in wanting the Plesiosaur to be kept alive. Earlier, he seemed really concerned about what might be killing people in and around the lake, but now that he knows it's a prehistoric animal, he's just as, if not more, worried about its importance to the scientific community and implores Steve to go along with Dan's plan to try to contain the creature. It makes me think he chose the wrong profession! I'm not saying medicine has to be a doctor's only interest, and yeah, a living Plesiosaur would be cool, but given that he's supposed to be a doctor, he should be concerned about saving lives, first and foremost.

Dan Turner (Richard Garrison), the aforementioned paleontologist, has so little screentime that, when I first wrote this review and looked at the cast list on IMDB, I actually didn't recognize his name! Aside from his enthusiasm over the possibility of making a significant discovery, which prompts him to drag Calkins to the mine where he discovered the old cave painting, and his being dumb enough to risk a bunch of lives for science, the only other thing I have to say about him is that, for a supposed

paleontologist, he doesn't do much actual work in his field. His interest in cave paintings and the meteorite that crashes into the lake make him come off as more of an anthropologist and archeologist, which makes me wonder if the filmmakers even knew what a paleontologist is. Also, both he and his paleontologist girlfriend, Susan Patterson (Kacey Cobb), refer to the Plesiosaur as a "dinosaur," even though Plesiosaurs and dinosaurs were actually two different types of animals. Speaking of Susan, I have even less to say about her, as her only role is to be Dan's assistant and girlfriend (I guess), who's just as enthusiastic about their findings and intent on keeping the Plesiosaur alive.

The rest of the characters worth discussing are little more than cannon fodder for the monster. One of the first is Jack Fuller (Marv Elliot), a visitor to Crater Lake who's later revealed to have been a U.S. senator, but what exactly he was doing up there is a mystery that Steve mentions but is never resolved. Honestly, it seems like he was just up there to get away from it all and do some fishing. Unfortunately for him, he rents a boat from Arnie and Mitch for twenty bucks, unaware that the

fishing has been bad, and gets caught out in the middle of the lake, surrounded by a lot of thick mist. The monster then knocks him out of the boat and pulls him under before he can climb back in. Later, Arnie and Mitch come across his nasty-looking severed head. Far more memorable are Ross (Michael Hoover) and Paula Conway (Suzanne Lewis), a husband-and-wife performing couple who are on their way to Las Vegas, when their car overheats. They then rent a boat and go out on the lake to kill some time while they wait for it to be fixed. You do get a little bit of character development with them, in that Ross has a drinking problem that messed up their last show in Los Angeles and is causing some friction between him and his wife, prompting him to try to quit. Though it's not dwelt upon, you also get a bit of the usual fish out of water scenario when these two, who are no doubt used to bright lights and big cities, especially Ross, break down in this small, hick town. And they also manage to survive their encounter with the monster and are eventually rescued and taken to a hospital, which actually did surprise me the first time, as I was sure they were dead meat the minute they got onto the lake. I guess that counts for something.

One guy who comes out of nowhere and whose actions are baffling is this gunman (Sonny Shepard) who, after his abrupt introduction, robs a liquor store and eventually ends up at Crater Lake. What I mean about his actions being baffling is that, when he first enters the liquor store, he doesn't go right up to the clerk and pull a gun on him. He calmly walks into the middle of the store, gets a bottle of whiskey, brings it up to the counter, and then holds the clerk up, only to shoot him when he goes for his own gun, as well as some poor woman who walks in on the whole thing. And here's the kicker: he doesn't take the money from the register! It's not like he has no time because the cops are on the way. He just shoots them and calmly walks back out the door with his whiskey. What was the point of that? Why commit such a senselessly violent act for just some booze? And you could say he's probably just a psychopath, but even they aren't usually so reckless. Later, when the guy's eating at the small diner near Crater Lake, he watches Steve checking out his car (it's not explained why Steve does so) and, once he walks to his patrol car, the man runs out of the diner, gets in his car, and then swerves and shoots at Steve, leading to a chase. Is this guy just a complete moron? It's not like Steve saw a weapon in his car or anything when he looked through the window. Instead, all he saw was the now empty liquor bottle. Again, I don't know why Steve was so interested in the guy's car (you might think he recognized it from a possible description provided by a witness to the liquor store robbery but, later on, he says he doesn't know why the guy opened fire on him), but that was no reason to shoot at him. Did it occur to the guy that, if he just went along with Steve when he calmly asked him to stop when he was attempting to leave, he wouldn't have chased him? In any case, Steve chases the criminal all the way to the lake, both in their cars and on foot after the latter wrecks his car, but before Steve can arrest him, the guy is killed by the monster. 

Before I get deep into the film's many technical shortcomings, I want to at least acknowledge that it's not all bad. If you can watch it in HD, you'll find that it's very lovely to look at, with the colors really popping in the bright clothes the characters wear, the beautiful shots of the lake, whose water naturally seems to be a very deep blue, and the surrounding countryside, and in the film stock overall. Speaking of the surroundings, this place is mostly Huntington Lake in California, as well as Palomar Mountain, and it makes for a very lovely

location, which the filmmakers made sure to get plenty beauty shots of. The water positively glistens in the sunlight, there are small islands scattered throughout it, and the long shots of it tucked in the middle of the pine-covered mountains are picturesque enough to where any self-respecting postcard would be proud to have them. There are also some nicely atmospheric images of the lake and surrounding forests that are shot at dusk, as well as draped in a fine, such as when Jack

Fuller sets out in his boat or when Steve chases the gunman through the woods leading down to the lakeside. Similarly atmospheric are the tunnels of the mine in the opening that lead to the chamber where Dan and Susan found the cave painting depicting ancient humans battling a Plesiosaur. Given the very low budget, which prevented the filmmakers from building any real sets, I have to wonder if they really did shoot in a mine for this sequence or, at the very least, found an enclosed

place that looked similar to one. And while I do think there are instances of just plain bad direction and shot composition, I can't deny that those sweeping beauty shots of the landscape are well-done, as are some POV shots of the monster when he comes ashore to search for prey and the frantic, running, handheld shots of the characters attempting to escape the mine after the meteor hits.

I generally like this kind of setting of a sleepy little rural town anyway, but you get even more points if you use it in a monster or horror movie like this. I just like the idea of there not being much to this place, save for the small diner where everyone hangs out and where they hold town meetings, a garage and gas station off the road, the spot down by the lake where Arnie and Mitch run their boat rental business, the sheriff's office (where Steve often has little more to do than keep track of how many flies he's killed), the mine down by the lake,

and the homes people have scattered about the area, like Dr. Calkins' nice cozy cabin (which also doubles as his office), a ranch owned by a man named Mr. Ferguson, and Arnie and Mitch's dump of a place. In terms of the latter, you don't even see their actual house but, rather, their fenced in front yard that's full of all kinds of junk like chairs and other bits of furniture, a stone kiln, trashcans, and some cats that run about the place. Also, when Steve chases after the gunman, I like the added

touch of a quarry where the latter crashes his car and this large but seemingly vacant cabin down in the woods. However, when that gunman is suddenly introduced, his environment, which consists of his crappy apartment and the seedy sort of larger town he lives in, is so different from the main setting that it feels totally out of place.

While Crown International did severely handicap the movie through its lack of financing (they're said to have slashed the already tiny budget in half after filming began) and pitiful post-production work, I can't blame the movie's sloppiness entirely on them, as there are also instances of just plain bad filmmaking. In the middle of Arnie and Mitch's fight in a small corner of the lakeside, we suddenly cut to Steve pulling up in a clearing. The first time I saw the movie, I thought we'd gone to another scene but then, when we briefly cut back to the

fight and see Steve get out of his patrol car and lean up against it, crossing his arms, we realize he's actually watching them fight. First, why he pulls up there in the first place is never explained, as it's not like he was passing by on the main road and pulled off it when he saw them going at it; instead, it seems he was randomly going off-road and, seeing what was happening, decided to stop and watch. Second, the perspective of where they're fighting and where he's parked doesn't match at all, as it cuts back and forth from him pulling up to a

a rear-view of them shot from the water, him getting out of his car, and the fight continuing from two different angles, both from the water and from the shore. It doesn't help that, in the scenes of Steve watching, you don't hear the offscreen sounds of the fight (likely because Crown International didn't bother to do any ADR work). And this issue of where he is in relation to them is made even more complicated in that both Arnie and Mitch fall in the water and continue fighting along the shoreline

until they find Jack Fuller's severed head in a corner and Steve, upon seeing this, comes running in. (If this description has completely confused you, hopefully the screenshots will make it clear, as I put them in the exact sequence of how they come up.) You can blame the editing all you want, but if this is the material they had to work with, it's possible that not even Michael Kahn, Steven Spielberg's editor, would've been able to make sense of it.

Before all that, when Arnie and Mitch first start to argue, we're suddenly treated to a wide-angle closeup of Arnie's face where he's right up on the camera, making you feel as if he's about to French kiss you. And there's another shot like that when their argument grows into a fight, with Arnie just staring right into the camera, this time with the added bonus of a fly on his forehead, as I wonder, "Are you two going to fight or just inspect each other? I don't care which but take the camera off Arnie's face, please!" It's so random and unlike any

other camerawork in the film that I have to wonder what exactly William Stromberg was thinking. The movie is also really bad about continuity and plotholes, mostly thanks, again, to the lousy post-production work. But here's something that can't be blamed on that: when Fuller's empty boat is found floundering in the middle of the lake, there's a lot of blood and water in it, even though Fuller fell out of it and the monster dragged him under the water before any sort of bloody wound was inflicted upon him. Now, before you accuse me of just being

nitpicky, I want to say that, if I'm completely engrossed in a movie, I'm usually not even aware of such errors or plotholes unless someone else points them out; I noticed this hiccup the first time I watched the movie. Also, what kind of bizarre procedure does Dr. Calkins put Fuller's severed head through when he examines it? All we get of his examination is an up-shot of Calkins from the head's POV, with a blurry filter and purple lighting, along with high-pitched, whirring sound effects,

suggesting he's putting it through some process that involves ultra-violet rays and radiation. Seems a bit much for what should be nothing more than an examination of the area where the head was cut and some fluid found around the bite marks (if it's meant to protect him from bacterial infection, it's never made clear). Because of Crown International's cost-cutting and refusing to pay for certain scenes to be shot, I wouldn't be surprised if there was intended clarification to these inconsistencies that the filmmakers simply couldn't film. 

Make no mistake about it, the studio's handling of the film was clumsy-footed in every aspect, especially in post. According to Richard Cardella in a 2007 interview on badmovieplanet.com (unfortunately, I can't access the webpage anymore), after they took control of it, they turned it over to an editor whom he referred to as "some hack" and an "asshole." There are two editors credited, but given the male pronouns used, I'm guessing Cardella is referring to Steven Nielson. In any case, the "editing" was so minute, with very

little cutting of footage, that it causes the movie to often drag on and on, with single shots and scenes continuing far longer than they should, as well as become an absolute mess in terms of narrative structure. You often have no idea when a scene is taking place or even how much time has passed from one to the next. Let's take the very beginning: the meteorite crashes into Crater Lake one night and, the next day, Steve and Dr. Calkins take Dan and Susan out onto the lake to look for it. Finding the spot where it hit, the two of them dive down to

have a look at it, only to quickly come back up, saying it's still too hot and they'll have to wait until it cools off, which could take weeks. So far, so good. And then, we're treated to a montage of the sun shining down onto the lake, the Plesiosaur egg on the bottom becoming incubated, and several cuts and push-ins on the shore and lake itself. Right after that is when the monster, already fully grown, claims his first victim. Needless to say, a lot more time has passed than you may have initially

thought, but just how much? Well, later on in the film, when Steve and Calkins are discussing what happened to Jack Fuller, we learn it's been six months since the meteorite crashed into lake. Six months. A caption saying "SIX MONTHS LATER" or, at the very least, some fades to black or dissolves signifying the passage of time would have really helped, as Cardella mentioned.  

Look at these screenshots from the scene where Ross and Paula go onto the lake and are eventually stranded on the far end, where they're attacked by the monster. It's taking place on a nice, sunny afternoon... right? Actually, it's supposed to be at night, but Crown International were too lazy to put in the filter. As much as I often don't care for day-for-night shooting, it's very common in low budget movies and I can, at least, appreciate that they sometimes don't have the money or necessary equipment for actual nighttime shooting and have

to cheat in this manner. The thing is, though, you have to actually put in the filter, which is not that hard. I can't fathom that they figured, "Ah, if we just say it's nighttime, nobody will notice," but, then again, I've heard of producers and studio execs making stupider decisions. You wouldn't even think to rationalize it by saying the full moon is out because, as you can see, it would never, ever cross your mind it was supposed to be at night until Ross mentions, "Moonlight on a gorgeous lake,"

and Paula says, "Look at all the stars. I've never seen so many." They could have just as easily cut those lines and it would have been fixed. Even more laughable is when, after he encounters the monster, Steve brings Calkins back to the spot and they look at the marks the monster left in the dirt. Even though it's as bright as all get-out, Steve still grabs his flashlight for some added illumination.

Going back to Ross and Paula, it's also very confusing when you try to chronologically place their scene with the ones preceding it where Jack Fuller is killed and Arnie and Mitch report him missing. We later see Steve on the telephone in his office, saying they were up half the night looking for him, so naturally you'd think it's the next day. But right after that is when Ross and Paula arrive at Crater Lake, and since their encounter with the monster is supposed to be at night, it's clear this is all meant to be happening in one long day. And just

to add to the confusion, when they're driving in their car, the establishing shot of them on the road is during the day, but the shots of them in the front seat look as though they're set at night, and there's even one shot of the setting sun in another exterior... but when they're at the garage after breaking down, it's back to broad daylight. You also can't even trust the scenes that do look like they're set at night, like when Fuller gets killed. You'd swear that was late at night, but in the next

scene, you see it's still the middle of the day, confirmed when Arnie tells Mitch that Fuller is probably so stubborn he'll stay out after dark (some might argue that the reason the scene with Fuller looks like nighttime is due to all the steam coming off the lake, but even when I was a kid and saw that scene in the trailer, I was positive it was at night). See what I mean? You can't trust this movie to make it clear what time of day it's supposed to be; you have to depend on what the characters say for that!

Going back to the gunman, his introduction is as abrupt and confusing as he is. Following Ross and Paula's nearly fatal encounter with the monster, he holds Paula in his arms, as they try to calm down, and then, BOOM! You're inside some crummy apartment and watch some guy you've never seen before, with a handlebar mustache that would make Hulk Hogan envious, load a handgun, leave the apartment, drive through a completely different town, and then enter a liquor store and randomly kill two people before running off with a bottle of

whiskey. (Incidentally, this sequence was actually shot at night, but knowing how ass-backwards this movie is, it wouldn't surprise me if this is supposed to be during the day. It is daylight in the scene in his apartment but switches to night when he's driving.) We then go back to the actual plot but, until that guy comes back into the story, you're left wondering if you sat on the remote and ended up watching some Taxi Driver wannabe for a few minutes. And then, there's the further question of

why he randomly goes up to Crater Lake and shoots at the local sheriff, which leads into a very mediocre chase scene and him ultimately getting eaten. It's just stupid, pure and simple.

The Crater Lake Monster himself is, as expected, the best part of the movie, although that's not saying much. While he doesn't have any character, as he's just an animal that's going around eating whatever he can get to survive after he eats up all the fish in the lake, he's designed well, looking like a classic Plesiosaur with a long, flexible neck, a barrel-shaped body, four flippers, and a stubby tail. He has a number of scales and small bumps on his back, as well as a small ridge, akin to a little dorsal fin, in the center, while his underside is completely

smooth. His color is rather inconsistent, though, changing from a reddish-brown to olive green on the back and gray on the front. He's at his best when he's brought to life through stop-motion, and this film actually happened to have some pretty talented people working in the visual effects department. Chief among them was David Allen, who worked as the stop-motion supervisor and had already done some cool work on projects like Equinox and a famous Volkswagen commercial featuring King Kong, and would go on to do

effects for flicks like Laserblast, The Howling (although, unfortunately, just about all of his work there ended up being cut), Batteries Not Included, and Young Sherlock Holmes. His animation on the monster is about as good as stop-motion can be, allowing him to move rather fluently and convincingly as he drags himself across the ground like a big seal. And when he turns his head and neck and opens his mouth, he comes off as kind of intimidating, especially with the mean expression

on his face and the fairly creepy, angry-sounding roar he lets out. However, while the compositing and matting of the stop-motion with the real actors looks surprisingly good, when they try to put the monster in with plates of the actual setting, it doesn't look that convincing. especially in the lake, as it looks like a montage rather than one whole image. And while we're on the topic of visual effects, if you're wondering how they realize the meteorite that crashes into the lake at the

beginning, they just used a very brief bit of animation for when it streaks down from the sky and then switch to an actual flaming projectile for when it hits the water... only they cut away right when it does, with no sound whatsoever of its impact.

Sadly, even though it's the film's strongest aspect, the stop-motion isn't used all that much. For close-ups of the monster's head, like when you see him cruising through the lake, they used some really bad, full-size props. Oddly enough, though, I kind of like the first shot of this head, which you see when this bird-watcher, upon hearing the monster roar, pulls out his binoculars and sees him swimming around in the lake. I don't know why but I find that shot to be really cool-looking, I guess because it makes me think of purported sightings

of the Loch Ness Monster (though, while this POV is supposed to be through a pair of binoculars, we only see through one lens; Crown International's cheapness strikes again). However, my love for it evaporates when it becomes clear the head in this and similar shots is just that: a head. With the way it bobs back and forth in both the front and the back as it moves in the water, you can tell there's nothing supporting it from below. Another head that they use in occasional underwater shots, like when he kills Jack Fuller or when he's about to

attack Ross and Paula in their boat, looks a bit better, though you don't see much of it save for very tight closeups of the eye, neck, and mouth. But, another problem is that these big models have no life to them. Going back to Fuller's death, when you see the monster's head underwater as Fuller tries to get back in the boat, it barely moves and doesn't appear to be attacking him at all. And, ironically enough, when they do try to give these heads some life, they look even worse. When the

monster kills the gunman at the lakeside, all we see are some quick, cheesy shots of the monster's head waving back and forth, as if he's trying to work out some kinks in his neck rather than attack the guy (and as you can see, high-definition does the effects no favors). The same goes for the shots at the end, where the monster attacks and kills Arnie and when Steve gores the monster with the bulldozer.

Speaking of which, as far as the violence goes, there's a fair of bloodshed here, with the most gruesome being the severed head of Jack Fuller that Arnie and Mitch stumble upon while fighting in the shallows. While they, again, get the camera too close up on the head and it suffers as a result, it's still pretty grisly-looking, as it has a nasty, dead gray look to the skin, with streaks of blood and puncture wounds all across the face and forehead, and the right eye looks hollowed out. The murders of the liquor store clerk and the stock-girl who

walks in on it are also shockingly violent and realistic-looking, as the gunman leaves both of them lying in pools of blood. While the gunman's actual death at the hands of the monster isn't seen, the aftermath is quite bloody, with lots of it on a large stone in the shore, leaking down into the water below. Arnie's death at the end of the movie leaves him quite badly brutalized, with a nasty head wound, and in the monster's own death, when Steve gores him with the blades of a bulldozer, you get some close-ups of blood pouring out of the side of his neck. (Yet, despite all this nastiness, the movie is rated PG, although the old Rhino DVD mistakenly said it was R.)

Going back to the monster, I'd like to touch on the film's poster, which is not the image you saw up in the introduction. The reason for that is because, like The Giant Claw, this is an instance where the poster is misleading as to what the monster is; in fact, it's even worse. At least the poster artists for The Giant Claw, despite having not seen what the monster looked like, got the general idea and drew some sort of gigantic bird. Those behind the artwork for The Crater Lake Monster, on the other hand, apparently didn't even bother to watch the movie because, as you can see, the poster shows a T-Rex. At least the DVD art I put in the introduction shows a Plesiosaur (although Rhino Video listed three actors on that cover who are not in the movie). Maybe the poster artists heard about how little Crown International seemed to care and figured, "If they don't give a shit, then why should we?" To that end, I'm surprised the movie's trailer didn't use the meteorite as an excuse to say the monster is an alien, a sort of inverse of the trailer for The Giant Claw, which seemed to think the bird was a prehistoric relic and not from outer space, as the film itself makes clear.

By far the most frustrating thing about this movie is how little the monster himself is in it. Any of you who's been with me for a while knows that, when I watch a monster movie, you'd better give me my money's worth when it comes to the monster or you're not getting any mercy from me, and The Crater Lake Monster fails that test. For the most part, all we get are some very quick glimpses of him and brief attack scenes, and while the stop-motion used in some of these scenes is, again, very well done, the short amount of collected screentime

for the monster leaves a lot to be desired for, particularly given how, after the scene with Ross and Paula, he disappears from the movie for a good long while. Granted, when he ventures out of the lake and attacks someone during the climax, we get a little more time with him but, yet again, it's not much to write home about. Some may say that I'm being unreasonable about this, and if the rest of the movie was more well-made, especially the characters, I likely wouldn't be complaining as much, but no: I'm watching to see a monster wreaking havoc, not a bunch of yahoos sitting around talking or, in the case of this film, acting like idiots. 

Just as bad or, perhaps, even worse than the lack of the monster is how, even when he appears and attacks, these sequences have little to no energy to them. Whether it's due to the stiff, full-size heads that can't do much, the actors' less than frantic reactions to the monster, how brief the scenes are, the less than stirring music, or the simple fact that they aren't directed or cut in any way that would get you excited, it makes for one of the most boring monster flicks I've ever seen. For instance,

take the monster's first appearance, where he kills this random hiker right on the lake's shore. The guy puts down his backpack, reacts briefly when he hears the monster growl nearby, but then goes about his business. You see the monster's reflection in the water as he approaches the shore (I think this shot is meant to be looking down into the water in front of where his neck is sticking out so you can see both his head and neck reflected, but there's so much turbulence and the shot goes by so quick

that, until I paused and looked at it carefully, I was never sure what exactly I was looking at), you get an, admittedly, good shot from his POV as he comes ashore and approaches the hiker (although, that shoreline looks nothing like the one behind the hiker in the front shots of him, and he also seems closer to the water than the POV would have you think), the hiker turns and sees him, and you get your first look at the stop-motion Plesiosaur. The man trips over his backpack in a panic, when it

suddenly cuts to another shoreline and you hear the man scream off in the distance. After that, you get the bird-watcher's brief sighting, a shot of the monster taking an interest in some cattle at Mr. Ferguson's ranch, and, despite the poor matting, a brief but effectively eerie shot of the monster's silhouetted head and neck rising out of the middle lake and diving back in.

Next is Jack Fuller's fatal encounter with the monster after he rents a boat. He sits out in the middle of the misty lake, unaware that the monster is approaching from behind, and when he stands up in the boat to get a better look around, the monster bumps into its bottom, knocking Fuller into the water. He comes back up to the surface, having lost his hat in the water, when the monster's head appears right across from him. Panicking, he tries to climb back into the boat but the monster, despite

how slow and lethargic he's moving, manages to get his legs with his mouth and pull him back down (and see, doesn't this whole sequence look like it's taking place at night?). Immediately afterward is when Arnie and Mitch find Fuller's empty boat, which is inexplicably filled with blood, and they call both Dr. Calkins and Steve to the scene. Not long after that is when Ross and Paula get out on the lake, unaware that they're being stalked by the monster. They sit out there, remarking at how

beautiful and peaceful the place is, when they hear a loud splash nearby. Initially thinking it was just a big fish, they go back to making out, but when something starts pushing against their boat from below, they decide to get out of there. Ross starts up the outboard motor and they take off across the lake, only to run aground on one side of the shoreline. The monster appears to be closing in, but when Ross, who got knocked unconscious when the boat crashed against the shore, wakes up, Paula tells him he's been out for a long time and she's

been continually hearing this creepy sound. She then turns around and screams at seeing the monster farther down the shoreline. When Ross sees him as well, he has her run, while he grabs a can of gasoline in the boat and pours it all over the inside. Just as the monster is only a few feet from the boat, he lights a matchbook and tosses it in. The boat goes up in flames as he runs to join Paula nearby, and the monster is driven back into the lake by the fire. Following the scene where the gunman is introduced and Calkins examines Fuller's severed head, Arnie and Mitch find Paula and Ross and get them back to town, where an ambulance is called.

The gunman's encounter with the monster is also nothing to write home about. After a long, drawn out chase between him and Steve, which starts out as a car chase but then switches to on foot after the guy crashes his car at the bottom of a quarry, they make their way down by the lake. Steve manages to shoot the guy in his left leg and, as Steve takes cover behind a tree to reload his revolver, the guy crawls along the very edge of the water, when the monster pops up and comes at him. Somehow, there's absolutely no sound when the monster gets

him, except for some distant splashing. As a result, when Steve comes around the corner and only finds a lot of blood leading down into the water, he doesn't know what happened (I'm pretty sure many viewers wouldn't know either). Later, while heading over to Calkins' place in order to get his help in combing the lake, Steve hears the monster roar. He then pulls off the road, gets out of the car, and walks to the shore to investigate. Hearing the monster growling, he heads further down the shoreline, where he finds an impression in the sand

with some dried blood. The Plesiosaur raises his head up from behind a ridge near the water and Steve immediately pulls his gun and fires. He empties all of his bullets into the monster and scrambles for his car (which is now right behind him, despite his having walked quite a distance from when he first parked it). As the monster lumbers towards him, Steve gets in his car, fumbles the keys, and, predictably, has trouble getting the engine to turn over. He finally starts the car, throws

it in reverse, and then speeds away, with the monster almost on top of him. He speeds over to Calkins' cabin, tells him what happened, and brings him back to the spot, where they find the marks the monster left in the sand. Calkins encourages Steve to get the camera he keeps in his car and take some pictures of the marks, which they later show to Dan and Susan.

Not even the climax is all that exciting. While Steve, Calkins, Dan, and Susan call together a town meeting at the diner to warn everyone about the Plesiosaur and how they intend to contain him, he comes ashore and heads to a spot where there's a lot of farming equipment and hay bales. A mechanic working on the equipment is horrified when he sees the monster approaching him and is attacked offscreen. He bursts in on the meeting, badly injured, and, while Calkins stays behind to tend to his wounds, Steve, Dan, and Susan ride out

to the spot, followed by Arnie and Mitch. When the former arrive there in Steve's car, the monster chucks a bale of hay in front of them. Arnie and Mitch then arrive and, after a short argument about whether or not they should kill the monster, Steve runs over to a nearby bulldozer and starts it up. Arnie runs at him with a shotgun, telling him he's not going to let him kill such a valuable creature, but Steve tells him there's no hope for the Plesiosaur now. Telling him to either join him in

the bulldozer or get out, Arnie climbs up in the back, while Steve throws it in reverse. The monster approaches the bulldozer, and when it's looming over him, Arnie's nerve gives out and he climbs off the back. That's when he gets himself killed by falling to the ground, allowing the monster to grab him in his jaws and swing him around. It's only when Steve bumps him in the side with the bulldozer that the monster tosses him to the ground, dead. Steve then kills the monster by heading at him with the bulldozer and jamming the plow's teeth into the side of his neck (the cutting is frenetic and choppy that I thought he dug into the monster's hide at first), after which he crawls away and then collapses to the ground.

The eerie piece of music in the trailer that gave me the creeps as a kid is in the movie at the very beginning but, once it and the okay opening titles music has passed, the score goes completely downhill, aside from a subtle, futuristic bit of music that plays when Dr. Calkins examines Fuller's severed head and pounding octave notes for the monster's leitmotif (I remember both of those being in the trailer as well). A man named Will Zens (who worked in a number of different capacities, including as a director) did the music, but it often sounds like some really generic library music rather than anything original, with even Richard Cardella referring to it as a, "canned score." Its actual source is irrelevant, though, as it sucks either way. If you've been reading my reviews for a while now, you'd know that music can sometimes make or break a movie for me; well, even though a number of things broke The Crater Lake Monster for me, the music was the final nail in the coffin, as there's nothing memorable or inspired about it. It's just generic tripe that doesn't add anything, with much of the music in the monster attack and action scenes sounding like the most typical, B-movie score you can imagine. The worst part of the score, though, is the cringey silly music in the scenes involving Arnie and Mitch, like in the lead-up to their lakeside scuffle (that truly sounds like something you'd hear on an old, public domain cartoon tape) or the scene where they're sitting in their cluttered yard outside their house. The same also goes for the piece of music at the end of the movie that's meant to be sad because Arnie's just been killed, but, again, comes off as totally generic.

There's no other way to sum things up other than to say, The Crater Lake Monster just sucks for the most part. It's boring and sloppily edited, the direction itself sometimes leaves a lot to be desired for, the characters are badly acted, cardboard cut-outs, there's way too much stupid comic relief, there are a number of lame special and visual effects amid some really good ones, and the music is a horrible, generic, public-domain quality score. It does have a fairly cool monster, which works best when brought to life through stop-motion, a lead actor who does what he can to at least make one of the characters likable, a picturesque, beautifully shot setting and location, and a lovely, colorful visual aesthetic that really comes out in high-definition, but that doesn't make up for how, despite whose fault it is, the movie is a chore to get through. I know there are people who can enjoy it is an example of B-movie cheese, especially with RiffTrax, and to them, I say, "Have at it." I, however, do not like it at all. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life and, now that this review is done, I seriously doubt I will ever watch it again.