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36 reviews in total&
15 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Proof of what can be done with little money.
from United Kingdom
18 March 2005
Despite its budget limitations, this is a great film, proof that effort
and imagination can overcome lack of cash. The opening, in which
cave-paintings seem to show how some dinosaurs at least survived into
the age of human beings, is a nice red herring. After that, a meteor
comes down into a lake and causes heat which, in turn, causes the
hatching of a frozen dinosaur egg (maybe the cave-paintings suggest
instead that this isn't the first time such a thing has happened). When
the prehistoric beast appears, it's a well-animated Plesiosaur which is
soon causing disappearances in the local area. Alright, so it's not
Jurassic Park, but it's still genuine entertainment for fans of monster
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10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
The Bumblimg Misadventures of Arnie and Mitch
13 September 2005
... and how they bore you right out of your mind! The Crater Lake
Monster is one of the classic BAD films from the 70's made with no
actors of any note, an embarrassing script, woeful direction, and a
tireless desire to fuse &horror& with light comedy. This movie
introduces a paleontologist who finds drawings of an aquatic dinosaur
underneath Crater Lake...a meteor falls from the sky, and an aquatic
dinosaur of the claymation variety begins to terrorize and eat the
inhabitants surrounding Crater Lake. The whole matter is taken care of
by Steve our local sheriff. Much of the film - when not showing pools
of blood left behind from what we imagine must have been the beast
dining - is spent following the bumbling antic of two guys named Arnie
and Mitch who run a boat rental place. They try so bad to be funny,
that we get lines like, looking at a business sign, Mitch saying to
Arnie &You spelled bait wrong, it's spelled B-A-T-E.& The laughs were
rather scarce here. We then see them get drunk together and imagine a
tree trunk to be the dinosaur. Laurel and Hardy watch out! The dinosaur
looks fake, but the movie is fun in a bad way. And at the very least,
the lake is beautiful.
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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Best lake monster movie with top notch Stop-Motion Effects by David Allen!
from New Kensington P.A.
23 August 2006
This movie is a great Drive-Inn 70's Sci-Fi / Thriller I know most
people give it bad comments though. Since it was supposed to take place
at Crater Lake instead because of the low budget limitation it was
filmed in California at some land formed lake up there. Anyway the lake
is dark, murky & a good bit of it leaves behind that creepiness image &
feel that Loch Ness gives you. Not the greatest acting but I guess good
enough for this type of B-Drive Inn Sci-Fi Film. What makes this movie
so great u ask? Any fan of Stop-Motion Animation knows of the great
David Allen who followed in the footsteps of the stop-motion legends
Willis O'Brien & Ray Harryhausen. He was inspired by them in the early
1950's as a young boy he saw some of their films on television. The
Plesiosaurus which is a prehistoric water reptile from the Dinosaur
ages that has a long neck razor sharp teeth & four flippers with a
tail. It can walk on land as well. The attack scenes depicted in this
film handled by Dave Allen using Stop-Motion Animation. Then some
scenes in the water had like a fabricated head made for some of the
close up water attack shots & a few other shots in the film. The Loch
Ness Horror (1982) also has a Plesiosaurus in it which is supposed to
be what Nessie is the nickname of The Legendary Loch Ness Monster of
Scotland. Same with the lake monster that's in Lake Champlain in
Upstate New York. Champ is the nickname & that is America's Loch Ness
Monster. Back to Crater The Stop-Motion Animation in this film is some
of the best Animation I have ever seen. This is one of his early
efforts not to mention also. Equinox from 1970 was his first big break
& that film earned a huge Cult following by Sci-Fi, Horror & Fantasy
Film Buffs like myself. I also just got that 2 Disc DVD Special Edition
Set from Criterion Collection I have checked some of it out awesome
stuff. I can't wait to watch both versions of the films this weekend
with the extras on Disc 2. Anyway back to Crater Lake Dave was assisted
by Jim Danforth & Randall William Cook two other great Stop-Motion
Animators Danforth that was focusing on more matte painting on Films at
that time since Stop-Motion was becoming obsolete. His last film he did
in which he did all the animation on was When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth
(1970). Which he earned an Oscar for Best Visual Effects in America &
that is a British made film. He started Matte Painting on that film as
well while still doing Stop-Motion also. But Equinox he only does Matte
Painting & most of the films after Equinox too. He does some assistant
animation occasionally & other animation though. Jim Danforth he loves
animation he thinks it gives that feel & look that CGI doesn't give
cause it is too real the same was said by Ray Harryhausen. I agree with
them both I prefer Stop-Motion Animation over CGI myself. Dave Allen's
Animation in Crater like steals the show it is what makes the film
worth watching. Otherwise if there was no great Stop-Motion either done
by Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Pete Peterson, Jim Danforth, David
Allen, Randall William Cook, Phil Tippet, Jim Aupperle, Doug Beswick,
or Dennis Muren which is an exceptional animator the others are the
best animators out there. My point is without Dave Allen's Animation or
one of the other greats I mentioned which Willis O'Brien passed away in
the early 60's so he couldn't do the animation obviously. If u are a
huge Stop-Motion Fan like me then u will really enjoy this movie. Other
then that stay away I guess unless u are a fan of Drive-Inn B Sci-Fi
Films with great special effects & low grade everything else. It is one
of my favorite 70's Sci-Fi Flicks anyway.
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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
This Couldn't Really Happen, Could It?
from Haddonfield, IL
26 March 2001
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
****Don't read this review if you want the shocking conclusion of &The
Crater Lake Monster& to be a total surprise****A claymation plesiosaur rises from the depths of Crater Lake to wreak
havoc on a group of local rednecks, not to mention your fast forward
button. To call &The Crater Lake Monster& amateurish is to overstate
the obvious. If you aren't a fan of low budget drive-in films, you
probably wouldn't be looking here in the first place.The problem with the movie is that when there's no monster action going
on, it really sucks and goes nowhere. The script is very Ed Wood-ish,
in that it's utterly contrived in the way it sets up the main action
sequences. Nothing is too outlandish for &The Crater Lake Monster&. It
explains its dinosaur by having a meteor crash into Crater Lake,
'superheating' the water to the point where it incubates a dinosaur egg
that has apparently been resting at the bottom of the lake for
millennia. Even if we could accept that the egg could have been lying
there for so long and remained uncovered and viable, wouldn't
&superheating& the water to such a high temperature cause most of the
lake to evaporate? Other than some token fog in one or two scenes, we
see no evidence of the water being hot, other than a few lines in the
script.The script is padded rather obviously in a few sequences, and it will
do anything to get the characters near the lake so that they can be
menaced by the claymation dino. A couple just passing through
experiences car trouble and while their automobile is being serviced,
they decide to rent a boat and head out into Crater Lake. Hmmmm...do
you think these strangers in the story could be there so they would run
into our title monstrosity? In a sequence that's just plain bizarre, a
drunk robs a liquor store and decides to murder the cashier and a
bystander instead of paying four dollars for a bottle of booze. A car
chase ensues, and wouldn't ya know it...they end up right by the lake.
Snack time for Cratey! Yeah, it's not hard to figure out, and you're so
far ahead of the script that you're irritated when it takes another ten
minutes for these scenes to unfold.The shamelessness of it all is endearing, and I really want to like
&The Crater Lake Monster&. I just can't do it. There's not enough here
to go on, and this is more of a movie to put on during a party, because
you could talk right over it and it wouldn't matter. The film has a slim list of the things going for it, the most important
being the dinosaur itself, which appears in three forms: a shadow
puppet, a large model head that is dragged woodenly through the water,
and a fully realized claymation insert that actually looks pretty good.
There are also a pair of lovable hicks in it, and they carry the
majority of the intentional humor in the movie. A downbeat ending
leaves us mourning the death of both the monster AND one of our beloved
hicks, so every good thing about this film is dead by the end of it.
Why was I so affected by this conclusion? Was it the mournful song
played over the closing credits? Or was I just weeping inwardly for the
time that I waste watching films like this?
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8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
The Life Aquatic with Arnie & Mitch!
from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
13 August 2009
Well, what are the odds! At the exact right moment that a few redneck
amateur-scientists discover cave paintings indicating that some type of
dinosaur monster might have inhabited the area thousands of years ago,
a burning meteor crashes into the lake and spontaneously hatches a
monster's egg that has been lying there … for over a thousand years, I
suppose! "The Crater Lake Monster" is a movie that literally must be
seen to be believed, but you better do so in the company of many
friends and a pile of ganja in order to make the wholesome a little bit
easier to digest. Yes, this is a terrible film with the utmost
ramshackle screenplay imaginable and numerous irrelevant padding
interludes that are downright embarrassing, but it's also irresistibly
charming and so clumsily put together that you simply have to cherish
some kind of fondness for it. Half of the film – at least – revolves on
the wacky adventures of Arnie and Mitch. These two local yokels own and
run a boat renting shop near the lake, but spend most of their days
picking their noses and quarreling over fascinating stuff like to spell
the word "bait". It is mostly during their prototypic Laurel & Hardy
situations that new puddles of blood or decapitated heads are
discovered in the lake. Steve Hanson, the heroic but not exactly sharp
Sheriff is on the case, but only if he's not too busy chasing big city
thugs traveling through the area. Halfway through the film, there
suddenly is an abrupt scene about a thug robbing a liquor store and
killing two people in the process. This textbook "WTF" moment appears
to take on the complete other side of the country, like in New York
City or something, and has absolutely nothing to do with the events
going on at Crater Lake. Only like twenty minutes later the robber pops
up again in Hicksville and there's an "exhilarating" chase through the
woods, ending in the Dino's hungry muzzle. The absurd little details in
"The Crater Lake Monster" are too numerous to mention! For example,
this is probably the only creature-feature in which the players
discover the obligatory gigantic footprint AFTER they already spotted
the actual monster. The goofs in continuity should be legendary as far
as I'm concerned. It's like everybody forgot to pay attention to it.
Night turns into twilight into day and back into twilight … all during
one and the same diurnal course! The monster is undeniably the best
aspect about the film, especially since it's accomplished through good
old fashioned and adorable stop- motion effects. The cute critter is a
P meaning an aquatic dinosaur looking like a crossbreed
between Denver the Last Dinosaur and an alligator. "Crater Lake
Monster" is a unique and unforgettable movie- experience that I can
only encourage to track down! The miserable 1 out of 10 rating is just
out of principle (and because basically, this IS a very bad film)
should be put into perspective, because I might as well could have
given it 10 out of 10 for sheer entertainment value.
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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Crater Lake a Wonderful Throwback to Saturday Night Creature Features
from United States
23 June 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
C'mon people, look at the title! LOL! I remember seeing this movie on
Saturday Late Night Creature Features years ago. It's a great, cheesy
monster flick with hilariously bad acting and two wonderfully moronic
hillbillies that add to the schlock factor. The 2 redneck boat rental
guys are the movie! LOL, and you'll love the boat scene where the
English guy and his wife are talking about all the stars and it's
midday and sunny. Bloody hilarious!!! You can tell they just didn't
care about plot, they just wanted to blow through the filming of the
movie as fast as possible. Bottom line, you'll love it if you love 70's
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6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Good Badness #8: What's this film about, really?
from the Doomed Megalopolis of Blasphemous Technoids
3 December 2009
We have a lake. We have an animated meteor crashing. We have a killer
stop-motion dinosaur with flippers. Okay, so let's call this movie THE
CRATER LAKE MONSTER. What else can we add? Hmm, two idiots called Arnie
& Mitch to define the ultimate definition of "comic relief". We also
got to have a sheriff who doesn't really do a damn thing in this film
and whom nobody listens to. Aw crap, we're over halfway through the
movie and we forgot to insert a bad guy! No worries, let's introduce
some guy with a moustache, have him rob a store to indicate he's a bad
guy, then have him pop up somewhere near the lake, have him chased
through the woods and all this for the sole purpose of him ending up as
dinosaur snack food. That should work.A complete, clumsy mess, this film. Its logic will twist your mind to
force laughter out of you. The first film to feature Dave Allen as a
"stop motion supervisor". After this one, he joined forces with Charles
Band for several years until the the mid-nineties, when Band ran out of
money to pay him, I guess. The dinosaur effects are charming and the
whole film is pretty damn unintentionally funny. Unfortunately, that's
about the only good thing that can be said for it.Good Badness? Yes. The mind-bending logic in the narrative should be
enough reason for that. If not, Arnie & Mitch will do the trick. 3/10
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7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
If you are looking for this to be made at &Crater Lake& Oregon, you will be disappointed
from United States
4 April 2005
I was attracted to this movie because of the title, as I come from
Oregon and was excited to see a movie made about one of Oregon's
natural wonders &Crater Lake national park&. Oh my disappointment!
Crater Lake is a lake that formed in the crater of Mount Mazama after
the top of the mountain blew off centuries ago (as Mount Saint Helens
did in the 80's). For a B movie made in the 70's it reminds me of other
laughable movies of that era, &Trog& and the &Man with 2 heads&, and is
as good as they were. It is a fun flick to watch on a slow Saturday
evening when you want to be nostalgic about your youth. I would
recommend watching it at least once.
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6 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
An underrated gem.
6 July 1999
A meteor crashes into Crater Lake, the heat from the impact causing a
prehistoric egg to hatch.Alright, so the plot is just trash.
But despite its obvious low budget,
this comes across as one of the most gripping and entertaining
monster-on-the-loose films in existence.
There are also some good moments
In an age filled so-called 'monsters' which are no more than
laughable men-in-rubber-suit creations or lizards dressed up in frills and
forced to rip each other to pieces (cheap exploitation-style), it's
refreshing to discover that the Plesiosaur in this little gem is an
excellent Harryhausen-style stop-motion creature.Quite a hard film to find, but it's worth finding.
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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A Nice Try, And A Fun Pastiche
from United States
6 May 2013
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
My bad, and all that, but for some reason, I had long assumed "The
Crater Lake Monster" was a product of the late 1950s--a black-and-white
cousin of such other films dealing with thawed-out critters returning
to harass modern man as "The Monster That Challenged the World" (1957)
and "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" (1959). Of course, I was incorrect
in that surmise, and the picture in question turns out to be from the
year 1977, and filmed in beautiful supersaturated color, to boot.
Still, this film's heart seems to be very much with the great sci-fi
pictures that had been produced two decades earlier. A minor and modest
entertainment at best, it yet succeeds as a pastiche of its '50s
antecedents, and indeed, had it been filmed in B&W and featured some
vintage automobiles, might have been able to fool many other folks as
to its year of birth.In the film, coscreenwriter Richard Cardella plays Sheriff Steve
Hanson, who is in charge of the peaceful, picturesque little town of
Crater Lake, somewhere between L.A. and Las Vegas. The plummeting of a
sparkling meteorite into the local lake spells big trouble for Hanson,
the townsfolk and some visiting tourists, however, as the superhot
chunk of space junk soon warms up the lake's waters and acts as an
incubator of sorts for a plesiosaur egg that had long lain dormant in
its icy depths. And before long, a fully grown plesiosaur--think of the
head and body of a brontosaurus, but substitute seallike flippers for
the legs--with a decidedly nasty disposition and a hunger for meat is
seen waddling and chomping its way through the area! It would seem as
if Hanson, along with the town's doc, a visiting archaeologist and his
girlfriend, and the area's two doofus boat renters, Arnie and Mitch,
will have their hands very full, eliminating--and perhaps even
capturing--the prehistoric menace...."A beast more terrifying than your most frightening nightmare," the
original trailer for "The Crater Lake Monster" proclaimed, and while
this amusing bit of hyperbole is of course patent nonsense, the film's
creature nonetheless is a most pleasing creation. Brought to life via
Harryhausen-like stop-motion animation courtesy of David W. Allen, the
plesiosaur is fairly awesome to behold, and to the film's credit, we do
not have to wait more than 15 minutes before getting our initial
glimpse. (I always got impatient, when I was a kid, if a film withheld
that first look for too long, and I suppose I haven't changed much!)
The creature looks most impressive every time we see it, even when
director/coscreenwriter William R. Stromberg gives us a long shot of
the lake, with only the monster's head and neck briefly emerging from
it. Indeed, the entire film LOOKS just fine, with rich colors and
lovely scenery (the picture makes nice use of its Huntington Lake and
Palomar Mountain, California, locales), shown to good advantage on its
current Rhino DVD incarnation. As for the film's acting...well, I'm not
saying that the Academy egregiously overlooked anybody here, but the
thesping is nonetheless better than you might expect. Cardella, in the
lead role, is especially good as the befuddled, tough, scared but
depend indeed, an unexpectedly charismatic
portrayal from this relatively unknown actor. Anyway, those are the
film's not inconsiderable virtues, which are, unfortunately,
counterbalanced by a goodly share of drawbacks.It's hard to put a finger on any one reason, but "Crater Lake Monster"
exudes that indefinable sense of an amateur effort, albeit a very
skilled one, and featuring those excellent FX. As detailed on a certain
Wiki site, the film had a troubled production vis-a-vis financing, and
I suppose that all involved did the best they could under the
circumstances. The picture features some blatantly goofy humor, thanks
to those cracker-barrel numskulls Mitch and Arnie (we get to see the
two argue constantly, fight, toss each other in the lake, get drunk,
stumble around in the woods, etc.), but these scenes also allow us to
get to know the characters better, and thus to actually worry about
them when they are in peril. What is worse than the inane humor is the
ease with which the plesiosaur is u a horribly
rushed, unbelievable and anticlimactic denouement that should leave
very few viewers satisfied. And then there is the matter of time
elapsed in the film. We are told at one point that it had been six
months since the meteorite plunged into Crater Lake, although there is
absolutely no way for the viewer t indeed, all the
occurrences in the film seem to transpire over the duration of around
72 hours. So yes, the film most certainly is a minor effort, and a
mixed bag at best, but still most undeserving of the lowest "BOMB"
rating that the wet blankets at "Maltin's Movie Guide" have chosen to
bestow on it. The film is especially perfect for the kiddies and those
with an abiding love for 1950s monster fare, not to mention those who
are suckers for stop-motion FX. In all, a nice try, from a group of
filmmakers whose heart was certainly in the right place....
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