A drunken sea captain (Timothy Buttons) loses a boat (and a couple of crew members) to a gigantic sea snake, who we find out at the beginning of the film that it was created by a nuclear explosion. Or was it woken up from the deep? Who knows, they don’t explain. So he’s accused of drinking on the job, but another person witnesses the snake (Taryn Power), so he decides to unite with her by making her escape from a mental hospital. With the help of some dinosaur expert played by Ray Milland, they decide to go on a manhunt to kill the giant serpent.
I don’t know about this movie, man. It’s given me something of a bad taste in my mouth, but I can’t say I completely hate it either. It was directed by Amando De Ossorio, a really talented filmmaker from Spain who made the great Blind Dead films and The Lorelei’s Grasp, which I love as well even though so many people say it’s crap. But this movie… I dunno. I guess I was hoping for something very atmospheric like the previously mentioned films, but nope, not in here. We get a Japanese-style monster movie, but it’s script doesn’t really make sense. I already mentioned the dubious origins of the sea monster, but the thing that really peeves me about the story is that it has the most ludicrous coincidences in the history of cinema. Our ‘hero’ is accused of driving a ship while drunk and sentenced to jail, but he goes walking scott-free right after his sentencing. This is a dubbed version, did I miss something? Then he helps the nutty girl escape, right in front of a horny orderly who recognizes the girl only after she’s inside an elevator. Then they return to a hospital (!) to talk to another survivor. You’d think there’d be security ready to see two excons hanging around, but I guess not.
Now, the film has a very talented task. Timothy Buttons is a great actor who appeared in the great Last Picture Show, and Ray Milland has appeared in hundreds of films, many of them classics like The Lost Weekend, Dial M For Murder and The Thing With Two Heads, although sadly his behavior is similar to his character in The Lost Weekend, slurring and almost falling over thanks to what looks like an over-use of the sauce. But the best performance is given by the Sea Serpent itself, a sock puppet modified by special makeup that makes Reptilicus look like the beast from Cloverfield. So those are my two cents on this, De Ossorio’s weird bastard child. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, but it’s still a lot of fun…. If you’re high.