Brief Review: Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

Creature from the Haunted Sea is a comedy-horror film, starring Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, and Robert Towne. The movie (narrated by Towne) centers around an American criminal and his villainous crew, who have helped a group of exiled Cubans smuggle a box containing a large portion of the Cuban treasury out of the now-Communist Cuba. The criminal and his crew plan to kill off the Cubans and keep the money for themselves. And to do that, they pretend that a local legend, a sea creature, is the one doing the killings. But they soon learn that the creature is, in fact, real.

I had many problems with this film, the first, major problem being the monster itself. The monster looked like something out of Nick Jr's Yo Gabba Gabba!. It wasn't convincing in the slightest.

 

Then there was Pete Peterson, Jr (played by Beach Dickerson). If ever there was a character who needed to die, it was him. The constant animal sounds weren't cute nor funny. All they did was make me wish that I was legally old enough to drink. And if Pete's animal sounds weren't bad enough, who should he find when he lands on the island? None other than Rosina Perez (played by Esther Sandoval), an island native who also makes animal sounds. The two together could make a recovering alcoholic fall off the wagon. It's needless to say that I was very happy when both of them died.

Another problem I had was with Agent XK 150 (played by Robert Towne). I don't know whether it was Towne or the writing but I found the character to be quite annoying as well, especially when he would try to convince Mary-Belle to give up her life of crime and run away with him.

Now in terms of comedy, there really wasn't any. There were a couple good lines. Towne's line, "It was dusk. I could tell, because the sun was going down," got a chuckle from me. As did Jones-Moreland's "I just can't believe that you're real". But that was basically it. Not even the final scene was funny to me.

In terms of horror, I found there to be some (sort of). The first being when the monster first appeared. I actually jumped a little when he emerged and grabbed the Cuban.

The second was the film as a whole. I didn't think it would actually be that bad! But it was!

The only real highlight of this film was Betsy Jones-Moreland. Moreland was mesmerizing as she sang "Kiss Me, Baby". And her character, Mary-Belle Monahan, was tolerable. I was actually sad when the monster took her at the end.

Overall, I give this film one out of four stars.

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© 2012 David Larsson