The Cyclops (1957)

This is one of those movies you would see on in the middle of the night, or hosted by a horror host back in the day.  I don't think your average person would go around seeking this out, but I have some fond memories of seeing this movie in the middle of the night, and that's when you should be watching it.  With all the bad but kind of great effects this has, it really is a joy to watch.

A woman named Susan hires a crew of guys to help her find her missing fiance who crashed three years ago in a remote area in Mexico.  She travels with Russ, a friend of her boyfriend Bruce.  She also travels with Lee, a pilot, and Marty, a guy looking for uranium to sell.  They travel in a four person plane, so just in case they find Bruce, they won't have room to take him back.  He crashed in restricted air space so Susan attempts to get a permit from the local governor so she can go freely there.  I know, exciting adventure movie right?  Anyway he says no and wants to send a security guard with to make sure they fly back.  So they start up the plane, Marty punches the dude in the face, and they take off without him.

They finally get to their destination and right away Marty is getting readings on his science device thingy... I forgot what it was called because I really don't care, informing him there is uranium around.  Russ sees a giant lizard but assumes his eyes are playing tricks on him.  Marty decides he wants to go back and stake their claim on the uranium, but Susan isn't willing since she hasn't been looking for Bruce for more than five minutes and everyone agrees to camp out in this dangerous radiation filled desert.  Russ confesses his love for Susan and shortly after, they see a dog sized rat get killed by a twelve foot bird.  Unfazed by this, Susan refuses to believe that her husband would have died in this harsh environment.  So they go camping since it is kind of late.  Shortly into that they hear growling from a distance.  Lee wants to go get some meat to eat, but Russ informs them of what he and Susan saw earlier.

Lee, Russ, and Susan go to see what that is and Marty stays behind.  What they discover is a giant tarantula that mostly just walks away, and two giant lizards fighting so they run away.  Everyone wants to stay except Marty who is saying they are crazy, and rightly so.  Russ goes out later and gets some lizard tissue from the lizard that lost, but isn't dead apparently.  He looks at it and discovers that the animals are getting big because of radiation and they will likely never stop growing.  He also mentions that staying here for another couple days will affect them due to radiation.  So everyone agrees to leaving... except Susan.

So in the morning Susan goes off on her own and finds the wing of Bruce's plane.  But she also discovers the titular character of the film.  She screams as the cyclops caries her off.  The men go after her and find her in a cave, hysterical, and surrounded by Bruce's belongings as well as plane bits.  The Cyclops traps them in the cave with a big boulder, and he peaks over the boulder, yelling at them.  After discussing the futility of their situation, Marty tries to leave so Russ punches him in the face and Marty stops.  The Cyclops then comes back and peaks over the boulder to growl some more.  Susan is elected to talk to the Cyclops due to her feminine voice being more soothing and it seems to help, until Marty grabs a rifle and shoots the Cyclops.  The Cyclops gets angry and attacks Marty who we then assume is dead because they say so, but you don't really see it.  

The Cyclops then grabs Susan and the rest of the frame in the movie and takes them away to out of the cave where he tries to talk to her until a giant snake attacks him.  The snake is actually kind of cute.  So the Cyclops gently places the snake off screen with a thud sound effect in order to defeat it.  In the struggle, the rest of the crew tries to get away.

There's more,  about ten or fifteen minutes more in fact, but I don't want to give away the "Big Reveal".  However, if you can't tell where this movie is going or what the ending is going to be about twenty minutes in, you should probably worry about yourself.  The story is insanely obvious.  That doesn't stop it from being fun though.  It isn't the kind of movie made for deep thought provoking messages or even heavy critique, which makes this and pretty much every review of it somewhat obsolete from the start.  When you see the poster, and possibly a few stills from this movie, you are going to know whether or not it is for you.

I enjoy this type of thing.  It would be a cool late night viewing type of movie, if you like cheap 1950's atomic Sci-Fi or Horror stuff.  There are some effects that are kind of fun and a bunch of not so great stuff.  The movie is predictable but not in an unlikable way.  With that being said, I'd like to show a quick visual of the sort of effects I am talking about and let you decide for yourself.  It is also from the end of the movie, but it is likely you don't care about spoilers for a movie this old right?  The movie is also just over an hour long so it really isn't painful or anything.  I say give it a watch.

Don't Look in the Basement

Don't Look in the Basement, or The Forgotten is a true classic of the Drive-In world.  Often when given a watch from a modern audience, they tend to find it boring and stupid.  In some ways they have a point.  This movie is the very definition of pinning all hopes on a strong premise, and it is strong.  The major problem with this movie is just how wacky psychology is in the movie.  But I'm generally a positive guy when I review stuff, so what did I think of the movie?

Well we start off in a sort of big house that is a mental institute run by a man named Dr. Stevens.  He doesn't believe in a doctor patient relationship and prefers to deal with the patients by letting them act out and treating them as family.  This seems strange when you realize that most of his patients are prone to bursts of violence, but apparently he has spent years gaining their trust.  That doesn't stop a patient named Judge Cameron from getting carried away while chopping wood and the honorable Judge gives Dr. Stevens the axe.

Another doctor named Masters takes over for him being the only qualified person on staff.  She has a patient named Sam help her with the clean up of Stevens.  I should mention the people who stay there.  Sam is a big black guy who has the mind of a child.  He also loves to play with toy boats.  He is pretty tame.  Allyson is a nymphomaniac with schizophrenia.  There is the previously mentioned Judge Cameron who may only think he is a Judge.  A guy they call Sargeant who has PTSD and killed members of his platoon.  There is an old woman named Callingham who speaks in ominous poems and really loves flowers.  Jennifer mostly cowers in corners and looks creepy.  Danny is a prank playing red head who is also childlike.  Then there is Harriet.

So Harriet has a baby doll that she thinks is real and is protecting her with violent tendencies.  She murders a nurse working there shortly after the death of Dr. Stevens.  This leaves them with a staff consisting of just Dr. Masters.  As it turns out a woman named Charlotte Beale applied for a job there with Stevens a week prior to his death.  After a week she comes there to claim the job only to discover that Stevens is dead and has told Dr. Masters nothing at all about the new employee, or even that there was to be one so Masters is reluctant to hire her.  Charlotte gave up her whole life to take this job and despite the news of violent patients, is determined to work there regardless.  So Masters hires her.

Not all is well here though.  It turns out the phone lines don't work and very shortly after Charlotte makes a bit of progress with the patients, Jennifer attacks Charlotte with a knife and Danny becomes infatuated with her, and is caught looming over her.  She wakes because Judge catches Danny looming.  Judge is also looming, but with an axe and makes mention of wanting to kill her... sort of.  Another occurrence is Allyson seducing the phone repairman with a rampant sex drive and threats of violence.

This all seems pretty fascinating and scary, but I assure you most of what happens is spread out between a lot of nothing or back loaded at the end of the movie.  Not that it's bad or anything.  In fact for my tastes if more happened I would think it was a bit of overload and start to wonder why Charlotte hadn't left earlier.  Much of this happens in the last half hour by the way except the phone guy banging Allyson.  There is something else that happens too, but I won't get into it.  Many people get killed in pretty brutal ways in this movie, and you see Allyson's upper assets a few times as well which is nice.  What really sells this is the ending.  Nearly every review you will ever read will talk about this awesome ending, and they will either spoil it, or tell you to watch it for yourself.  I choose to go with the second option because I think this movie has fallen into relative obscurity and it could be enjoyable for those that want to watch it to enjoy it for themselves.

Don't Look in the Basement is a prime example of Drive-In cinema in all it's glory and if you want to know what it was like to be a young teen in Texas watching sleazy gore and nudity in the comfort of your own car, I suggest this highly.  But get some snacks because you will want to munch and zone out partway through.  The good stuff actually makes this movie worth it I think and to be honest I like this movie a bit more than some other well know Drive-In fair such as Color Me Blood Red.  Normally I don't give movies ratings but with this one I will.  3 out of 5 I'd say.  This I feel is a good score.  Young folks nowadays think that average or slightly above means it sucks which is totally not true.

Heed these words well, a rating that is half of the full, like 5 out of 10, means that at the very least it is better than half the things you've seen in your life.  So a rating of 3 out of 5 should mean that it is better than average.  2 out of 5 means it's better than a fifth of what you've seen but nothing too great, and 4 out of 5 is pretty damn good.  this means 1 out of 5 is bad and 5 out of 5 is as good as it gets.  So now you know how to actually rate a movie, but does this mean I recommend Don't Look in the Basement?  Not really.  I would say if you are a casual movie watcher just don't bother, especially if you are young and have no attention span.  If you are a horror fan though then you better sit yourself down.  This is something you should see at least once.  Especially if you know what the hell I mean by Drive-In fair.  Remember folks, as Joe Bob Briggs said, "The Drive-In will never die."