Friday, May 02, 2008

Reptilicus

Thanks to Todd Mason for the reminder.

3 comments:

Fred Blosser said...

This was one of the big critter movies in the late '50s and early '60s that followed in the wake of GODZILLA. This one was Danish and was dubbed for U.S. release, as I recall, maybe faultily. My opinion, it was better than the awful big-budget Emmerich remake of GODZILLA a few years ago and better than the low-budget critter movies that show up on the Sci-Fi Channel -- younger viewers probably would beg to differ. As I remember, Charlton Comics did a comic book version that morphed into a similar but different title, "Reptisaurus." Charlton also adapted the big-ape movie KONGA with Steve Ditko artwork -- wish I'd kept that comic.

Todd Mason said...

Fred, I'm not too surprised, but utterly gratified, to know that Charlton managed a comics adaptation of REPTILICUS...that seems so fitting. But I have to take issue...R is more fun to watch than many giant monster movies, but is better than essentially none of them, even the sterile dull US GODZILLA or the similarly inept, but not quite as inept, WAR OF COLOSSAL BEASTS, and the dregs of the Gojira franchise, such as the one released in the US as GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, and therefore dubbed G V. THE SNOT MONSTER in my childhood household. For Reptilicus, after all, actually IS a snot monster...it's two means of threat to human life, as demostrated so well even by the trailer, are either to spew acidic snot that has been rather haphazardly drawn/scratched in on the negative (or in some similar kids' backyard 8mm-level process), or to fall on the victim in a clumsy drop.

It is Art. Terrible, terrible Art.

And, indeed Danish. Gooey, stale Danish.

Anonymous said...

The person who used to write the one sentence reviews for movies on television for the New York Times used one word to describe this film. Balonicus.