B-movie budget 50’s sci-fi—not high production values and the acting, typical of Arnold’s films, is a little wooden—but I thought it was intelligent and, unlike many films in this genre from the era, not overly hokey
Smartly, the film shows as little as possible of the creature for much of the film—not unlike how they used and showed jaws
Reasonable explanations and discussions around evaluation and comparisons to recently discovered ancient animals—again- intelligent
Influential on so many films- not just del Toro and jaws but plenty of bad films like anaconda
For a few minutes down the amazon it feels a little bit like a trader horn travelogue
An outright comparison of the sea to outer space on how much it’s unexplored and how little is known about it
When they do show the creature they largely keep him underwater and those sections (about 20 minutes of the 80) are really well done
Influenced by 1951’s the day the earth stood still— we are scared and kill what we don’t understand. I actually liked that this film didn’t moralize as much or even end up telling us if the creature would’ve been friendly or not
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