Michael_Elliott Beast from Haunted Cave (1959) ** (out of 4) Slow-moving but mildly entertaining horror film from director Monte Hellman has a group of thieves stealing some gold and deciding to hide out in the snowy mountains. Their plan seems to be working at first but soon they come across a giant spider deep within the cave.This here was an early Roger Corman production and like a lot of the films from this era you soon realize that they were working with very little money, which means that there's going to be a lot of talking and very little action. One of the Corman's most known sayings was how when you're monster looks bad it's best to keep it hidden. That pretty much happens in BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE as the spider is rarely seen outside of a part here or a part there. The bad costume finally shows up at the very end but at that point it's too late to turn the film off.I thought the cast were decent for what they were asked to do, which was basically hit their marks and say their lines. The cast were at least interesting enough to keep you glued to the movie and to stick with it longer than you probably would have otherwise. The spider creature design is obviously very cheap but there's some mild charm that you can take from it.Hellman would go onto make much better cult movies but this one here was mildly entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious.

Scott LeBrun "Humphrass" was the behind the scenes pet name devised by actor Chris Robinson for his creature creation, a mysterious, web spinning, somewhat arachnid-like animal that stalks a small group of people in the South Dakota wilderness. Some of these people are criminals who came to stage a gold robbery, using an explosion in a cave as a diversion. Unfortunately, by doing so, they unleashed the beast, which occasionally catches up to its prey in order to do some pretty creepy things to them.A 27 year old Monte Hellman, future icon of independent cinema (and director of classics like "Cockfighter", "The Shooting", and "Two-Lane Blacktop") made his directorial debut with this obviously low, low budget effort, done for producer Gene Corman and his brother Roger. On the whole, the movie isn't a great one, but it's under rated as far as this kind of B picture goes. It's got some genuinely spooky atmosphere, and Hellman and Robinson (himself star of such features as "Stanley") do their best to keep the monster in the shadows until the time arrives to show it in all its glory. And what a monster it is. It doesn't really look like anything seen on screen, before or since. It's wispy, long limbed, and has a largely featureless head.The creature sequences are the main reason to watch, but not the only one. The extremely moody cinematography is by Andrew M. Costikyan; Alexander Laszlo does the effective music. The screenplay is by Roger Cormans' frequent collaborator, the talented Charles B. Griffith, and it does have some good dialogue. (Basically, the scenario is a reworking of the earlier Corman flick "Naked Paradise", but with a monster added.) There are some interesting characters in the bunch, especially gangsters' moll Gypsy (Sheila Noonan), who is already depressed and defeated at age 26. The acting is generally solid - Michael Forest is a likable hero, Frank Wolff appropriately despicable as the criminal mastermind, Corman favorite Wally Campo amiable as comedy relief guy Byron, and Richard Sinatra (Franks' cousin) has a solid presence as young punk Marty. Robinson does a good job at creating a nightmarish creature character that could easily spook younger children.Not bad, this one. It's definitely worth a look.Seven out of 10.

GL84 After making a getaway from the authorities with a ransom of gold, a group of thieves' plan to use an accident at a ski resort unwittingly releases a giant spider-like creature that puts a halt on their escape plans as it hunts them down one-by-one.This was a decent but enjoyable effort that really works a lot better than it should, despite some noticeable flaws. The main part is the haphazardly-edited finale, which is so chaotic and confusing that there's no way to tell what's going on in any of the scenes and the method of killing the creature gets lost in the fray due to this, it's all done so fast. At times the creature looks way too cheesy and doesn't really seem a part of the scene at all with the way it's imposed onto the image, and the only time you see it in full is at the end which is quite confusing. That leaves a large portion of time on useless features where the cast is forced to go through their different story lines which just aren't that interesting or enjoyable with the heist or the group's distrust of each other really making for some lame times. That said, the suspense of the attacks works well with a few creepy moments, the film is never really all that slow so it's got a nice pace to it and the overall design of the monster creates quite an impression. Those are enough to make up for some of the flaws.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

zee The film clearly was done on little money, but there are a number of matters that elevate it above other cheap monster films of the era.Charles Griffith does a much better job with dialog than he did in It Conquered the World or Little Shop of Horrors. There's some actual meaning in the banter. Furthermore, it is delivered in an interesting style that also might derive from the low budget, so that chunks of the dialog are oddly timed, and naturalistic for that. I was only half-watching early on, and suddenly the delivery of the lines made me really attend to the thing. I liked Sinatra in this--never heard of him before watching this movie. As others have said, it's slow in the middle, fairly exciting at the end.