wes-connors "A ship disappears during an ocean voyage and everyone is presumed lost. When evidence points towards a survivor of the wreck, the sailor's mother organizes an expedition to locate her missing son. When the explorers find the missing man living on n island, they take him against his will in order to return him to his home. The consequences of their actions prove very costly for the explorers, when the sailor sets about their downfall for taking him away from his island paradise," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.This "edited version of a ten-year-old film, 'The Sea Fiend' (1936)" is a curious choice for re-release. Perhaps, its generous footage of topless South Sea island native women was the alluring ingredient. Since they were animalistic "natives", they could be shown bare-chested. Non-native women, similarly displayed, would be considered pornographic. So, you have a big-screen movie turning the pages of the "National Geographic", while attempting to tell an adventure story. And, it's not even the original film.* Devil Monster (1946) S. Edwin Graham ~ Barry Norton, Jack Del Rio, Terry Grey

stephander This action film, made in 1946, or was it 1936?, is a horrible and inept mishmash about tuna fishermen hunting the South Seas for a lost seaman at the behest of his mother and fiancée. They eventually find him on a Polynesian paradise which he is reluctant to leave. They resort to shanghaiing him, not to take him back apparently, but to make him tell them where the good tuna are to be had. But in addition to the tuna they meet up with the Devil Monster, which turns out to be nothing more than a large manta. The story makes no sense and the direction has no continuity. Many of the effects, such as the fight with the manta, are laughably bad. Its only virtue is that the badness of it is unpredictable and that unpredictability is what may or may not hold your interest for a plodding hour. The highlights of the film are the brief shots of bare-breasted native women and a nifty fight between an octopus and an eel shot in an aquarium.

vigilante407-1 My criteria for a true bad movie is one that is either just plain boring or just plain stupid. Highlander 2 is an example of the latter, while Devil Monster is a pretty good example of one that's just boring.This cheapie is another movie that's basically ten minutes of story and fifty minutes of travelogue. Too much nature footage detracted from the already-scant story. The story that's there is pretty much just a minor melodrama, probably more at home in a silent movie (in which most of the principal actors would've also more at home). About the only really interesting bit is the fact that the hero doesn't get the girl at the end. Most of what passes for special effects are just crudely done opticals, but they don't really detract from the film as much as one would think.I'd love to see The Sea Fiend (the movie from which this one was edited) to see if what they took out made things go any more interestingly.

ubik-11 And I've seen a lot of them. There is more stock footage in this thing than any movie I know except "Jungle Hell" (1956). The only difference is that "Jungle Hell" was all elephants. This one's all sea lions. On and on and on about the stupid sea lions while the stupid crew in their stupid boat looks for stupid Juan Francisco.Much of the stock footage that isn't sea lions is native women of the South Pacific. I don't know if the editors were blind or what, but whoever was in charge of splicing the stock footage together didn't seem to mind that the women were mongoloid one minute, negroid the next, and caucasoid the next. They change races with surprising speed.There is another prominent stock footage scene. An octopus in an aquarium (you can see him stick to the glass, and you can see the reflection of lights on the glass) battles a moray eel. The eel is defending all his little fish buddies from the mean old octopus. I'm not making this up. This is presented as if it were happening in the ocean for crying out loud. Who wins? Watch and find out!Lots of stock footage of men fishing provides for some humor as the overdubbed voices say things like, "Watch out for my face." But it gets tiring after several minutes of the same stupid footage of the same stupid men catching the same stupid fish.Alas, there is one more big stock footage scene. This one's of the devil monster. It's not a devil, and it's not really a monster. What is it? Let's just say it's not the kind of monster you were hoping for. Juan, who they did find at the end of all those sea lions, battles the "monster". Again, you'll have to watch to find out what happens.What really surprises me is that the IMDB says this was edited down from a longer, older movie. That tells me that (1) someone thought the original was worth redoing, (2) someone thought this version was better, and (3) the original must've been worse. I can't imagine.