sol- 'Hydra' -- better known as 'The Sea Serpent' or 'Serpiente de Mar' -- this low budget horror film involves an eel that mutates into a giant monster after exposure to nuclear radiation, terrorising locals boating off the coast of Lisbon. As one might imagine, the film has formed a cult following in Portugal as one of few horror movies filmed there, but the worth of the film is debatable. Firstly, the plot does not add up. The films opens with the Americans deciding to drop a nuclear bomb in the ocean to prevent Russia from realising they have one and retaliating, which is sort of logical; what isn't logical is them activating the bomb before dropping it (!), producing a giant mushroom cloud that the Soviet Union would have to notice! The film also features possibly the most blatant rip-off of the John Williams theme to 'Jaws' and the acting leaves a lot to be desired. Most vexing of all though is that the title creature is never very scary. When Timothy Bottom first sees the creature and shirks back, it is unclear whether he retreating in fear or simply shock at the second rate creature effects. For all its vices though, 'Hydra' is difficult to dislike a film with glow-in-the-dark fish and a local hospital that looks like a five-star hotel. The sardonic, near Kafkaesque dilemma Bottoms finds himself in also resonates, held responsible for sinking his ship as a result of being a soul survivor rather than acknowledged as a hero for warding off the beast. A scene where he wildly acts out the movements of the serpent in a hotel room (oops--hospital room) also needs to be seen to be believed.

ma-cortes Thrilling film in low budget plenty of chills , screams and lots of silly amusement . I admire creative effort to keep budget down , but this time is too little . It deals with an American Air Force jet carrying a atomic bomb is forced to drop it in the Ocean. Then , there takes place a nuclear detonation in the Atlantic that re-animates a giant sea monster . The creature terrorizes the Spanish coastline , capable of causing death and destruction . 1985 , Galicia , Spain , a sea captain , along with a seaman (Jared Martin) aboard a boat called ¨Alcantara¨ and set out in fishing when the strange monster attacks , being sunk and the crew devoured alive . Later on , the captain , whose ship was sunk by the monster , is condemned , but he escapes and join forces with an American tourist (Taryn Power , Tyrone Power's daughter) whose best friend was eaten by the monster in Estoril , Portugal . The couple goes to Lisbon asking for help a respected as well as likable professor (this film was Ray Milland's last theatrical feature) and both of whom team up to stop the beast ."Hydra" is a humdrum adaptation based on monster movies from a story and screenplay by the same director , Amando De Ossorio . This is a middlingly entertaining European monster movie in the 50s style , though packs absurd situations and cheesy frames when takes place monster appearance , attacking swimmers, boats and lighthouses without mercy . ¨Sea serpent¨ is an atmospheric as well as eerie movie that contains bemusing scenes when appear the giant monster and take place his attacks in some ridiculously made scenes , including primitive special effects . The picture has numerous "older technique" FX such as transparency , miniatures , matte paintings, scale models , reverse-footage , trains and helicopter similarly to toys ; all of them were made by Amando De Ossorio and makeup artist Fernando Florido . It's a slight fun with professional make-up , naive special effects , functional art direction and passable set decoration by Jose Luis Galicia who designed several Paella Western . You will watch it and think it is either awful , hilarious, a masterpiece, or all three . It's a simple entertainment with embarrassing images , naive special effects , campy production design and evocative setting . Although critics do not appreciate much this picture ; however has a kind of loopy , Ed Wood quality that must be endured to be totally considered . The fable is mostly silly and laughable , though a few Naif effects and action are professionally made . Some illogical parts in the argument are more than compensated for the excitement provided by the monster appearance though some scenes are a little bit cheesy and ridiculous . While not a hit during its original run, the film has got a limited gossip , when reissued many years later considered to be one of the best worst monster films of cinema history ."Hydra: Monster of the Deep" was lousily directed by Amando De Ossorio . Amando was a slick craftsman who began in films as a writer and assistant director and continued his career by making short films and industrial documentaries . He was one of the main directors of the Spanish horror boom in the 70s, specially for his quartet of films about the living dead Templars which started with his first great success and immensely popular ¨Tombs of the Blind dead¨ which to be continued by a trilogy : ¨Return of evil dead¨ , ¨Ship of Zombies or Blind dead 2¨ and ¨Blind dead 3 or The night of the sea gulls¨ . Amando owns his own studio and created and/or designed many of the simple special effects sequences you see in any of his many imaginative undertakings . Amando who recently passed away was a good craftsman who realized a lot of amusing as well as entertaining films . He displayed a varied career and specialized on all kind of genres as Western in "Rebels in Canada" and "Grave of the Gunfighter" , Monster movie as ¨Serpent of sea¨ and , of course, Terror as ¨Malenka¨ , The possessed¨ and ¨night of witches¨ . Ossorio also studied painting and photography , moreover, he also made his living as a painter of creepy images of the Knights Templar in his later years.

Coventry "Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is fantastic and downright brilliant entertainment. That is to say; at least if you're into stupid, cheesy, trashy, tacky and totally incompetent euro-Exploitation material. From the creator of some really great and highly respected European horror landmarks, such as "Tombs of the Blind Dead" and "The Lorelei's Grasp", comes this must-be-seen-to-be-believed piece of 80's incompetence that you simply cannot bring yourself to hate. The film begins with a really cheesy sequence of a military airplane, code name "baby", in contact with the radio base, code name "mother", and receiving the order to drop a nuclear bomb, code name "baby's bottle", in the Atlantic Ocean. The explosion instantly causes a regular-sized sea serpent, as the only living thing in the entire ocean, to mutate into a giant and radioactive monster. And yes, all this even happen before the opening credits! Even after the exhilarating opening sequence, the monster doesn't waste any time and promptly devours half the crew of a Spanish fisherman's boat and a female American tourist who thought it was a brilliant idea to go swimming in an unlit and unguarded area whilst completely drunk. Of all stupid people I ever watched dying in horror films, she deserved it the most! Her traumatized friend teams up with banished fisherman Pedro, but obviously nobody believes in the existence of a massive sea creature and they call in the help of the eminent professor Timothy Wallace; who actually should have been retired for at least two decades already. "Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is indescribably entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Whenever the film attempts to be spectacular and terrifying, you'll find yourself practically laughing your lungs out. The monster is an adorably ridiculous sock-puppet who likes to twist itself around cardboard lighthouses and swallows entire mannequin dolls without even chewing. At a certain point in the film, the critter even manages to grab a helicopter out of the sky and munch it. Also, pay attention to the catchy but nevertheless knocked-off Jaws music whenever the monster threatens to pop its head out of the water. Okay, the film is too long in parts, especially since Amando De Ossorio insisted to provide the obligatory "let's-fall-in-love" montage and several more completely irrelevant sub plots, but overall "Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is the type of garbage I instantly fall in love with.

Vigilante-407 This has to be one of the most awfully scripted films I've ever seen. It's basically a remake of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), but done with your standard snake-like puppet-monster instead of a sleek Ray Harryhausen creation. Combine the plot of that classic monster movie with the production qualities and acting level of The Creeping Terror and you have an idea of what this movie is like.The movie is dubbed, although by the original actors (I think that the movie was originally dubbed in Italian for that countries audiences, then redubbed for US release), which just makes the movie seem weird...the sounds, like in a Japanese monster movie, just don't quite match properly to the action on the screen, even if the actors' lips are moving properly.Poor Ray Milland...he's certainly come a long way down from The Lost Weekend or Dial M for Murder or any of the number of excellent movies he was in. Add this to his other sci-fi travesties (Panic in the Year Zero, X The Man with X-Ray Eyes) and you can see a once good actor fallen into a Boris Karloff syndrome...stuck doing really bad horror films in foreign countries just for the work.