Expected more

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film's story location ought to give the attentive viewer the direction in which this one is heading - it's in Deadwood, South Dakota - emphasis on 'dead wood'. Man, if the film makers were going for the cheapest and cheesiest monster costume of all time I think they definitely succeeded here. As a cave dweller, this 'beast' rivals the infamous Horta from that first season Star Trek episode 'The Devil in the Dark'. What do you think the budget for this thing was, the beast was made from a couple of wooden sticks covered with cobwebs! So that's gangster Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff) uttering the statement in my summary line, but just to clarify, he wasn't talking about the picture. Here's a guy who plans to rob gold bars from a payroll office, but when he and his goons blast open the vault, he sets a limit of two bars per knapsack - what?!?! No wonder he couldn't commit to gal pal Gypsy (Sheila Noonan) that he wouldn't call it quits with this heist. I guess he wasn't a big picture sort of hoodlum.And how clueless was this guy Gil Jackson (Michael Forest), the ski instructor? The whole time he and Ward's band of thugs are holed up in the mountain cabin listening to radio broadcast updates on the explosion and robbery back in town, he never puts two and two together. Well what do you expect when the guy's idea of a good time is reading an encyclopedia for kicks.And then, just as things start to look like they might get interesting, Ward's flare gun sets the cave beast on fire, and the flick is over in a blaze of fury. Well, maybe not the fury part so much, but the cobwebs did go up in flames pretty quickly. Certainly more effective than Gypsy throwing rocks at the darn thing.

Last night I actually came across a classic B film that I had never seen so I sat down to watch "Beast From Haunted Cave". The picture was directed by Monte Hellman. The same man who went on later to film the straight to video slasher flick "Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!" in 1989. This movie which was shot in South Dakota seemed a bit more risky in its choice of dialog than your typical 50's horror story. So right away I gave this picture a little more respect than I normally would. "Beast From Haunted Cave" tells the story of bank robbers fleeing in the snow who run afoul of a giant spider that feeds on humans.As for the character relations for "Beast" my opinion is much the same as my opinion toward any 50's films. I just don't get that people related to one another in such offensive and atypical repertoire. I guess the lack of modern technologies and information we now have really stunted people emotionally in prior generations. I am not sure what it is but even though I like a lot of old black & white movies I never quite comprehend peoples single pointed view of one another in the dialogue. It is just part of the culture gap thing, I guess.Anyway despite my ignorance of the 50's mentality I still enjoyed the fact that this movie was pretty progressive in its subject matter when it came time to display loose morals and wild behavior of the characters. Drinking at ten in the morning, premarital sex, and lude conduct, as much as the censors would have aloud in your 1953's cinema was ahead of it's time and showed the first signs of your now classic set up for creature features. There is the group of wayward souls set out in unknown territory, up to no good. Then you have the local legend, attention to animal attacks, followed by the reveal of the true monster plaguing the land.In "Beast From Haunted Cave" there is actually only one hint as to why this creature existed. Mining in the region had unearth some prehistoric creation. This is the only hint as to how the creature came to be that I could tell. It was also the only mention as to industrialism expanding into nature and the consequences' that could result. This film managed not to be arrogantly preachy. It was just your basic drive-in monster movie. I love it when movies just play out the story with out spelling out the set up or true intent of the picture. This was one of the first classic stories that felt like it was meant purely for entertainment.The story is a good simple one that just start, as if the story is already being told and we just peeked in during the crucial moments of these peoples lives. It was not over acted, well by 50's standards the melodrama was down played. The monster stays in the shadows except during crucial moments, so the fact that the creature looks cheap is excusable. It is a cool classic b-movie that I had never seen and I actually enjoyed it.

Roger Corman is the king of film recycling! He reused the same props, costumes, sets, and sometimes the same footage, over and over again, until it became so obvious that it was embarrassing even by his standards. That's how he managed to produced over 400 films. Certainly not classics, by any standard, but sometimes worth your time. He didn't win any awards for his films, but he did take home a boatload of lifetime achievement awards.He recycled Alexander Laszlo's creepy music in this film into at least three more. That's not a criticism as the music was really good.Now, don't for any stars here. Not even Frank Sinatra's cousin could bankroll his name into anything more than a couple of uncredited roles in Frank's films.And the monster, it looked really recycled!

This is a Roger Corman low-budget B movie from the late 1950s. Before you roll your eyes, though, this one is worth a look. The acting is solid, and the storyline isn't bad. Well, it's very slow to get started, but it gets there. Basically, a group of gangsters gets the idea of robbing some gold bars while in South Dakota, and they set off an explosion in a nearby mine as a diversion. The trouble is, they also awaken a giant hairy spider which is annoyed that the humans have disrupted its humble abode, apparently. The gangsters take off cross country with a ski instructor (who is simply their guide and is unaware of their connection to the robbery) with the spider in pursuit. A snowstorm forces them into a cabin, where they get picked off one by one by the spider. Actress Sheila Noonan, who plays the sultry girlfriend of the head gangster, is particularly fetching.