i must have seen a different film!!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison) is an American cowboy working in Mexico and is upset about missing cattle. To be exact, cattle and farmers are mysteriously disappearing in southern Mexico near the location of Hollow Mountain. It is said to never have been explored and the swamp at its base is said to claim the lives of anyone brave enough to snoop around its banks. Ryan and a couple of cowboys will search for missing cattle and discover strange tracks. A giant prehistoric dinosaur appears and is obviously the attacker of farms, ranches and villages.Directed by Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodriquez with special effects by innovator Willis O'Brien's stop motion techniques animating the dinosaur. It is said that this film is one of the first and few American/Mexican co-productions.Other players: Carlos Rivas, Mario Navarro, Patricia Medina, Julio Villarreal, Eduardo Noriega and Pascaul Garcia Pena.

And I thought Valley of the Gwangi was the only Cowboy/Dinosaur movie out there - WRONG! Thanks to the new MST3K, I was able to catch The Beast of Hollow Mountain – a first time viewing for me. In this one, American rancher Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison) and partner Felipe Sanchez (Carlos Rivas) are working cattle on their ranch in Mexico. When their cattle begin disappearing, Jimmy and Felipe suspect that either (a) the cattle are disappearing in the nearby swamp surrounding Hollow Mountain or (b) the cattle are being taken by Jimmy's nemesis, Enrique Rios (Eduardo Noriega). Rios is jealous because Jimmy has eyes for his fiancé, Sarita (Patricia Medina). As it turns out, neither is the true answer of what is happening to the cattle. Instead, Hollow Mountain has more than a dangerous swamp to fear. There's also the titular Beast – a giant Allosaurus.It's not great, but as my rating indicates, The Beast of Hollow Mountain isn't all that bad either. It's hard not to compare the movie with Valley of the Gwangi. Both have cowboys, horses, and dinosaurs. I may need to revisit Gwangi because, despite the rating I gave it, I remember enjoying it a bit more than this movie. As for what I like about The Beast of Hollow Mountain, it's a great looking movie. The widescreen shots are often stunning. The cinematography really shines. The acting, while not Academy Award level, is more than competent. The actors give what I would call very earnest performances. I especially enjoyed the work of Carlos Rivas. He was also a standout in The Black Scorpion. The stop motion dinosaur work is also competent for this kind of movie, especially when you consider the budgetary limitations they were working with. It's not seamless and wouldn't stand up to today's CGI, but I enjoyed it. Finally, there's that sombrero worn by Felipe. What a hat! They needed a widescreen format just to get it completely in frame. I want that hat! On the negative side, I'll just mention two things. First, the film takes an eternity to get to the dinosaur. The movie is at least 2/3 over before there's even a hint that there might be something else going on with the cattle. Second, while I enjoyed the stop motion Allosaurus, the close up of the feet was ridiculous. The dinosaur feet looked more like some house shoes my son might wear. Totally unbelievable.

I like dinosaur movies. I like The Valley of Gwangi. This is barely either. Sure it has a dinosaur. Sure it has cowboys. Sure it takes place in that land of prehistoric adventure(Mexico)(?) But let us not get too carried away here. First of all - for much of the film - absolutely nothing happens except for a rather lame fight between Guy Madison as an American rancher versus the wealthy Mexican rancher who loves pretty(and perky) Patricia Medina. I mean nothing happens. We do not even get a real hint of the dinosaur until forty-five minutes into the film when Pancho gets a formal dinner invitation. Do we see the dinosaur then? Oh no. It does not appear for another ten minutes and its screen time is definitely limited. The dinosaur is done with that lost art - stop motion animation. It is done okay for its time. in fact the denouement of the film was pretty cool with the quicksand and guy Madison on a rope. I also liked the scene with the dinosaur skidding down a cliff and trying to get Panchito and Medina in a cabin. If more had been done with this, the film would have been markedly improved. Notwithstanding all of that, the film was fairly entertaining despite its legion of flaws. The acting is over-the-top from Madison giving his best good-guy cowboy impression(whilst secretly lusting after another man's woman" to Pascaul Garcia Pena doing one of the drunkest buffoonish characters on screen. Medina is over-the-top too - but boy what a top to see! Her bulletted blouse nearly explodes! The Beast of Hollow Mountain is interesting for nothing else than seeing some early stop motion animation techniques used. the film could have used the dreadful "let's dress up a lizard" technique but chose not to. I see many comparing this to Harryhausen's Gwangi - truly. I see little similarities. That is a very good film. This one, is at best, okay.

Cowboys being the archetypal movie hero for many previous movie generations, it's surprising that no one even seemed to try to combine a "real" Western with a monster movie and done it "straight" before this. And no, I'm not counting tripe such as "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" - gimmicky novelty movies wearing Western trappings." "Beast" plays fair with the audience of its day - it is a Western through and through and really is built around all the standard Western trappings of its time. And when the monster comes out to play in the final 20 minutes, it's a genuine surprise and gives the movie a badly needed jolt of energy.It's just too bad that the use of Western screenplay staples is so clichéd - except for the actual monster plot elements ("who is stealing or eating the cattle?"), nothing that any character says or does will surprise you in any way. And someone needed to throttle the soundtrack guy down a bit - it's simultaneously overbearing and overdone.And the special effects aren't all that great, although I can respect the amount of back breaking work that must have gone into using "replacement" animation for some of the dinosaur sequences(as opposed to the more well known stop motion techniques mastered by Harryhausen.) "Replacement animation" involves creating a new wax figure for each and every frame of the stop motion sequences (as opposed to just changing limb placement, expressions etc on several models) and it must have made such demands on the production budget that they could only use a very limited amount...and it still doesn't look very good to eyes accustomed to Harryhausen.A devoted fan of the Western genre (and Mexican movies) will probably like this movie more than I did...but I give it credit for trying something interesting and playing it straight instead for exploitation value. (All the exploitation is in the title, nowhere else in the film).