an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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

This is a great movie. It is very scary. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is one of the best movies I have seen. It is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street.

Mildly entertaining film. This is not a horror film so I don't know why this one has been added to the "Legends of Horror 50 Movie Pack". I guess the pack title does imply what the title says "Legends of Horror" - and John Carradine is famous for playing and starring in horror films so I guess the it might be appropriate this film is included in the pack. Good to have another Carradine film in my collection.The film is OK - it does have entertainment value in a way. The ship lost one of it's bells and four divers enter into another bell to retrieve the lost bell of course their bell also breaks leaving them stranded in the waters. They end up somehow in an underground volcano where they meet a man who claims to have lived there for 14 years in the caves of the volcano. Carradine and others are working on a rescue topside but things look grim but, as luck would have it, the volcano erupts and sets the four free of the volcano while the old man that's been there 14 years dies. The four people are now rescued - the end.It's not a film I would recommend but it's an OK film - nothing special.4/10

Octopus vs. Shark: Review of the Incredible Petrified WorldThe central question in this 1950's nautical circus is whether the human storyline is a metaphor for the creature storyline, or whether the creatures represent the humans in the story. An additional quandary is why the basic plot line of this film was not made into a sit-com for the ages. Whether these questions are answerable will be apparent by the end of this review dear reader, or perhaps nothing is ever apparent when dealing with the mysteries of the deep sea and/or human relationships.There are four primary characters, a secondary character, and several tertiary characters. For the sake of brevity, the tertiary characters will be given little analysis, but might be seen as roaming electrons searching for an ion of meaning to the forsaken diving bell which represents the nucleus of the story. In fact, this movie might make for an excellent 8th grade science lesson, and I encourage all middle school teachers to show it!The film opens with an epic battle (are there any other type of battles?) between an octopus and a shark. Normally, I would handicap the shark, if I were the type to handicap such competitions, but the octopus surprisingly holds its own. Teeth and tentacles aplenty to set the scene for our four adventurous divers who want to reach a depth never reached before by humans.But a funny thing happened on the way to the bottom of the sea. The cable broke. This plunges the diving bell to a depth unthinkable and ruins communication with the surface tertiary characters. So we find Paul and Craig (who seem to be experienced oceanographers) with two females, Dale and Lauri (who have little scientific knowledge but are reporters there embedded if you will). The relationships seem to work like this: Paul and Craig are good friends, who even have a manly attraction to each other. Paul and Lauri have a heterosexual attraction to each other. Craig and Dale have little to no relationship, although if they must spend the rest of their days together, we can only assume there will be cuddling. And now for the Octopus and the Shark. Dale and Lauri have a competitive female relationship which culminates in the following dialogue:Dale: (to Lauri) You just listen to me, Miss Innocent. There's nothing friendly between two females. There never was. There never will be. Lauri: Sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could help each other. Dale: You don't need help - neither do I. Not as long as we have two men around us.What we find here is an allusion back to the opening of the movie when we watch the octopus battle surprisingly well. Lauri is the octopus – she seeks to nurture with her tentacles of kindness and teamwork. Dale, however, sees the world as a shark eat shark world and cannot envision a noncompetitive situation with another female. Even worse, she feels that men are her salvation! Clearly, she will not be ready for the feminism about to change the world. Her weakness of only moving forwards (as sharks will die if they don't move forward), will eventually cost her the war against her "eight legged" female rival.The other interesting twist in the movie is the presence of a neo-Neanderthal and a volcano in the incredible petrified world. The screenwriter has clearly planted these second rate plot devices in the movie as metaphors. To the casual observer, the caveman is anachronistic source of danger and safety to our four adventurers while the volcano is definitely a source of frustration and danger.A careful viewing reveals that the volcano represents God and the caveman is Jesus. "Really?" you gape. It's true! The travelers think that this cavern will eventually lead to the surface, until the caveman points out that the volcano will block their path. What he really is saying is that until you give your life to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (i.e. Him), you will never be saved. When the caveman spies upon the women, he is not merely being a voyeur, but he is judging and deciding if these females are worthy of his Kingdom.When the volcano erupts, the caveman behaves curiously. He seems to allow the giant, realistic looking boulders to land on him. Again, one is tempted to scoff at the silliness of the plot and action sequence, until one realizes that this caveman is sacrificing himself for the four divers. He has become a martyr and the viewer can't help but feel that a new age is dawning.This feeling is buttressed by the fact that the tertiary characters are diving and reaching the vessel which was lost in the beginning of the movie. I'm not saying how, the movie ends, but let's just say, we all have seen how Christianity has turned out. And we all know what happens when a shark battles an octopus.

"When a diving bell goes missing along with its crew of four, their expedition gives up hope of finding them alive. However, the missing vehicle has become trapped in a labyrinth of underwater caverns. After exiting their craft, the foursome encounters a survivor from a shipwreck who informs them that there is no escape from their underwater tomb. Our intrepid explorers, however, trace the flow of oxygen to a volcanic vent and a possible escape route," according to the DVD sleeve description.Possibly, producer/director Jerry Warren was trying to fool audiences into thinking something might happen if he had professor John Carradine (as Millard Wyman) submerge two shapely 1950s women - lady reporter Phyllis Coates (as Dale Marshall) and Sheila Noonan (as Lauri Talbott) - with two heterosexual men. Wrong. Ms. Coates is trying to get over "Tom" (tossing his hopefully cheap ring into a pool) and Ms. Noonan fails to hook up with Robert Clarke (as Craig Randall). Nothing excites. * The Incredible Petrified World (1959) Jerry Warren ~ Robert Clarke, Phyllis Coates, John Carradine, Sheila Noonan