Instant Favorite.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

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

Poorly made cheap sci-fi horror film about fish-man creature mutated by radiation. There's a ridiculous story involving spies and espionage, but this film is so unbelievably cheap, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed, and overall poorly made that there are really no redeeming qualities to recommend watching this film. Overall, "The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues" is a bad creature-feature even by American International Pictures standards. Not even interesting on a so-bad-it's-good level of entertainment.

This movie is interesting in that the acting is competent though the story is terrible. The special effects are also terrible. It was intriguing to watch and contemplate why they made such an inept movie. Evidently, they were able to sign decent actors to play the roles, but the people who put the whole thing together were unable to create a believable story. They wanted to create a story with a monster, but they didn't have the ability to make it do anything scary. The monster barely moves in the film. But since movies about the monstrous effects of radiation were common at the time, they figured they could put together something people might want to watch.This might be an example of what decent actors do in between good roles. When they can't get anything decent, they take roles like this to make a few bucks.Actually, the story isn't completely stupid. But the makers apparently could not afford to pay anyone to storyboard the film or plan how to make the monster scary. In the past, I've thought what a horribly tedious job story-boarding must be, but when you see this film, you see why it's important. You have to lay out in detail what the visuals will look like.

There's obviously no point in claiming that this is anything like a good story. And yet... There is a strange emptiness that hovers over this film. Consider the opening shot of of a desolate boat in the middle of nowhere and the sound of bells tolling. Or when the body is found on the beach the odd poses of the people investigating the scene. 'Investigating' is not the right word. They stand like figures in a De Chirico painting. And then there is a sense that everyone is under observation. People watching each other. Then silent moments of anguish fill in the blanks. Milner holds reaction shots curiously long. Uncomfortably long. And it's fascinating. Were this film in a European language it might be seen as an existential statement.

Cathy Downs was one of the sadly unsung great talents of the cinema. However, when one examines her career, it's not that difficult to see why her fame was never particularly wide-spread. Even though she kicked off her career with a great movie, John Ford's poetic Western masterpiece "My Darling Clementine," she nevertheless finished it up with movies that ranked in the categories of being schlocky, dreadful, neglected, and not entertaining. Her career was consumed with films such as "The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues": a horrendously boring and uncared-for creature-feature that makes my heart sink just thinking about it.So you see, there is this phantom from 10,000 leagues under the sea. Actually, it's not a phantom at all but a sea monster that resembles a cross between a frog and a simian, all simulated using a bulky monster costume so poorly designed and executed that at times, the monster's hands peel, revealing a set of human hands underneath. Oh, and the depth at which it lives is nowhere near 10,000 leagues. Anyway, this 'phantom' was brought into existence because it came into contact with a big shaft of light. And it just so happens this shaft of light was radioactive. And when a human being comes a-swimming or a-rowing, the beastie gets mad and kills them by pulling on their pant legs and rubbing its blocky head against their waists.Creepy, but...not in the way I think the filmmakers might have intended.Oh, but wait, I'm misleading you. That's not what this movie's plot is really about. Really, it's about a scientist (Kent Taylor) who meets another scientist (Michael Wahlen) and his daughter (Cathy Downs). Anyway, a government man (Rodney Bell) believes there is no monster killing people, but the older scientist or somebody at his college. Anyway, there's also a secretary who thinks something's up. Anyway, there's also...anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway! Anyway, the movie is overly populated with incredibly dull scenes involving these cornball characters. Their dialogue sequences, meant to construct personalities and characters, stretch on to exhausting length. The performances are not...necessarily bad, but they aren't all that commendable, either. These long stretches of dialogue are increased in their excessive tedium because of poor direction, long wide takes of the camera, and bad misc en scene where an actor's head will be in the second third of the screen and there will be a blank wall on top of them. Even the camera-work is bad. This just makes the movie plod onward for what seems like days and we get very little talk (or concern) about the beastie living in the sea. Not that a project this schlocky would have been monumentally improved with more monster moments, but at least it would have been a little less difficult to suffer through.I don't know why I even bother with movies with titles like "The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues." I suppose it is because every now and then you do come across one of these movies that is fairly good. I still am slightly embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed "The Killer Shrews." But I did not enjoy a single minute of this picture. And looking back on it and "My Darling Clementine", it's not only boggling that Cathy Downs went from making that to this, but it's also a bit disheartening, too. Here was a great talent thrown shamefully to waste.