Giant Gila Monster (B&W)

Starring:Don Sullivan, Fred Graham, Lisa Simone, Shug Fisher, Bob Thompson, Janice Stone, Ken Knox, Gay McLendon, Don Flournoy, Cecil Hunt, Stormy Meadows, Howard Ware, Pat Reeves, Jan McLendon, Jerry Cortwright, Beverly Thurman, Clarke Browne, Grady Vaughn, Desmond Doogh, Ann Sonka
Director: Ray Kellogg
Studio: Alpha Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

The tranquility of a small Texas town is ruined when an enormous rear-projection lizard begins to terrorize the place! At first, the adults dismiss the kids' hysterics as nonsense. The sheriff is helpless and the adults fail miserably to defeat the thing, so it's up to the teenagers to take it on. Though this movie relies a little too heavily on plot and characters and not enough on giant lizards, it's still a fun slice of '50s camp. The lead character (played by Don Sullivan) sings some wildly inappropriate and goofy songs for some unintended comic relief. Rock & roll, hot rods, teenagers, huge monsters... all the elements are in place for this faintly ridiculous '50s funfest. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews:

CAMP CLASSIC!!!.......2007-02-12

BUY THE IMAGE VERSION!!!
Nice, clean clear version of this classic involving teenagers, sock-hops, hot-rods, & a GIANT GILA MONSTER that pushes it's smooching head through the barn dance wall. Nitro-city!!!!
This is the absolutely BEST version of this film out there (& I have several).
Co-billed with THE KILLER SHREWS this was a double-feature to die for!!!
STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!.......2006-12-31

This movie is worth watching for several reasons. First, this movie actually had a somewhat plausible plot. Second, many of the Gila monster scenes were well done. Third, Fred Graham and Shug Fisher are in this movie; more on them in a moment.

There were many movies made for drive-in theaters that featured teenagers in weak plots with a poorly costumed actor as the monster. These movies were cheesy, but many of the teens that went to the drive-in were not really there to see the movie anyway, so everyone was happy. However, some of these movies actually tried hard to present a relatively coherent story and featured a plausible monster. This movie is one of those.

The monster in this case is a huge Gila monster. The movie glosses over the source of the monster, but the movie uses a genuine Gila monster on various miniature sets that generally match the full-sized locations in appearance. My only disappointment was that the Gila monster never appeared in the same frame as any of his victims.

Gila Monsters make poor actors. In one scene I could see that someone was pushing the Gila monster forward because sand was piling up in front of the Gila monster's legs. In another scene the Gila monster breaks through a wall, but the Gila monster appeared more enthusiastic about getting unstuck than breaking through the wall. I felt sorry for the Gila monster.

Our human actors are principally teenagers. The teenagers in this case are good kids who are generally misunderstood. There is more than a little conflict between characters because Sheriff Jeff (Fred Graham, a veteran actor of more than 200 films, including "Wake of the Red Witch," "The Horse Soldiers," and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon") is supportive of the misunderstood teenagers in opposition to wealthy Mr. Wheeler who believes the sheriff is incompetent and the teenagers are a bunch of hoodlums. The lead teenager is Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan, who also appeared in "Teenage Zombies" and "The Monster of Piedras Blancas") who sings several songs in the movie and has a sister who gets braces for her legs so that we have a bit of "aww" factor in this movie, especially when the Gila monster chases the sister in her leg braces. One of Chase's songs is passable, but I fast-forwarded through all of them.

The Gila monster makes regular appearances throughout the movie. There is the dramatic claw shot; there are the ominous Gila monster in the brush shots; and then there is the ever-popular Gila monster under the railroad bridge shot. This Gila monster is multi-talented. As is often the case in monster movies, most of the major characters do not know there is a monster lurking about until about two-thirds of the way into the movie. Once everyone finally realizes there is a giant Gila monster munching its way through the local population, including some passengers of a wrecked train, the sheriff and the teenagers are galvanized into action! The excitement builds as the Gila monster threatens a dance, which somehow includes Chase Winstead's boss Old Man Harris (played by Shug Fisher, a member of Sons of the Pioneers, who sang with Roy Rogers, and a veteran of many movies including "My Pal Trigger," "Mr. Roberts" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance") and then attempts to eat Chase's polio stricken sister as she runs in her new braces. Will the excitement ever end!

This movie is a study in contrasts. On the one hand the movie has very weak special effects. For example, the train scenes used film from at least two different trains, and maybe three. Also, the model train that wrecked was a poor match for the actual train used in the shots leading up to the wreck. While some of the scenes of the Gila monster were nicely done, others looked exactly like what they were, a genuine Gila monster walking around (or being pushed) on the ground.

On the other hand, the movie does play as a serious movie. The movie painted the teenagers as being a bit too goody-goody, but otherwise everyone acted reasonably typical for the era and the teenage parts of the movie refrained from the over-the-top nonsense that plagued many other teen movies of the era. I also admit that when I was a kid I thought this movie was really scary. I was probably ten at the time but I was impressed!

If you like old monster movies from the 1950's and 1960's, this one is certainly worth a watch. I have this one in my collection because I liked it when I was young and because it was cheap. It is also great for a Friday or Saturday night watch on a Halloween weekend or on New Year's weekend instead of letting a television programmer decide what you are going to watch.

Enjoy!

SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE.......2006-10-22

IN A NUTSHELL:ONE CAN'T HELP THINKING OF THE BLOB WHEN WATCHING THIS CREATURE FEATURE

Like the 'The Blob', 'The Gila Monster' takes itself seriously -- dead seriously. Watching this film makes my mouth water for an audience to lampoon this charming 50s creature-feature for, but that is just part of the fun. You see, this film approaches its subject with the same gothic intensity that the original 'Outer Limits' did in 1963-1964. The film opens with a missing couple, presumed to be eloping, but we all know otherwise. Gradually, the County Sheriff begans to notice the same pattern that the audience had, only a bit slower. People are disappearing and in increasing numbers. Since most of the adults are drunk in this film, especially the witnesses, it is up to the teenagers to assist the Sheriff in bringing this big lizard to justice.

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT: SO YOU NEVER SAW A 50 FT. GILA MONSTER?

Okay, so it's a bit corny and cliche, probably even when it played to drive-in crowds in 1959: small crowds, but crowds to be sure. It is played in earnest and the tension does build. Unlike the first feature, this film seems a bit drawn out, perhaps to be long enough to play for European audiences looking for new eclectic American productions -- perhaps not. Anyway, it seems as though this would have made a neat 'Outer Limits' episode if it had been tightened-up at bit with editing. Maybe a couple of country tunes could have been omitted, or maybe the serenade was important for the atmosphere of the film -- in any event it seemed too long for a very short film. Maybe we could have seen more of the Gila Monster, which Ray Kellogg, a Special Effects A-List veteran, expanded from a 2 foot reptile into a 50-80 foot long behemoth rather convincingly. All the scenes showing the monster were miniatures, but a full-scale set was made to make the transition from mini-monster to actual set with people pretty real looking for a low-budget thriller. Of course we don't see people and the Gila Monster in the same frame. For that kind of magic in 1959, you'd need Ray Harryhausen and about 3 years of his time. The film does start with a bang and then gradually builds suspense to a Nitro charged conclusion which is after all, all we want from a Drive-In thriller. From that standpoint 'The Giant Gila Monster' delivers as advertised, "ONLY HELL COULD BREED THE GIANT GILA MONSTER"!

BOTTOM LINE: GOOD CLEAN FUN -- NO BLOOD - GORE - NUDITY or PROFANITY

Okay, this is not classic cinema, but it is a classic drive-in creature-feature! There are some better entries in this genre, like 'The Blob' and 'The Killer Shrews', but in the end they're all fun to see and the variety now available on DVD simply gives us more opportunities to enjoy these B-creature-features of yesteryear in all their campy wonder -- again and again.

Fan of 50s sci-fi? This movie is FUN !!!.......2006-08-01

I love this movie.

Most people may think the acting is corny and special effects are lousy, but there is a certain kind of charm this movie has that stays with you. It's the kind of movie, if you saw it as a kid, you would never forget it.

I even think the Gila Monster is kind of cool .. Hey, he's cooler than some of those stupid Japanese monster movies (ever seen those Gamera flicks?)

The characters all have personality and charm (even the drunk is great!). The eerie music is great (it defines 1950s sci-fi), the hot-rods are cool and the low-lit scenes are great too. It just adds to the charm of the movie.

This movie is FUN, bad acting and all ... it's just a good time. Enjoy it!

Bad movie, but a lot of fun to watch.......2005-11-12

This is one of those movies that is bad but fun to watch anyway. A couple of teenagers and then the local garage owner disappear and it turns out the culprit is a giant lizard that somehow exists for weeks with no one noticing. No explanation is ever given as to where the lizard came from or why or how no one saw something that was big enough to derail a train with its head.

There is too much time spent on the main character and his problems and little spent on creating any actual tension with the lizard. The effects are what you would expect, a regular sized lizard walking aimlessly around a miniature set with weird music playing to let you know to be terrified. There are also two interludes where our hero sings. He isn't talented, even though the movie tries to tell you he is. The songs are terrible, have nothing to do with the movie and you will be praying for them to end.

The way the lizard is killed in the end is ludicrous, our hero is vindicated and everyone lives happily ever after blissfully ignorant of why their lives were interrupted for a few days by a mutated gila monster.

Monster Madness Collection (Lost Continent / The Giant Gila Monster / She Demons / Monster From Green Hell)

Average customer rating:

Monster Madness Collection (Lost Continent / The Giant Gila Monster / She Demons / Monster From Green Hell)
Starring: Monster Madness Collection
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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( M ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

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Horror | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Alien Attack (Brain From Planet Arous / Cat-Women Of the Moon / Missile To the Moon / The Day It Comes To Earth)
Invisible Invaders / Journey to the Seventh Planet
When Worlds Collide
The Monster That Challenged the World/It! The Terror From Beyond Space
The Del Tenney Double Feature

ASIN: B00092ZL3A
Release Date: 2005-07-19

Description

It's an Atomic Age attack when modern science breeds rampaging beasts bent on wiping out mankind! First, a military expedition goes searching for a missing rocket and stumbles onto the LOST CONTINENT, a strange world filled with towering dinosaurs! Then the teens in Lover's Lane better watch out when THE GIANT GILA MONSTER decides to snack on rock `n' rolling, hot-rodding high school students in a small, sleepy town. Then an island populated by SHE DEMONS is just the start of a wild adventure packed with hurricanes, dancing native girls, Nazis, mad scientists, weird surgical experiments and an erupting volcano! Finally, a crashed rocket unleashes hordes of radioactive wasps who breed the MONSTER FROM GREEN HELLl a hulking mutation as big as a house.

Average customer rating:

CAMP CLASSIC!!!
Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!
SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE
Fan of 50s sci-fi? This movie is FUN !!!
Bad movie, but a lot of fun to watch

Giant Gila Monster
Starring: Don Sullivan , Fred Graham , Lisa Simone , Shug Fisher , and Bob Thompson
Director: Ray Kellogg
Manufacturer: K-Tel Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Killer Shrews
Cult Classics: Earth vs. the Spider/War of the Colossal Beast
Attack of Giant Leeches (B&W)
Beginning of the End (Special Edition)
The Black Scorpion

ASIN: B000056PN0
Release Date: 2001-07-03

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

CAMP CLASSIC!!!.......2007-02-12

Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!.......2006-12-31

SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE.......2006-10-22

Fan of 50s sci-fi? This movie is FUN !!!.......2006-08-01

Bad movie, but a lot of fun to watch.......2005-11-12

Average customer rating:

CAMP CLASSIC!!!
Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!
SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE
Fan of 50s sci-fi? This movie is FUN !!!
Bad movie, but a lot of fun to watch

The Giant Gila Monster
Starring: Don Sullivan , Fred Graham , Lisa Simone , Shug Fisher , and Bob Thompson
Director: Ray Kellogg
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Sci-Fi | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

4-for-3 Horror | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

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( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

The Killer Shrews
Cult Classics: Earth vs. the Spider/War of the Colossal Beast
Attack of Giant Leeches (B&W)
Beginning of the End (Special Edition)
The Black Scorpion

ASIN: B000069HZJ
Release Date: 2002-08-13

Amazon.com

Description

A monster of unknown origin stalks Lover's Lane in search of fresh teenagers to devour in this monster-sized bash filled with rock 'n' roll, hot rods, poodle skirts, and prehistoric lizards the size of a Greyhound bus! Teens realize the cause of an escalating chain of destruction in their sleepy town, but authorities refuse to believe them until the corpses start piling up. Starring Ken Curtis (Festus from TV's "Gunsmoke") and directed by Ray Kellogg (The Green Berets), this is great and fabulous fun from the nifty Fifties, newly remastered like you've never seen it before!

Customer Reviews:

CAMP CLASSIC!!!.......2007-02-12

Attack of the Defenseless Gila Monster!.......2006-12-31

SORT OF A POOR MAN'S VERSION OF THE BLOB WITH A HOME-GROWN MENACE.......2006-10-22

Fan of 50s sci-fi? This movie is FUN !!!.......2006-08-01

Bad movie, but a lot of fun to watch.......2005-11-12

Drive-In Discs, Vol. 2: The Wasp Woman/The Giant Gila Monster

Average customer rating:

Does a slithery tongue give you a buzz?
A waste of plastic

Drive-In Discs, Vol. 2: The Wasp Woman/The Giant Gila Monster
Starring: Drive-in Discs
Manufacturer: ELITE ENTERTAINMENT
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

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Drive-In Discs, Vol. 1: Screaming Skull/The Giant Leeches
I Bury the Living
Day the World Ended/She Creature
This Island Earth
Cult Classics: Earth vs. the Spider/War of the Colossal Beast

ASIN: B0000A0WID
Release Date: 2003-08-19

Customer Reviews:

Does a slithery tongue give you a buzz?.......2006-02-13

The Wasp Woman:

Maintaining that wasp waist

Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) head of a cosmetics company was told the she needs to stay young to promote the product. What can she do? Enter garage scientist Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) with a dubious formula made from wasp royal jelly. He explains that "just a little dab will do you." She gets greedy and shoots up with the extra strong stuff. This gives her a BUZZ and can have biting consequences.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Giant Gila Monster:

A huge slithery tongue

This is a picture of life before CGI. The contrived dialog is part of the mystique. You get to see hotrods and large lizards (every thing is bigger in Texas.) The blob it is not; but it is a necessary addition to any 50' collection.

A teenage boy and a teenage girl disappear together and the law is getting suspicious.

I want to ask the monster if teenagers taste like chicken?

A waste of plastic.......2005-05-10

I didn't have high expectations for this disc, but it didn't even meet my modest hopes. What a turkey.

The two feature films are bad beyond belief. I say this without having watched them from start to finish. At one point, a voice in my head said "life is too short to waste it watching this junk". So, I fast-fowarded through them to see if, by some miracle, things would improve. They did not. I won't bore you with the details, but will simply list the categories in which these films fail every test: camera work, acting, special effects, dialogue, pacing, and on and on.

But, to tell the truth, the main thing I was intested in was the disc's extras -- the period intermission shorts and cartoons -- which I hoped to use during my own home drive-in presentations. These are marginally useful, though the menu system on the DVD makes it very difficult to show them, since you have to renegotiate the menu after every 30-second clip.

And, finally, there's the issue of transfer quality. You don't expect a complete digital restoration of this kind of material, especially when a degraded soundtrack is touted as one of the disc's "benefits". But the framing was so bad that, on the film titles and the shorts one or more letters was cut off on either side. I'm reminded of the joke: The wife complains to her husband "The food in this place is just awful!" He replies: "Yes, and the portions are so small!" I would at least expect to get all the lousy video I paid for.

I rate the disc with one star, only because one-half star wasn't available. Maybe a good value for $1.99, but certainly not at the current price. Too bad; the idea seemed to have promise.

Average customer rating:

Interesting combination
Great concept, good (but not great) execution
Great...unless you have the first Elite drive-in disc!
GREAT DOUBLE FEATURE
Good smoochin' movies!

The Giant Gila Monster/The Wasp Woman
Starring: Clarke Browne , Jerry Cortwright , Desmond Doogh , Shug Fisher , and Don Flournoy
Manufacturer: Elite Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005BJXA
Release Date: 2001-07-24

Customer Reviews:

Interesting combination.......2004-09-03

The Giant Gila Monster

A huge slithery tongue

This is a picture of life before CGI. The contrived dialog is part of the mystique. You get to see hotrods and large lizards. The blob it is not; but it is a necessary addition to any 50' collection.

A teenage boy and a teenage girl disappear together and the law is getting suspicious.
I want to ask the monster if teenagers taste like chicken.
Watch for your self.

------------------------------------------------
The Wasp Woman

Maintaining that wasp waist

Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) head of a cosmetics company was told the she needs to stay young to promote the product. What can she do? Enter garage scientist Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) with a dubious formula made from wasp royal jelly. He explains that "just a little dab will do you." She gets greedy and shoots up with the extra strong stuff. This gives her a BUZZ and can have biting consequences.

Great concept, good (but not great) execution.......2002-03-18

I have both discs in this series and they are quite enjoyable.

The Wasp Woman benefits from a strong lead performance by Susan Cabot and The Giant Gila Monsterf benefits from... being unintentionally hilarious.

It's great to see the selection of Drive in clips for advertising and intermision and they are very well transferred (even better than the films).

The "distorto" sound is cute.

Here's where this series needs to improve:

More new (old) drive in clips, some are recycled from the previosu release.

Better transfers of the features. Although "Wasp Woman" shows a nice improvement over the other transfers of "Gila Monster", "Giant Leeches" and "Screaming Skull"

Encode it so it's all one program. When you select The "Night At The Drive In" all the segments are on "seperate tracks". In other words, when one segment ends, the player has to search out the next segment (causing a pause in sound, most noticible when you have the distorto sound on).

Encode it so the DVD player can show the time. At present, there is no time code and that bugs me.

Keep the content same era oriented. In this case, the movies are from 1960, the cartoons seem to be from the 30's or early 40's. Most of the ads seems to be late 50's, early 60's and the intermission film has to be early 70's (it shows pictures of the moon landing, which took place in 69). Make volumes that have 50's films and exclusivly 50's clips, then others that have 60's and 70's films and clips. establish a verisimilitude that will help you believe you are time tripping to a drive in at the time period of the movie.

That also goes for the "distorto sound". Sometimes we hear comments from people inside the "virtual car" we are in. The comments seem too ironic and modern in tone. They don't talk like people from the era the movies are in. It's fun in an MST3K sort of way though.

This is a good series that has the potential to be something great. A really special way to see these B movie charms.

While they are thinking of "concept discs" over at Elite. They might also consider making a TV chiller theater style series. With vintage hosts and ads. This is the way I discovered many of these films in the 70's and it would be cool if someday a DVD presentation could reflect that.

Great...unless you have the first Elite drive-in disc!.......2002-03-13

If this is the first drive-in disc from Elite that you've ever seen, you'll probably get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Unfortunately for me, I had already purchased and watched the first one in the series ("The Giant Leeches" and "The Screaming Skull"). It was fun, but the problem is that virtually all of the extra drive-in stuff was *exactly* the same on the second disc as it was on the first disc! The "Pic" mosquito coils, "Let's All Go to the Lobby" (not really a drive-in short anyway), Chilly Dilly pickles...the list goes on. For the price of these discs (they're up in Criterion territory, pricewise), I expected to at least get all-new material.

The other thing with both of the drive-in discs is that the film transfers are not so hot. That's all I'll say; if you want details about grain, scratches, splices, etc., look up more detailed reviews on, say, Google, and you'll get the scoop. The bottom line is that the source material and transfers are pretty cruddy. Again, if Elite wants to put a price tag on their DVDs that is approximately the same as many Criterion DVDs, they need to pony up with quality and all-new material. I'm going to proceed very carefully before I even consider purchasing a third drive-in disc, as I felt a bit rooked this time around.

GREAT DOUBLE FEATURE.......2002-02-16

This great release from Elite's Drive-In Discs range couples two of my all-time favorite B-movies together in one irresistable package!

THE WASP WOMAN tells the story of ageing cosmetics empire magnate Janice Starling (Susan Cabot) and her desire to hold onto her fading looks. Enter a kooky scientist who has developed a youth serum from the queen wasps, and who has the power to drag her - and the company - back into youthful vitality. Neeedless to say, poor Janice gets hooked on the stuff and turns into a wasp creature that must kill. Also featuring Barboura Morris and Fred Eisley.

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER is a campy little gem starring teen singing sensation Don Sullivan. When a giant lizard begins wreaking terror over the town's teens (who mainly sit around in hotrods making out), the monster finds a great way to appease its burgeoning appetite. Featuring Lisa Simone as Sullivan's just plain-annoying French girlfriend, the movie is a laughable horror flick with a most irritating song ("Laugh Children Laugh") that was actually penned by Sullivan!

Of course, the highlight is the "Drive-In" feature which couples the two films together along with "Betty Boop" and "Popeye" cartoons as well as concesssion stand ads, trailers and intermission announcements. Featuring Elite's famous DISTORTO sound system!

Fantastic and well worth a look.

Good smoochin' movies!.......2001-11-30

If you can't get too much of a mediocre thing, this Drive-In Double Feature is for you! Date up your honey and get set for some serious smoochin'...you won't miss much in this pair of less-than-classic horrors.

Product Description

A small town in Texas finds itself under attack from a hungry fifty-foot long gila monster. No longer content to forage in the desert, the giant lizard begins to chomp on motorists and train passengers before descending upon the town itself. Only a quick-thinking teenager can save the town from being wiped out.

Customer Reviews:

A huge slithery tongue.......2006-03-18

This is a picture of life before CGI. The contrived dialog is part of the mystique. You get to see hotrods and large lizards (every thing is bigger in Texas.) The blob it is not; but it is a necessary addition to any 50' collection.

A teenage boy and a teenage girl disappear together and the law is getting suspicious.

I want to ask the monster if teenagers taste like chicken?
Watch for your self.

Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 3: Giant Gila Monster/Dead Men Walk/Fatal

Average customer rating:

Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 3: Giant Gila Monster/Dead Men Walk/Fatal
Starring: Horror Classics 4 Pak
Manufacturer: Mill Creek Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

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( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

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Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 4: Tormented/Swamp Women/World Gone Mad/L
Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 1: Killer Shrew/King of the Zombies/Brain
Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 2: Dementia 13 / Last Man on Earth/House
Sci-Fi Classics: Assignment Outer Space; Laser Mission; Blood Tide; Brain Machine [4-Movie Pack]
A Bucket of Blood/Attack of the Giant Leeches

ASIN: B000BBOUJ0
Release Date: 2005-11-08

Product Description

Horror Classics 4 Pack Vol. 3 - The Giant Gila Monster, The Fatal Hour, Dead Men Walk, The Mad Monster

System Requirements:

Running Time 247 Mins.

Format: DVD MOVIE

The Giant Gila Monster / The Killer Shrews

Average customer rating:

AN ORIGINAL DRIVE-IN TWIN BILL FROM 1959 -- WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THAT?
Classic monster movies are the best!!!
The giant Gila monster is okay but love those killer shrews!
A huge slithery tongue/ Dogs in shrew suits
Tame Gila Monster & Dogs Dressed as Big Mean Shrews

The Giant Gila Monster / The Killer Shrews
Starring: Don Sullivan , Fred Graham , Lisa Simone , Shug Fisher , and Bob Thompson
Director: Ray Kellogg
Manufacturer: Diamond Ent. Corp.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

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( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

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The Crawling Eye (Widescreen European Edition)
Beginning of the End (Special Edition)
Attack of Giant Leeches (B&W)
Classic Creature Movies I - (Roger Corman): Creature From The Haunted Sea / Beast From Haunted Cave / The Wasp Woman
The Killer Shrews

ASIN: B000034DE4
Release Date: 1999-11-23

Customer Reviews:

AN ORIGINAL DRIVE-IN TWIN BILL FROM 1959 -- WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THAT?.......2006-09-07

IN A NUTSHELL: 2 DRIVE-IN CLASSICS WHICH PLAYED TOGETHER IN 1959

--> 1st Feature: 'The Killer Shrews' Directed by Ray Kellogg, 1959

--->HOW DO YOU RATE A BAD MOVIE THAT ENTERTAINS?

This movie somehow is terribly entertaining and I am not sure why. It does have monsters, mandatory in all epic B creature features, but what kind of monsters? Yes, special monsters! Giant killer shrews which are actually cute jumping puppies with silly rug-like rat suits. A best editing Oscar might have been won if anyone saw the movie when it was originally released, just for the way the scenes were cut just as the RAT PUPPIES were about to show their cute jumping puppy traits. Yes, if you watch the film closely you can actually see when these playful pups are about to show their true colors and betray their employers by jumping, licking and rolling over. Many an adult has enjoyed this seemingly forgettable flick enough to purchase it on DVD [after they wore out the VHS edition just like me]. What gives? Well, it can't be the plot. We can only be grateful to the filmmakers for not blaming atomic energy for this 1959 disaster, but would you believe that these mutant giant rats were part of a project to save the world from overpopulation? No, they were not supposed to eat the world's surplus people. You'll have to watch this epic to discover their true purpose. Warning, watching this terrible film can be contagious and habit forming. As a bonus, you can often find this classic on DVD mated to one of several promising epics of the same era. "The Giant Gila Monster" and "The Crawling Eye" are just the two I know about. I have a feeling there are more but you can't miss with either of these.

--> 2nd Feature: The Giant Gila Monster, Directed by Ray Kellogg, 1959

---> ONE CAN'T HELP THINKING OF THE BLOB WHEN WATCHING THIS CREATURE FEATURE

Like the 'Killer Shrews', 'The Gila Monster' takes itself seriously -- dead seriously. Watching this film makes my mouth water for an audience to lampoon this charming 50s creature-feature for, but that is just part of the fun. You see, this film approaches its subject with the same gothic intensity that the original 'Outer Limits' did in 1963-1964. The film opens with a missing couple, presumed to be eloping, but we all know otherwise. Gradually, the County Sheriff begans to notice the same pattern that the audience had, only a bit slower. People are disappearing and in increasing numbers. Since most of the adults are drunk in this film, especially the witnesses, it is up to the teenagers to assist the Sheriff in bringing this big lizard to justice.

Okay, so it's a bit corny and cliche, probably even when it played to drive-in crowds in 1959: small crowds, but crowds to be sure. It is played in earnest and the tension does build. Unlike the first feature, this film seems a bit drawn out, perhaps to be long enough to play for European audiences looking for new eclectic American productions -- perhaps not. Anyway, it seems as though this would have made a neat 'Outer Limits' episode if it had been tightened-up at bit with editing. Maybe a couple of country tunes could have been omitted, or maybe the serenade was important for the atmosphere of the film -- in any event it seemed too long for a very short film. Maybe we could have seen more of the Gila Monster, which Ray Kellogg, a Special Effects A-List veteran, expanded from a 2 foot reptile into a 50-80 foot long behemoth rather convincingly. All the scenes showing the monster were miniatures, but a full-scale set was made to make the transition from mini-monster to actual set with people pretty real looking for a low-budget thriller. Of course we don't see people and the Gila Monster in the same frame. For that kind of magic in 1959, you'd need Ray Harryhausen and about 3 years of his time. The film does start with a bang and then gradually builds suspense to a Nitro charged conclusion which is after all, all we want from a Drive-In thriller. From that standpoint 'The Giant Gila Monster' delivers as advertised, "ONLY HELL COULD BREED THE GIANT GILA MONSTER"!

BOTTOM LINE: BOTH FILMS ARE GOOD CLEAN FUN -- NO BLOOD - GORE - NUDITY or PROFANITY

Classic monster movies are the best!!!.......2005-08-22

This dvd gets 4 stars because of the production and remake of the old films. The only reason that I did not give it 5 is because it was hard to read the liner notes in the extra stuff because they were too small and in a bright color. You just about have to sit with your nose to the screen to read any of the notes. Who knew Roscoe P. Coltrain had it in him? If your not into classic horror movies, because these movies could be corny to those who don't like the Fake FX, or the one line dialog, Then you need not spend your money on this. But this is a great movie set and for less than seven bucks you will be joining in on the best of James Best and one big ugly gila monster and a fast Hot rod!! Long Live Classic Horror!!

The giant Gila monster is okay but love those killer shrews!.......2005-05-15

This DVD brings us a pair of movies from director Ray Kellogg, whose most notable work would be the John Wayne film "The Green Berets." But long before he worked with the Duke, Kellogg made a couple of low budget monster movies that show you what sort of creatures you come up with when you do not have any money. The good news is that one of those two bad B-movies should tickle your fancy and make the double feature worth the viewing.

"The Giant Gila Monster" is one of those films where you take a real animal and having it crawl through miniature sets. The tagline for this film was: "Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast. Only God could destroy it!" But this 1959 film made in north Texas for $138,000, is a lot more low-keyed than those lines would suggest. In fact, what is interesting given when this film is made is the key relationship between Sheriff Jeff (Fred Graham) and young Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan). The kid is working on his hot rod and instead of busting his chops the sheriff really functions as a mentor: he says he is concerned about the kids in town, and you actually believe it. The idea of having a movie in which a teenage hot rodder, who also sings like Pat Boone who is not a juvenile delinquent, or at least treated like one by the cops, is rather refreshing, although admittedly the character is a bit heavy on the saccharine. But Sullivan has a natural charm and the guy wrote his own songs, so give him some credit.

But since we are talking letting a Gila monster wander through miniatures in a film with teenage hot rodders, of course this movie received "MST3K" treatment (Season 4, when Joel turned Crow and Servo into "The Thing With Two Heads" as inspired by the movie of the same name"). My major complaint about this film is that the day for night shooting is so dark I have a hard time figuring out what is happening. Obviously the special effects budget is such that most of the "horror" is suggested by quick cuts rather than actually showing everything. Still, I like the way that everybody is pretty level headed in this film and deal with the giant Gila monster in a relatively intelligent manner without wasting a lot of time and effort. Yes, finding the monster, which is the size of several houses, should not take so long, but then the movie would be shorter and it is only 74 minutes anyway.

For me there is a lot more fun to be had with "The Killer Shrews," a 1959 movie that takes itself seriously despite having Miss Universe 1957, dogs dressed up in shag carpets, rubber heads with big teeth, and an escape plan that you have to see to believe. The only question is why did "MST3K" wait until season four to take on this one? This one has to be on my list of top ten bad monster movies. Thorne Sherman (James Best) delivers supplies to an island just as a hurricane is coming. He wants to wait out the story, but Dr. Milo Craigis (Baruch Lumet) wants Thorne to leave right away and take his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude, Miss Sweden 1956 and then Miss Universe 1957), with him. The Doctor sounds German while his daughter has a very interesting Swedish accent, but that is not the biggest mystery on the island.

Dr. Craigis is concerned with over population and apparently his idea is was to shrink people to make food go farther. To this end he experiments with the DNA of shrews who (a) grow to the size of dogs wearing shag carpeting, (b) have all of their worst traits becoming dominant, and (c) develop poison saliva. You would think that any one of those three could cause problems when there are 300 shrews running around on an island, but no, all three happen. The number of humans starts dwindling as the shrews need desert after eating all of the livestock on the island, so everybody starts drinking more (think about it: do you really want DRUNK giant vicious shrews with poison saliva?). Jerry Farrell (Ken Curtis) decides that Ann sparking to Thorne is worse than having giant shrews attacking them, but soon sees the error of his ways and decides that going up on the roof would be a good idea. That is also because he thinks that the idea that Thorne comes up with to escape to the boat is stupid, but I have to say, in terms of 1950s black & white monster movies this plan actually makes sense.

Special mention must be made of Gordon McLendon who plays Dr. Radford Baines, the dedicated assistant to Dr. Craigis and who remains the consummate scientist even once he has been bitten. His death sets up what is probably the funniest line of the movie until we get to the end where the last exchange of dialogue provides a pretty funny punch line to the entire experience of pure terror trying to get away from the giant vicious shrews with poison saliva. There is just too much to enjoy in this movie, from listening to Goude's accent (you know it has to be Swedish but it does not sound Swedish and trying to figure out what it does sound like will drive you crazy), to watching the dogs covered in carpet frolick around the silly humans rolling on the ground, and waiting for one of the teeth on the rubber shrew heads to get caught on something and break off. "The Killer Shrews" is my kind of bad movie.

A huge slithery tongue/ Dogs in shrew suits.......2004-12-03

The Giant Gila Monster

This is a picture of life before CGI. The contrived dialog is part of the mystique. You get to see hotrods and large lizards. The blob it is not; but it is a necessary addition to any 50' collection.

A teenage boy and a teenage girl disappear together and the law is getting suspicious.
I want to ask the monster if teenagers taste like chicken.
Watch for your self.

The Killer Shrews

I first saw this in the movies. And let me tell you this is really spooky for kids (or used to be.)
We find our selves on an island where a hand full of visitors, including us, find eerie from the beginning. Of course from the title we are anticipating "you know whats" at any time. But the visitors to this island have no idea what they are in for.
An experiment with the intent of correcting overpopulation has gone awry, et voilà killer shrews. These ravenous creatures must eat many times their weight daily to keep from starving. And I must say that Ingrid Goude (Miss Universe Sweden 1956) would make a tasty snack (not that I notices at the movies.)
Well the people are protected by adobe (mud) walls from the poisonous fanged carnivores (did I mention the fangs are poisonous?)
Wait, it's RAINING!

Tame Gila Monster & Dogs Dressed as Big Mean Shrews.......2002-06-23

I have to admit to the same technical difficulties with my DVD as others have reported. Once in a while it goes out of focus and even seems to freeze at one point. The edition I have has a different cover than the one on Amazon.Com but the company and the double-movies are the same.

I bought the DVD for THE KILLER SHREWS and it is the most entertaining of the two films. While the costumed dogs are a bit hokey, with a little imagination, it works fine. Anyway, puppets are used for close-ups. The premise is simple. The over-sized mice eat anything that moves and the only food left are the people on the island. The people have to get to the boat or die. We are spared the gore so common in movies these days but there is still a lot of suspense. You never know when one of the hungry beasts is going to pop up. If they bite you, you're dead. There is poison in their saliva. After that, you're dinner. There are some recognizable actors in the film, too, familiar from programs like the Dukes of Hazzard and Gunsmoke. Oh, by the way, the beginning seems a bit truncated and starts abruptly. I seem to remember a school-type mini-documentary (only a few seconds) at the begining with footage of real shrews. It is missing from the DVD and may be the result of a poor master film copy.

As for THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, the lizard is not really scary and the miniature sets look like miniature sets. Don Sullivan is the likeable hero, a hard-working boy down on his luck but able to sing. He decides to use some nitro he had in storage to fight the creature. Convenient for sure, but don't we all keep some handy for a stray monster? The kid is so cleaned-cut, friends with the sheriff no doubt, and forcing his gang to behave, that we have to wonder if the movie's makers were trying to win parents over. There was a lot of negative opinion about the wild ways in 50's movies.

The director Ray Kellogg liked using foreign beauties in his films. Both movies feature a love interest with an accent, one from France and the other from Sweden. Indeed, Ingrid Goude in THE KILLER SHREWS was a Miss Universe Beauty Pageant Winner.

>No blasphemous or dirty words.
>No nudity or sexual content.
>Plot Violence but nothing graphic and no gore.

Guaranteed to please fans of old horror movies and to bore the kids-- big time.

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