THE MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR

THE MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR (1954). Director: Wyatt Ordung.

Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell) is vacationing in Mexico where a monster is snatching cows and people from the shore. She meets a marine biologist named Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade) and his associate Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner). Dunning rides around in a cute one-man sub, and there are some nice underwater sequences. The director plays Pablo, who tries to kill Julie more than once because the villagers think she may somehow be the cause of their creature problem. Jonathan Haze of The Little Shop of Horrors is another villager named Joe. The movie is slow but atmospheric, and makes good use of its locations. Like a home movie at times, but strangely compelling. Anne Kimbell comes off like a 1930's style actress who entered pictures twenty years too late. She amassed about thirty film and TV credits from 1948 - 1958 and sometimes spelled her last name with an "a." Wade, uncredited, played a trooper in The Thing That Couldn't Die and had a few other credits. This was the first film solely produced by Roger Corman. The monster itself is nothing much to speak of.

Verdict: Not exactly Attack of the Crab Monsters, but what is? **1/2.