Don't Believe the Hype

Brilliant and touching

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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.

A series of animal deaths and other disasters hits a rural town. When humans start dying, a local, be-wigged, stock-native known, not-so-lovingly, as "Injun Joe" speaks of omens and portents. The townsfolk are... unimpressed. The sheriff is flummoxed by it all. When archaeologist, Dr. Frederick Cleveland (Morris Ankrum- KRONOS, THE GIANT CLAW, etc., etc.) and his daughter, Janet (Sally Fraser) come to town, they draw the sheriff's suspicion. Especially since they happen to know a loner, named Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer). Cleveland just happens to be searching for evidence of an ancient, sadistic, towering conquistador known as Vargas, The Devil Giant. Coincidence? Hmmm. Cheeeze-tacular, pseudo-scientific claptrap sets up the idea that the old behemoth could possibly have been re-animated. While Cleveland and Brooks search for artifacts, Janet makes lunch, brews coffee, and cleans up the camp! Aaaah, the 50's! After what feels like a century, Vargas finally makes his appearance, but nothing much takes place. The obligatory romance blooms between Janet and Brooks. More locals are eliminated. Will the sheriff ever believe the truth? Will Janet ever brew the perfect pot of coffee? Will "Injun Joe" ever get a better hairpiece? Chunky cheddar doesn't get much chunkier than GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN! Highly entertaining hooey... P.S.- Janet also makes sandwiches!...

What woman using a Geiger counter all of a sudden stops to pull out a compact and check her make-up in the woods? Sally Fraser, that's who, in this entertaining but sometimes silly science fiction tale of a Spanish conquistador who comes back from the dead, preserve in a petrified forest, and seeking revenge (and female companionship) as he finds a whole different world around him, even in the great outdoors. The film opens with an indication that something is already out there causing havoc: Killing farm animals viciously and leaving their tattered carcasses all over the countryside, and eventually attacking a farmer. Ed Kemmer escorts scientist Morris Ankrum and his daughter (Fraser) out to this desolate countryside where they find the skeletons of the long dead conquistador's army as well as some of his headgear and weapons. Ankrum has boxed up an ordinary lizard which he claims he found living inside a rock, a species that has been extinct for centuries. This explanation is used mainly to explain how Buddy Baer, as the giant head conquistador, managed to survive somehow, and indeed, his presence is a bit terrifying as he roams the countryside. There is no explanation of the dead farm animals or murdered farmer other than to assume that Baer had come briefly back from his petrified state, killed these animals and returned to his dirt grave for a long rest. Veteran western actor Bob Steele plays a local sheriff who doesn't believe in the supernatural causes behind the murder, excelled when a young girl is approached by the grunting Baer, and later found dead, apparently raped before being murdered. Billy Dix is cast as a stereotypical native American ("Indian Joe", he's called in bad taste), cursing the white man for taking over the native's land, yet proclaiming friendship to Kemmer whom he had earlier shot at, claiming he was only hunting rabbits. Gary Crutcher, cast as a young local named Charlie Brown (!), gets the silliest moments as he vows revenge against the giant for killing his sister yet obviously stood no chance, being half the size of the giant. For some reason, the hot countryside all of a sudden becomes a snowy mountain as Kemmer and Baer go head to head near a rushing river that somehow leads into a volcanic cave that no man has ever explored. It ends on a thrilling note, even though it is utterly absurd of how it got there.

Local geologist Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer) teams up with visiting archaeologist Dr. Fredrick Cleveland (Morris Ankrum) to search the local mountains for the remains of a 300+ year old Spanish conquistador and a reputed giant of a man named Vargas. Another draw for Brooks is the opportunity to spend a little time with the Dr.'s vacuous but attractive daughter, Janet (Sally Fraser). The team is about to give up when Janet accidentally discovers a Spanish graveyard. But is there more here than helmets and breastplates? It's not long before the giant Vargas makes his return and sets his own sights on young Janet and anything else he can maim and destroy.By all rights, I've most likely overrated Giant from the Unknown. It features a multitude of easily identifiable weaknesses – a plot that moves at the break-neck pace of a slug, the dim-witted Janet randomly stumbling on the Spanish artifacts, Sheriff Parker's beyond ridiculous persecution of Brooks (Why in God's name would anyone think that Brooks would be running around the country-side slaughtering cows and destroying hen houses?), Bob Steele's laughably bad performance as Parker, the whole notion of Vargas "living" in a sort of suspended animation for 350 years, and the poorly done special effects in the film's finale. Giant from the Unknown literally has everything you could hope to find in any regular bad movie. It would be easy to write it all off as badly made 50s junk, but for whatever reason and despite these many shortcomings, I found myself inexplicably enjoying the movie. Entertainment can be different from one person to the next. And, it's often difficult to put a finger on what you find entertaining in a movie. All I know is that for most of Giant from the Unknown, I was entertained. I went for the characters, I got a kick out of legend Jack Pierce's Vargas make-up, and I enjoyed the acting of Keemer and especially Ankrum. Ankrum is one of those actors who's good in everything I've seen him in. Sure, it takes some patience to get through the slow parts in Giant from the Unknown (and there are a bunch of 'em), but it's worth it. There's a good little movie here if you just look for it. Like I said, it's difficult to explain, but I'm giving this one a 6/10.

Way way back in my childhood years (well okay, maybe not THAT far back!) I remember seeing this movie many times on the late late show. I was attracted to this film originally because I had previously seen THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT WOMAN and I expected something more. When I say the giant of the title was just a little bit taller than the rest of the cast I was disappointed at first but the spell of this movie quickly won me over. I mean, how can you not like a movie that has former B western star Bob Steele as the no-nonsense sheriff of a small mountain town? Ed Kemmer (EARTH VS THE SPIDER), Morris Ankrum (INVADERS FROM MARS among many others) and Sally Fraser (WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST) are searching a mountain area with the foreboding name of Devil's Crag in the hopes of finding proof that a legendary renegade Conquistador named Vargas really did exist ("A man of unusual size and strength . . .a depraved degenerate of a man."). To their amazement they discover that he still does exist after some 400 years. Preserved by chemicals in the soil (so Morris informs us) he is revived by a bolt of lightning. Vargas (Buddy Baer, brother of prizefighter Max Baer and uncle of Max "Jethro Bodine" Baer Jr.) is no gentle giant though. At first he just slaughters cattle but then he graduates to people! His attack on mountain girl Joline Brand hints that a brutal sexual assault preceded her murder and he leaves local "crazy guy" Indian Joe hanging from a hook! The scientists join the sheriff and his posse to hunt down and destroy the giant but either he is too tough to be brought down by bullets or that is one really good suit of armour he is wearing. So can the mountain folk win out over the rampaging giant? Well luckily this film is now on DVD so you can find out without having to stay up until 2 in the morning like I did when I was a kid.The makeup for Buddy Baer was done by Jack Pierce, who created such memorable scary faces as the Frankenstein Monster, I'm-Ho-Tep, Kharis and the Wolfman. It was directed by Richard Cunha who gave us 3 other memorable late night classics: MISSILE TO THE MOON, SHE DEMONS and the unforgettable FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.