I'll tell you why so serious

best movie i've ever seen.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Roger Corman's movies are supposed to be bad, but usually aren't boring. This looks like a hastily put together mish-mash of film he shot and couldn't use. I saw the movie poster and thought it was a 50s - 60s type schlocky sci-fi/horror flick that he's known for. It is a movie in a collection of B sci-fi/horror movies on DVD. Right off the bat, the intro does not seem to fit the genre. Even the opening screen credits look ridiculous. There's a lot of hammy and cheesy acting throughout and if you have the patience to watch it until the end, then a creature finally does come out. It looks nothing like the movie poster. It's difficult to watch because of the convoluted story and uneven pacing. I can't recommend this for viewing for any 50s - 60s horror/sci-fi movie buff or Roger Corman fan. Afterward, I read on wikipedia that it did poorly at the box office due to misleading advertising. Also, Robert Towne worked with Corman in The Last Woman on Earth in 1960. That movie wasn't bad. Afterward, they got together and created this fiasco.

B-Movie King Roger Corman had already started making some quality films by this point in his career, having made "Fall of the House of Usher" and "Machine-Gun Kelly," but this film feels more along the lines of his earlier schlocky films, such as "Attack of the Crab Monsters" or "The Brain Eaters." The story follows super spy Robert Towne (yes, that Robert Town, who wrote "Chinatown," "Tequila Sunrise," "Shampoo" and other modern film classics) as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150, who offers to help a group of Cuban nationals escape the revolution with their ill-gotten riches, but who is instead plotting to kill them and blame their deaths on a mystical sea creature. But wait! Things get weird when said mythical sea creature actually show up and is actually a real thing! Written by Charles B. Griffith, who'd later go on to write or co-write "Death Race 2000" "The Wild Angels" and "Eat My Dust," the script thankfully doesn't take itself too seriously (some of the Spanish names are tells that they were not taking this too serious: Colonel Cabeza Grande "Big Head" and Isla de Barracho "Island of the Drunk"). However, the production values on this Corman production are so cheap that the film really does look like amateur hour. It also doesn't help when the actors in front of the camera don't have much talent ("House of Usher" had Vincent Price and "Machine-Gun Kelly" had a young Charles Bronson). Overall, this is more interesting to watch as a curiosity than it is as an actual entertaining film.

The movie is a deliberately bad b-rated comedy crime-horror. It was made for giggles and not meant to be a great crime-drama (it simply spoofs crime-dramas).I had a couple of laughs with the film so the movie is not all that bad but it's not all that good either. For me it was missing something; I think it was missing a bit more comedy-horror because the comedy crime-drama seemed to dominate the film. Maybe it was just me expecting more of a comedy-horror since that is how this film's genre is labeled.Don't expect to see the creature/monster often either because you will not. That might be part of my disappointment with the film - not enough monster.There is an overall drabness to the film too - as if there was some other element missing to make the film stand out a bit more. It's not an overly dull film but it is a bit on the drab side.I felt the movie had the potential to be funnier than it really was. It's not a down right awful film but it is not a b-rated film that stands out in the crowd of "bad but good" b-rated horror flicks.I would say this is a good morning or afternoon film for those who would like to watch it for the first time. And, for me personally, the movie really is good for a one time watch just to say "I've seen the film".4.5/10

What previous reviewers don't tell us is which movie they are reviewing, namely the 63 minutes theatrical version or the 75 minutes television take. The latter version is available on an excellent Alpha DVD and that is the version I watched last night. I thought it was awful, although I'll admit it had a few promising ideas here and there and maybe if it was "condensed to make the laughs come faster" (to utilize a prized slogan of showbiz patter back in the days when newsreel theatrettes dotted every second or third New York street corner) it would have seemed a lot more entertaining. As it is, all the jokes fall flat and most of the promising plot twists are negated by surprisingly incompetent direction, poor acting, lazy editing and "B" budget scruples.