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I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's difficult to make a case for recommending "The Crater Lake Monster", because while it is definitely not totally terrible, it has many, many problems. Let's break down some of the bad first. Because of the budget constraints the acting is a real mixed bag. The sheriff is sort of the cream of the crap. All females in the film are beyond bad, and often appear to be reading their script during filming. The two hillbillies take up way too much running time, and their act eventually wears out it's welcome. The story itself is disjointed, and continuity non existent, especially admiring the stars in the sky with noontime shadows and obvious bright daylight. The musical score is awful, and at times grating. Now for the good. The on location scenery is nicely photographed. The stop motion sequences are well done. The film is only 85 minutes. - MERK

The Crater Lake Monster is very much a combination of good and bad, unfortunately most of it is bad.So after a meteor splashes down in Crater Lake mysterious disappearances begin to happen, predominately in the form of middle-aged white guys with mustaches - in fact almost without exception. This eventually gets the attention of a slow-witted local sheriff, who reluctantly starts up his investigation in and around the lake. Throughout the movie they included as many Jaws plot-points as possible, or at least as many as the budget and run time would accommodate. The film packs a whopping amount of "comic relief" mostly in the form of two dumb guys, who run a boat-renting business, however something has been eating all the fish, therefore killing the fishing business, which in turn wrecks their business. So naturally these two fall on hard-times and they spend half their time getting drunk, which plays out in the form of several excessively long scenes, which are loaded to the gills with their drunken shenanigans. Some folks make like these folksy scenes (Hee-Haw fans take notice) but for me there of questionable value. If you haven't guessed yet The Crater Lake Monster is hardly the most inspired movie out there and it's run time is heavily padded by an inordinate amount of scenes that are completely mundane, which often include slow and pointless camera pans and long zooms - that take forever to complete.To no great surprise the monster itself is the best and most entertaining part of this cheap little creature feature; which is brought to life through a series of shots that include partial life-size mock-ups of the monster (or at least it's head and neck) and of course there's some corny stop-motion animation - which is my favorite part. Back to the "victims" of the monster, this movie is very, very, simple in it's construction and it keeps on presenting more and more nameless souls only to be picked-off by the monster, in fact some are on the screen for no more then a minute before they're killed. Again most of the victims are of the white and mustachioed variety - don't forget that this movie was made back in the mid-70's after all. They also felt the need to include a pointless sub-story right in the middle of the film, for apparently no reason other than to break-up the monotony for a little while, a brief change of scenery. The bemulletted, murderous liquor store robber sure is a sight to see and his condiment-infested apartment is even better - this new character, as pointless as he is (even for THIS movie) is good for few laughs, it's all good until the sheriff steps in and ends this brief side-trip. Finally the sheriff encounters the monster, only to retreat in his laughably lame olive green station wagon/cop car.After that encounter the Jaws power-wrangling tactics kick into high-gear, what to do with the damn thing, is obviously their focal point. Ultimately the ending is, like the rest of the movie, extremely ham-handed and the final show-down between Man and Beast is, not surprisingly, a disappointment. The monster is killed quickly and easily and the finale generates no tension what-so-ever. Again from my viewpoint it's the monsters goofy looking stop-motion, that provides the entertainment in this otherwise painfully lame final scene of Man versus Beast.And now for some flattery, I'll try.......... the strong-points of this weak amateur effort are few in number, I can say that the photography is crisp, clear and colorful and it does good job of showing off the natural beauty of the Crater Lake area. On another point, the films humor, certainly not all of it, but some of it is modestly effective - in a folksy kind of way. But let me be clear there are a lot of boring parts in this movie, which really tends to bog down the movie as a whole.This movie is just the sort of dreck that when seen nowadays's, through the cynically judgmental eyes of the jaded modern viewer, is nothing but pure comic fodder, one that's ripe for the merciless mockeries and unceasing torrents of sarcasm, from all those who it fails to impress - which is probably everyone whose ever seen it. Sure I know that may sound a bit harsh (though it does have plenty of company and I've seen a lot movies that are much worse), but if you've ever seen this movie you'll know that this ones well worthy of your scorn. In fact it's a perfectly healthy reaction to such a crappy movie. In conclusion: Not too good, no.

No need to recap the plot. Okay, the film's no classic. In fact, someone in production borrowed the bulldozer vs. monster from 1960's schlock comedy Dinosaurus. But, in my book, the 80-some minutes isn't bad enough to rate among the truly bad, e.g. Manos: The Hands of Fate {1966}. Catch the photography, which is pretty good (of course, post- production bungled day-for-night, but that's not photographer Gentry's fault). Then there're the lush colors, about as vivid as any I've seen. Add Cardella's sturdy performance as the take-charge sheriff, along with some pretty good stop-motion, and you've got genuine compensations that lift results from the truly bad. Of course, the intended comic relief is pretty lame, along with a script that appears almost thrown together. But perhaps most disappointing is the utter lack of tension. Monsters should generate tension. However, director Stromberg fails to build suspense, which requires a better sense of structure than what's provided here. Instead, the production goes for quick shock, which itself doesn't work very well. All in all, the movie's too good to be truly bad, and too bad to be good. I like what another reviewer observed, namely the results look like they were made by erratically skilled amateurs.

A meteor crashes into a lake which causes a dinosaur egg to hatch and before you can say Lock Ness, the baby Dino is chowing down on the local townspeople in this low-budget b-movie.This movie has almost everything that one wants from a dinosaur flick. Well except for a good storyline, believable characters, a credible or even passable dino, good special effects, and/or anything that'll keep you from falling asleep, but other than those things the movie is tops, What it does have is two knuckleheads that are painfully groan-inducingly unfunny, so there's that. Seriously though, don't waste your time.