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Fresh and Exciting

Fantastic!

Blistering performances.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Producer: Michael Carreras. Executive producer: Anthony Hinds. A Hammer-Seven Arts Production. Made at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, England.Copyright 19 June 1968 by Hammer Film Productions Ltd and Seven Arts Productions. U.S. release through 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation: 19 June 1968. New York opening at New Amsterdam and neighborhood theaters: 19 June 1968. U.K. release through Warner-Pathé: 27 July 1968. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation: 7 November 1968. Sydney opening at the Palace (ran a predetermined two-week season). Running times: 101 minutes (copyright length), 98 minutes (U.K.), 93 minutes (Australia), 89 minutes (U.S.A.).SYNOPSIS: Shipwrecked in the Sargasso Sea, a group of survivors find... NOTES: The movie started out under the helm of director Leslie Norman. After a few weeks shooting, producer Carreras replaced Norman by taking the reins himself because he felt that Norman worked too slowly and that the already expensive film would go way over budget.COMMENT: It takes some time to arrive at our exotic destination. Not that I'm complaining. Plenty of incidents keeps us constantly on our toes and the "continent" is certainly worth the wait. The sets and the denizens of this amazing place are highly bizarre, to say the least. True, the direction tends to be heavy-handed, though there are one or two really inventive touches (perhaps contributed by Leslie Norman) that add to the excitement. Paul Beeson's color camera does fine with its eye-catching visuals and atmospheric effects, though the lovely Hildegard Neff is not so attractively treated in close-up, while the famous stage and television actor Eric Porter does little with his role.

I thought this romp was somewhat in the vane or spirit of those Doug McClure movies where the U-Boat ends up in a pre-historic lost area of the globe and the crew has to deal with cave people, Dinosaurs etc.I certainly don't hold the feet of this film to any super critical standard since it dosen't seem to take itself seriously anyway. I agree with the one reviewer of the postings on this page that if you just suspend your disbelief somewhat that it's a quite entertaining film since it is quite imaginative in the visuals and the situation (albeit quite ridiculous) such as the Conquistadors stuck there for several centuries. The buxom balloon girl was most pleasant to look at and took to speaking English quite quickly (They have Berlitz books out there).I think a story like this would be a bit more easier to swallow if it had taken place in the 20's or 30's, but again, the movie does not seem to take itself seriously so who cares(Giant crabs are not to beyond the pale, but giant scorpians!).The cast plays it straight despite the absurdity, and that helps to suspend disbelief.The weird factor is very high which is the most appealing factor of this flick.I think there was a bit of 60's political angle of questioning of authority as the ship crew incited the lord kid to question his own blind obedience to the hooded inquisitor. There was a rapprochement between the crew of the ship and the conquistadors both standing in respect for the kid ruler in his burial at sea. So I suppose this could also be kind of a 60's version of 'can we all just get along' type decade influenced feature in this film.Yes! A beer and pizza film.

OK, I have actually heard this Hammer film described in the summary line I gave this comment. This was the first Hammer film I ever saw, although I was 6 or 7 at the time, so I had no clue who put out this little gem. My cousins and I watched it on late-night TV on Thanksgiving night and we sat there, mouths wide open and totally entranced in what was going on in the film. Sure, this isn't the best film ever released by Hammer Studios, but I'll go to my grave fighting that while it may not be a classic in the usual terms, it is most entertaining.How can you not enjoy man-eating seaweed, descendants of the Spanish Inquistion, the strangest sea-beasties you've ever laid eyes on and an opening tune that you can't get out of your head, days after viewing it! While this isn't a film I'd recommend to most classic fantasy film fans or even Hammer film fans to go out and purchase, blindly, I would recommend at least giving it a view, it certainly isn't a kind of film where you'll want to pluck your eyes out, after viewing and who knows, if you watch it in the right frame of mind, you may end up enjoying it.

This can best be described as a cult classic. Its a fun movie with a lot of character development, and craftily directed. The movie follows the characters through a voyage at sea through hostile weather and a captain whom seems thoroughly decadent. Many of the characters are depicted as worse than they actually are in the beginning, and then the viewer is lured into sympathizing with them. Its a very common device in the movies, and it works better here than in most movies, due to better writing and directing. There is mutiny, shipwreck, life raft chaos, and a land full of monsters and hostile inhabitants, not to mention the famed "Balloon Girl" who they meet. This movie was banned early on, many places. This movie can be classified as the most iconoclastic horror move of all time, because the director had the audacity to kill two characters immediately after they lit up cigarettes. And you can imagine how the greatest censors of all time, the tobacco companies, responded to that, (quite covertly). This was the real thing that horrified audiences in America. What really makes the movie, though, is attention to even the most minor of characters. Most people don't realize how important character identification and appeal is to them, but it's what makes a movie interesting. And this is an interesting movie.