Watch Curucu, Beast of the Amazon For Free

So much average

Highly Overrated But Still Good

best movie i've ever seen.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Curt Siodmak seemed to have a passion for writing B movie scripts, and and it seems he believed so much in this one that he had to direct it as well.It's in the running for the worst movie I ever saw, with the standard jungle movie setup- Americans go on an expedition in the jungle and get attacked by a variety of jungle natives- including the paper mache looking title monster. They say this movie was shot on location in the Amazon jungle (I don't think the term "rain forest" existed in 1956). If so, I've got to hand it to the cast and crew for going above and beyond for this one. I wouldn't have wanted to risk coming back with malaria or jungle rot for this movie. With all that being said, if you look at all the lifeless and hollow stuff coming out of Hollywood in recent years, this one just might be good enough to be classic schlock cinema now.

I liked very much horror films as a kid in the 50's and I don't think I missed many. I also have to admit that many of them really scared me though my children can't believe that now (they find them sort of funny and I can understand that if you consider what computers have done for special effects nowadays).But the reason why I never forgot "Curucu" is that it was probably the only "horror" film that didn't scare me at all whatsoever and I went back home with a smile om my face. In fact, the monster in this one is easily the most ridiculous and absurd thing ever put on screen (there's no way to describe it, you just have to see it). Besides, even as a little boy I noticed the plot was weak, the acting was poor, the direction was bad, all facts you don't usually notice or pay attention to when you are 8 or 9 years old.Looking back now and watching Curt Siodmak's filmography you can understand: the man was probably the worst film director ever, perhaps in the same level as Ed Wood Jr.You simply can't believe they went all the way to the Brazilian Amazon jungle to shoot this picture!

Note: *SPOILER* Back in the early seventies this film turned up on "The Late Late Show" and I set my alarm and got up to watch it. After this film was over I was almost sorry I did. The only reason I didn't totally regret getting up at 4 in the morning to watch this was that at least I could truthfully say to my fellow monster movie loving friends that I had seen it. Except for the attractive color photography and real Brazilian locations, this film is a dud in almost every way. The "monster" is silly looking, the acting never rises above adequate and most of the time its less than that, and the dialog is lame. But thats not what irked me when I was twelve, I had seen lots of cheap monster movies with silly looking monsters and I had come to expect that. What irked me was the films cheat ending. The monster is revealed to be at the end simply a man in a costume trying to scare people away. All the fantastic stuff turns out to be a hoax. When will film makers ever learn? Every now and then somebody makes this kind film where the fantastic element turns out to be a trick. Although I can't recall any recent theatrical movies that employed this lately, it still turns in made for T.V./cable/video movies now and then. I can't think of a film, with the exception of MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935), with this "Ha! Ha! We fooled ya!" kind of story that was any good. I never liked this kind of film and most people I know don't either, although movie makers think we do. The only kind of people who like this kind of film other than some film makers, are the kind of ignorant self important high brow types who have contempt for all forms of science fiction and horror films. Their attitude is that "there are no monsters, ghosts, aliens etc in real life" so having the fantastic elements revealed to be a trick is supposed to make the film more believable. But it doesn't. In these kind of films it stretches the viewers credibility more to accept that someone could employ successfully the kinds of tricks needed to pull off a hoax of the type shown in these films, than to accept that something supernatural or fantastic is really going on. As in many of these films, the phony fantastic goings on are almost always employed to scare people from what ever it is the hoaxers are trying to keep hidden. Of course, in real life, reports of monsters, aliens, haunted houses, etc., almost always do the opposite. A report of "big foot" or a lake with a monster usually attracts hordes of reporters, investigators, and the just plain curious. So these kinds of films are not more believable. The only thing they do is make the viewer feel cheated.

Universal, which brought us massive hits like E.T. and the Jurassic Park movies, were responsible for this.It is the worst of the Universal monster movies of the 1950's, but I loved it. It is one of the better so-bad-it's-good movies and the thing that surprised me the most was that it was shot in colour, despite the low budget.The 'monster' has to be seen to be believed. The main female lead in this, Beverly Garland, is used to fighting out of this world monsters as she fought the 'carrot' in It Conquered the World.See this if you get the chance. It is worth watching just to see the 'monster'.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.