my brother and I saw this movie in what I remember to be the late summer of 1978. it was something I had never heard of until we saw the poster at the Trojan Theater in downtown Longmont. I think it ran for a week engagement, and I don't recall the place being packed.
an old fashioned pulp adventure was an oddity in 1978 (Raiders of the Lost Ark was still 3 years away) it was made by many of the people from Amicus Films that adapted three of Edgar Rice Burroughs books to film to various degrees of success (I still love
At The Earth's Core, despite it's flaws).
I was not prepared to see a really cool giant octopus appear and take our heroes (and some minor villains) to Atlantis. this octopus is a large prop, and really one of the coolest and best manipulated one I have ever seen. since it's so large it moves like an animal that size would. having seen giant CG octopi move with ridiculous speed, this puppet looks amazing. I do wonder whatever happened to it, as I would hope it didn't just get left some place to rot.
or perhaps it wasn't a puppet at all!
so there's a good plus to start the movie with. this isn't based on any ERB story, but sure feels like it. we get a fair amount of monsters, one really sexy female lead and a lot of action throughout make this one enjoyable trip under the sea.
not sure what these walking weirdo lizards are called, but it's a neat picture.
the grabs came from the R2 DVD of the movie. I had a copy from Cinemax many years ago, but it was faded and full of scratches. I'm wondering why MGM didn't put this out on a "Midnight Movies" double disc, but they may not actually own it. the R2 looks really good though. I'm glad Eric and I got to see this on the big screen back in the day.
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