Caltiki, el monstruo inmortal

Poster tagline: TERROR AMOK! HUNGRY FOR THE FLESH OF THE WORLD!! TOWERING OVER JUNGLE AND CITY, CRAWLING, MULTIPLYING, DEVOURING!! Inoffensive average. In the late 1950s, there was a fashionable explosion of horror films with jelly monsters, for example The Blob, X the Unknown, The H-Man, and the Italians also had a go at it. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster is mainly the work of the legendary Mario Bava, who, unlike Freda, spent the vast majority of the time on set (3 weeks of shooting), provided the camera and did the effects. the optical wizardry at the beginning in particular looks nice, it gives the impression of Mexican realism with a pyramid and giant statues, and you don't even think that everything was made in the same Italian studios where the vast majority of swords and sandals films were shot. And as is well known, Bava had a flair for the visual, so much of the footage takes place at night and the play of lights and shadows looks unusually nice for a cheap B-movie. So does the main monster, which at the beginning I familiarly named "the stinking sock" because that's what it looks like and the characters treat it casually in a fishbowl without fear, but towards the end it gets better, it pulsates nicely, multiplies into several parts that grow back together, it crawls and the actress screams so beautifully : o) And what's definitely not missing is the light gore (a skull bitten off live, a hand burnt to the bone), which was typical for Italians. But just not to praise, at the end Bava gets torn off the chain and the tanks come on the scene spouting fire and everyone is quite aware of a slight sense of awkwardness as the proportions don't work, the villa model falls apart like a house of cards and sparks fly from the soldiers' "flamethrowers". But it doesn't matter, that's just the toll of the time of creation. What amused me, however, was that Fred and Bava were so afraid of the audience's "mocking" reception of the monster that they added the character of the psychotic killer Max to the script in order to target an adult audience. I don’t think it helped much :) (10.03.2021)

"Caltiki - The Immortal Monster" is a film that definitely deserves the attention of fans of 1950s B-movies, but I think it can also appeal to others. The Italians had already shown at that time that they were not afraid to depict horror, and yet it is a pleasant revival of a time when similar B-movies were otherwise quite sterile. For me, it is a film that should not be missed by anyone interested in B-movies and monster horror. Although it is visually naive in some places, it is precisely the gore in a few scenes that gives it the right charge. (08.03.2014)