The Monster of Piedras Blancas

There’s one single moment that makes me remember this otherwise pretty average low-budget monster horror film, one that's unusually brutal for its time (of course, it wouldn't shock anyone today) and completely unprecedented among 1950s monster movies. I'm talking about the scene in the last act or so when the monster comes out of a room holding a close-up of a severed bloody head – a pleasant little shock. Until then, it's a very restrained and chatty film about a prehistoric bipedal monster that terrorises a small town by the sea, with lots of boring dialogue; the tension is created, like in Spielberg's Jaws, through the unseen, merely suspected, or presented only through the monster's shadows. But there is no suspense to speak of (Berwick is no horror genius), except perhaps in the last ten minutes, when the monster is shown in all its glory. The one thing that helps is the proficient design of the monster, similar to the more famous one from Creature from the Black Lagoon. Otherwise, however, the comparison fails, because Jack Arnold, unlike Irwin Berwick, is in the premier league. (12.02.2007)