Verdict
Summary
Beast From Haunted Cave almost feels like a template for scores of similar movies, particularly the output from the SyFy Channel, the creature-of-the-week flicks where the creature would show up at least once at the end of every reel. It’s exactly that kind of movie, with a very limited budget, but the movie is remarkably effective with an original looking monster that sucks blood like a spider and uses webs to encase its victims, but the rest of the body and head look weirdly like a Yeti or some such snow creature.
Plot:
Some bank robbers disturb a creature in a cave while they’re hiding out in the South Dakota wilderness.
Review:
A group of bank robbing gangsters case out a bank holding gold bars, and their plan involves setting a bomb off at an old gold mine nearby to give the authorities a distraction while they do their work. The gang hires a local guide to lead them through the wilderness when they’ve done their job, and the gang’s moll has eyes for the guide (played by Michael Forest), which upsets her boyfriend, who slaps her around. Tensions get thick after the gang makes off with their score in gold bricks, and they make their way into the wilderness, but with a disgruntled creature on their trail. When they disturbed the old mine, they unleashed a wooly creature – which seems somewhat ghostly and also very corporeal with long, spider-like arms – and the monster tracks them through the snowy wild and picks them off one by one, until the wilderness guide take the fight to the monster in its layer.
Produced by Roger Corman and shot back to back with a World War II picture called Ski Troop Attack, which used the same cast, crew, and locations, Beast From Haunted Cave almost feels like a template for scores of similar movies, particularly the output from the SyFy Channel, the creature-of-the-week flicks where the creature would show up at least once at the end of every reel. It’s exactly that kind of movie, with a very limited budget, but the movie is remarkably effective with an original looking monster that sucks blood like a spider and uses webs to encase its victims, but the rest of the body and head look weirdly like a Yeti or some such snow creature. The characters are all there to be cannon fodder, and it ends very suddenly, but if you like old school creature features, this one is more than adequate. From director Monte Hellman.
Film Masters has just delivered a fully loaded Blu-ray edition with two discs – one containing Beast From Haunted Cave (two versions – the theatrical cut, and the TV cut, which runs a little longer), and the other disc contains Ski Troop Attack. Both films are restored in HD, and have commentaries, documentaries, a gallery of still images, and there’s also a thick insert booklet with interviews and essays. If you scroll to the right on the menu page and click on the beast himself … you’ll find a hidden Easter Egg!
