Ahh. I found myself craving some '50s sci-fi cheese, but not necessarily of the giant monster variety--if anything because I've seen almost all of the giant monster flicks of that decade and the one after. In some of my research the name Richard E. Cunha kept coming up, and for good reason: his short filmography includes some rather promising titles like Frankenstein's Daughter and She Demons, but he also made the infamous Missile to the Moon and was the cinematographer on my favorite shitty adaptation of "The Hounds of Zaroff," 1961's Bloodlust! Giant from the Unknown, with its premise of an inhumanly strong and brutal Conquistador restored from suspended animation, seemed to offer much. It did not, but the way in which it failed to deliver is fun to look at. For better or worse, I actually enjoyed Giant from the Unknown, even though it sucks in a way I wasn't previously sure the '50s could deliver.
Strange murders have been plaguing the small town of (snicker) Devil's Crag. Some speculate it is part of the curse which is said to afflict the area (and it's called Devil Crag? Really now!). A young geologist named Wayne Brooks is in the area and hears about the murders--around the same time he also reunites with an old professor of his, Dr. Cleveland, and his daughter Janet, who we'll get to in a bit. Both Brooks and the Clevelands decide to ignore the advice of the Sheriff (played by our old pal Bob Steele from Big Calibre and probably other movies I've reviewed on this site) to go in search of signs that the old stories that Spanish Conquistadors made it out to this area are true. Ostensibly one of these Conquistadors was an unnaturally tall and strong man named Vargas, whom they called "the Diablo Giant." He will turn out to be our "Giant from the Unknown." As it turns out, the soil of this area is great for preserving life--Brooks has previously found a living specimen of a previously thought extinct lizard out in the area. It is of little shock to those of us who are even faintly trope-savvy that this soil has managed to preserve Vargas, whose legendary size and brutality are both matters of fact. Vargas kills some of Brooks' friends from town which of course leads to his being blamed for the murders. Will Brooks and his comrades be able to defeat the Diablo Giant before the savagery of the 16th Century becomes the new norm of the 20th?
When I've previously delved into the true schlock of the 1950s--the actual bargain-basement stuff, not the giant monsters, for the most part--it's never gone this low before. I'm about to embark on a study of the movies of W. Lee Wilder, Billy Wilder's significantly less-talented brother, as a personal dare to myself, and I'm told not even Richard Cunha delves as low as he, but this was something special. That is to say it's been a while since I've run into a '50s sci-fi movie that has been cardboard due to unprofessionalism before. Many of the bad '50s sci-fi flicks I see are bad because they're overly stuffy or overly padded. Not so here--this movie is just boring because there are long stretches where nothing of interest is happening. But the same demented slant brings the laxness to life here as the same touch of madness brought an entertainment quality to the oddly-similar Phantom Cowboy. Maybe it's just my expectations projecting a meta-quality onto it. Yet there is a quaint charm to the proceedings because as dully and stupidly as the movie was made, it was made with some degree of heart.
After all, there has to be some reason why so much dramatic tension is given to Brooks and Cleveland's research. I know that in archaeological and geological careers one has to move fast to keep getting sources of income or gateways into such, and as such they have to devote a tremendous passion and rigor to their work, but sometimes this movie feels like the Earth will explode if the three explorers don't find proof of those fucking Conquistadors. There's a hilarious scene based on the weird idea that metal detectors have time delays on them for some reason, and there is even a dramatic metal-detection montage. Bet no one was allowed to be seated during that. There's an even better montage right near it, a "dig up the artifacts" montage, which is so pathetically '50s that I loved it.
This movie has two massive problems with it. First, Janet Cleveland may be one of the sexist portrayals of women in a '50s sci-fi movie, ever. She is not only ignorant of science but proud of it; by her own admission she prefers being called pretty to book-learnin'. She is also tasked with all the "household" chores of the science-camp, like cooking and cleaning, and this is played for laughs at her expense. There is the interesting subversion that she's ultimately successful for the men's accomplishments, in that she's the one to discover Vargas' armor (albeit by accident), but is this really a blessing given that Vargas' awakening led to the horrible deaths of several people? As a woman I was so offended by how badly written Janet was that I just assumed she was a parody and laughed the whole thing off. But Jesus do I have to wonder how Cunha treats ladies in his other works--damn.
There is also, uh, Indian Joe, the man who warns the town of the curse. Okay, I get that the reservation system in the United States has always, in one form or another, been nakedly abusive to the Native American populations of this country whom it is supposed to benefit, but in 1958, Native folk were not wandering around talking like Tonto. It is so goddamn weird to have a contemporary Native American of the 1950s speak in this horrible broken English, but I also have to remember that in the early days of the Adam West Batman show I grew up loving, there were the same sort of tropes at play, and that was as late as 1967. Now, there is a truly weird scene involving Joe which is never properly addressed, where he shoots at Brooks, and then claims he was aiming at a rabbit. Despite the fact that he then says he never misses, he doesn't retrieve a rabbit carcass of any kind. I just have to ask why he was so obviously aiming at Joe. And why did he take the chance to do some weird inside-joke quip about not missing when he missed Joe while trying to shoot him? Joe never threatens anyone again for the rest of his appearance in the movie, nor does he seem to hold any sincere ill will towards Brooks--in fact, he calls him his friend, and trusts his word when Brooks says he and the others won't violate the Indian graves! Maybe I'm missing something here but this is a strange scene. What makes it odder is that there is the rather obvious plot hole of what exactly was killing people at the start of the movie when Vargas was only resurrected later, as a result of being struck by lightning. Was--was Joe killing those people? Is that really what they meant to imply there? What the fuck would his motive be for doing that?!
Then there's the ending. Spoilers abound but I have to dissect this bad boy. Vargas is ultimately taken down by one of Brooks' townie friends, who knocks him over a waterfall after beating him repeatedly with a stick, in a "fight" scene which is truly great to behold. When the Conquistador topples over the falls it is represented by--and I am not kidding here--the worst greenscreen effect I have ever seen in my entire life. This is worse than the combined filmography of Bert I. Gordon. This may actually be even worse than every single shot in The Amazing Bulk.
Somehow following this is a scene where Cleveland's desperation for research suddenly returns in force and he requests the Sheriff's help in recovering Vargas' body for study. The Sheriff's reply: "Unfortunately that river opens up into an underwater volcanic crater. No one has ever found the bottom of it." Ah, how convenient. Then, all tension immediately evaporates, and Cleveland is left to recover from his crippling scientific defeat by the happiness that comes with the knowledge that his former student is now banging his daughter.
As a final middle-finger to the audience, the tagline on the original poster read: "It came from another world!" No it fucking didn't. I mean, yes, another world in time, another world in civilization and perspective thereof, but "it" still came from Earth, and it was 1958 and thus there is literally no way that audiences didn't walk out of this at the end cheesed off by the lack of aliens. Though I suspect that was the least of their concerns with how everything in Giant from the Unknown all turned out.
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