Friday, August 4, 2017

THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER / Crown International Pictures - 1977

Here's one we never did, well, until now! It's all about a meteor that crashed into Oregon's Crater Lake and unearths a dinosaur egg. The heat from the meteor causes the egg to hatch, and, the emerging dinosaur takes to snacking on the locals. Actually filmed at Huntington Lake, California, where I used to spend my summers in the fifties at Boy Scout camp...

The main actor, Richard Cardella, has one acting credit, this one. Oh yeah, he also wrote it.

Some of our heroes (?) find a dinosaur in a painting while exploring a cave used by native Americans, our first clue that there really is freakin' Crater Lake Monster!

Then, it happens!.. The monster finds this guy out fishing on the lake and he becomes the first victim in this wild 'n' weird, tooth-filled story.

Just had to show this cool looking Chevy wagon used by the local investigating Sheriff.

This dude is fighting with his pal when he discovers the fisherman's mangled body in the water.

We finally catch a glimpse of the monster when it comes out of the water to attack two lovers in their beached motor boat. The animated scenes of the thing look pretty decent!

This pic is fun to peruse, especially if you were around during the seventies!

The Sheriff and Doc come across some very strange, giant prints in the sand. But, what in the Hell could have done this?!..

The Monster makes its way onto land, looking for snacks... It locates this mechanic out working on some machines and it's not long before the unlucky dude gets chomped up!

This is my favorite part... The Monster grabs a bale of hay and tosses it at the incoming Sheriff!

The Sheriff and a hippie with a rifle take one of the machines out to confront the Monster, but of course, the dumb ass hippie jumps out, slips and falls down... Do I even need to say what happens next?

It's kinda hard to figure out how the Sheriff is hurting the Monster with the machine, but, he draws some blood!

And, our title character goes down for the count (I thought just roaming around the countryside would have killed it, you know, it's a water dino and all) and our story is over... Tune in tomorrow when we'll bring you more Dungeon cargo!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool pix!

However, this is one of "THOSE" films that I tend to lump in with two other silly/boring films, making a triple feature of THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER, THE LOCH NESS HORROR, and THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION. For some odd reason, they tend to have a similar vibe: the DULL vibe! But hey, I haven't seen these three since the 1980s, so I suppose I should give them all another fair chance, right?

Grant said...

I've only seen it once form beginning to end, but what surprises me is that very violent store robbery scene. It really feels like it belongs in a whole other movie in a way.

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