Gripping story with well-crafted characters

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I will say this for At The Earth's Core and its creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. No one could ever accuse Mr. Burroughs of no imagination. No lost world of dinosaurs falling through the surface and surviving in the bowels of the planet. His monsters were quite real and quite terrifying and completely original as in this film.Nutty professor type scientist Peter Cushing and student Doug McClure have invented a new drilling machine which they are exhibiting and the test is to drill a tunnel through a small mountain in Wales. Problem is the machine makes a wrong downward turn and these two arrive in a different kind of society under a cherry red sky. Humans are at the bottom of the social strata, slaves to giant bird like creatures with a hypnotizing glare. Enforcing the will of the big birds are these other ape like creatures who keep the human captives in line. Of course it's not hard to figure out that the story is of McClure and Cushing leading a revolt against this society. Especially when the fate of the humans is either to be slaves or to be food. Along the way he wins native princess Caroline Munro who did a lot of these pulp fiction adventure stories. As did Doug McClure back in the day. I guess they were fated to be together in one.At The Earth's Core will appeal to pulp fiction film fans. And I did love that ending. Won;t say a word, you have to see it.

I've never read anything by Edgar Rice Burroughs but there is no way his book was anything like this movie.If it was, he would have not been considered a great writer.So anyway, an elderly scientist builds a giant drill so he can drill through mountains and he decides to enlist his worst student to help him.As soon as they start up the drill, they point it down and even if you didn't know the name of the movie you see what's going to happen.They end up in the center of the Earth(and the drill is inoperable) and the scientist makes up lots of lies to explain why it looks the way it does.They get chased by Godzilla with a bird head and end up getting turned into slaves.The other slaves appear to be cave men who haven't bathed in months except for one woman(played by the lovely Caroline Munro) who has perfect hair and make up.As soon as you see her you know she's only there for a love story angle.I never watch romantic movies but I wonder if they always have a sci-fi story line.Sci-fi movies always have a love story angle so they must. For all the dumb stuff that doesn't make sense, it's not really too bad. Give it a chance.

U.S. rubber stock must have tripled with the creatures here from the land of the lost. Giant reptiles (or birds) which roam the middle of the planet looking for cavemen snacks are some of the silliest creatures to pop up on movie screens in decades. With middle earth having English speaking cavemen in addition to other walking creatures obviously wearing pig masks, there's a lot for these creatures to snack on. With Peter Cushing and Douglas McClure invading the earth's core aided by Cushing's boaring device, they find themselves trapped in this nightmare world where Cushing's biggest horrid seems to be not able to have a decent cup of tea. The creatures allegedly have mind control ability over the pig people, but perhaps it's all those gigantic magic mushrooms located all over this strange universe.

Those who thought that the center of our planet Earth only existed of rock, clay and lava should urgently reconsider! The Earth's core apparently is a vividly adventurous place, full of telepathic prehistoric monsters and even an entire civilization of primitive human beings, including some very hot and scantily dressed specimens like Caroline Munro! Professor Abner Perry (Peter Cushing, more British than afternoon tea) and his engineer/sponsor David Innes drill-dive underground in their gigantic mechanical mole and make a lot more scientific discoveries that they bargained for! "At the Earth's Core", based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is a totally preposterous but irresistibly charming B-movie with good old-fashioned campy effects, gloriously over-the-top acting performances and whack plot-twists. I've seen practically all movies in which Peter Cushing starred, but I never saw him overact so badly. That means that also he knew exactly what type of movie this was going to become: a totally undemanding, energetic and joyously entertaining piece of kitsch that you simply cannot detest. Stories about flying reptiles hypnotizing and sacrificing humans to their gods, lumpish guys in hilarious pterodactyl suits, man versus reptile battles, Munro wandering around in a furry bra and Cushing yelling lines like "You can't mesmerize me, I'm British"… What's there to detest, seriously? And even though the costumes and effects may look extremely cheap, the sets and decors are established with craftsmanship and great eye for detail, like for example the interiors of the Kevin Connor directed three more movies based on the writings of Burroughs, namely "The Land that Time Forgot", "The People that Time Forgot" and "Warlords of Atlantis". I haven't seen those yet, but I won't hesitate to pop them in during a next rainy Sunday afternoon.