one of my absolute favorites!

Am I Missing Something?

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Italian blob horror science fiction. Unfortunately I had a bad full screen copy, but it was great nevertheless. Based on a Mexican legend, Caltiki is a Mayan goddess who has sex with a creature from the sky. Here it's nicely put in the sf, where Caltiki is a twenty million years old giant one cell organism, and the creature in the sky is a meteor whose radiation is making it grow. It has everything, sexy dances of hot Mexican girls, gory scenes of faces and hands barred to the bone by acid, underwater scenes with skeletons and Indian treasure, explosions, 50s computers which calculate age of anything. Furthermore, our hero, played pretty good by British theater actor John Merivale, while hurrying home to save his wife and child from the ever growing blob gets arrested for speeding and has to escape from jail. At the end it's flamethrower armed tanks vs. the blob. All that in 70 minutes, so it's not your average slow 50s American science fiction horror, it's fast paced and never boring. But it's nicely shot also, and that's no wonder since the main photographer, and allegedly de facto director, is Mario Bava. Daniela Rocca is extra hot. Really fun, fast paced, smart camera.

Ours is a sick culture. Either that, or a strangely apologetic one. Because if there is any genre that is sure to garner praise without any reservation; it's a Holocaust flick. You want an Oscar? Make one. You don't like it? You must be an anti-Semite, cry the critics. Bizarre, America had no role in the Holocaust so why feel guilty? And with a few exceptions, most of those films are mediocre at best, exploitative trash at worst. Clearly, there is only one way to remedy this sickness that has held Hollywood in it's vice like grip:Make more giant Blob movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It's true. That is the one sub-genre that can do no wrong. Think I'm joking? Look at all the great blob films of decades past, from THE film which led to Hammer's first big hit; 'The Quatermass Xperiment' and it's sequel, to the studio's own talky but engaging 'X, the Unknown', Steve McQueen's acting debut Tour de Force; 1958's 'The Blob', it's charmingly awful sequel, it's amazingly superior remake(And I hate remakes with a passion), that awesome segment in 'Creepshow 2', Japan's 'Dogora' and 'Yog: Monster from Space' all are great. Not a truly bad or unwatchable film in the lot. So why not make more entries in this unbeatable sub-genre? Clearly, Hollywood has no guts to explore the boundaries of cinema that these films could expand. They just want to make safe and marketable holocaust flicks. Shame.BUT! As good as those films mentioned are, no discussion of these drippingly good classics or classics dripping with goodness is complete without mentioning the 1959 masterpiece 'Caltiki'. Directing was begun by Riccardo Freda, with much of the film completed by Mario Bava(I wonder if he moved on to anything good?*sarcasm*)and it's a gem.Legend says that Mayan Goddess Caltiki will return when fire is seen in the sky, and wouldn't you know it? A meteor passes through! While exploring Mayan ruins, explorers made up of bickering couples(One is a square-jawed white man with a white wife, the other couple is a sniveling, accented man named Max with an interracial girlfriend who he abuses, jeeze, who do you think is going to be the couple that survives?)stumble upon a cave with a lake inside, best of all, it has jewels at the bottom! Max decides to take the jewels, but fails to notice the tar like substance that is at the bottom of the lake that is rising......You can guess what happens next, it's all a lot of fun. From a plot development involving a maimed Max doing an imitation of Richard Wordsworth in 'The Quatermass Xperiment' for no real reason other than to provide a human villain, to a memorable sequence where the protagonist is jailed while his family is in danger, to a surprisingly deep performance from Daniela Rocca as Max's submissive girlfriend, to a surprisingly clever psuedoscientific explanation for Caltiki, to several scenes that must have been appallingly graphic for the era, it's all a hoot. You'll keep your feet off the floor in the dark for weeks.It starts off slow and the dialogue is silly, but it's more entertaining than the majority of 'A' movies now!!! See it, or have your arm burned off by Caltiki! It's the 'Citizen Kane'....of Blob movies.

With Mario Bava being my favorite filmmaker of ALL time, I couldn't afford myself to miss out on "Caltiki" as this film – along with the equally impressive "I, Vampire" - marks his debut as a director and then still the poor man didn't receive the proper credit he deserved for it. Riccardo Freda, the official director of the two films, is also a fairly prominent and admirable name in the Italian horror/cult industry, but both films simply have Bava's style and trademarks written all over them. His already gained craftsmanship as a cinematographer and his visionary look on directing built up during the fifties undoubtedly are the main reasons why Bava became one of the greatest of all time; starting from the early 60's already (with the tremendously brilliant "Black Sunday") and onwards. "Caltiki" clearly is a blatant rip-off of other and hugely successful "unidentified monstrous substance attacking people" Sci-Fi movies from throughout the 50's decade, like "The Quatermass Experiment" and most obviously "The Blob". But there were "The Blob" is an overall disappointingly dull and politically correct thriller, this Italian dish of deliciousness is a downright outrageous and extremely fast-paced shocker. The main characters are much more vivid and identifiable, the body count lies much higher, the violence is more confronting and the special effects and make-up art are more explicit than those featuring in American and British horror productions of that era. And still, in spite of the familiar concept, the screenplay of "Caltiki" nevertheless attempts (and often succeeds, I may add) to bring some variety and inventiveness. The titular monster doesn't come from outer space, for once, and it doesn't necessarily have to consume human flesh in order to grow in size or strength. "Caltiki" has always resided here on earth and relies on radiation instead to become more dangerous. It very much likes to turn victims into skeletons, but doesn't have to! How cool is that? A group of scientists and their whiny women embark on an expedition near an ancient Mayan temple in order to finally find out why an entire civilization just disappeared in a nick of time. Shortly after a volcano eruption it becomes clear to them that the lake underneath the temple homes a hideous and unstoppable monster. They have the opportunity to bring back a piece of the monstrous substance when the greediest member of the crew nearly loses his arm trying to reach for a piece of treasure when he clearly shouldn't have. Instead of researching the matter, they quickly find themselves battling the thing again as it grows in size and hunger. "Caltiki" is packed with suspense and an unexpectedly large amount of violence and disturbing imagery.

This movie was better than Steve's McQueens Blob movie which was okay, but i thought Caltiki's story was more interesting and the effects was very good for the period of time that it came out. The effects was a okay in my book and when i saw it as a kid in the early 1960's, it scared the day lights out of me! I think it is one of the best movies of blob like movies that i ever did see. There's a lot of good movies within the past 60 some odd years that had blob like creatures or single cell protoplasm creatures in them. This i feel is one of the BEST films i ever did see. None hold barred! Caltiki the Immortal Monster is the best movie i ever saw and i highly recommend it to anyone!