This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

B-Movie King Roger Corman had already started making some quality films by this point in his career, having made "Fall of the House of Usher" and "Machine-Gun Kelly," but this film feels more along the lines of his earlier schlocky films, such as "Attack of the Crab Monsters" or "The Brain Eaters." The story follows super spy Robert Towne (yes, that Robert Town, who wrote "Chinatown," "Tequila Sunrise," "Shampoo" and other modern film classics) as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150, who offers to help a group of Cuban nationals escape the revolution with their ill-gotten riches, but who is instead plotting to kill them and blame their deaths on a mystical sea creature. But wait! Things get weird when said mythical sea creature actually show up and is actually a real thing! Written by Charles B. Griffith, who'd later go on to write or co-write "Death Race 2000" "The Wild Angels" and "Eat My Dust," the script thankfully doesn't take itself too seriously (some of the Spanish names are tells that they were not taking this too serious: Colonel Cabeza Grande "Big Head" and Isla de Barracho "Island of the Drunk"). However, the production values on this Corman production are so cheap that the film really does look like amateur hour. It also doesn't help when the actors in front of the camera don't have much talent ("House of Usher" had Vincent Price and "Machine-Gun Kelly" had a young Charles Bronson). Overall, this is more interesting to watch as a curiosity than it is as an actual entertaining film.

Sure, it's a Roger Corman quickie clocking in at 63 minutes, but it's 63 minutes of spy, gangster, and monster movie spoofing that's anchored by hilarious, deadpan narration written by Chuck Griffith. Add to it a dose of surrealism here and there (a phone booth on a deserted beach with someone who looks like Corman himself waiting to use the phone) and you have an idiosyncratic, low-budget winner. Corman was producing and directing films at such a furious pace during this time, he would take chances on trying something different as long as there was a script and a story. By the way, the animated opening credits sum up the tone perfectly!

*Spoiler/plot- The Creature of the Haunted Sea, 1961. An American rich gangster become involved in discovering and dealing with an unknown sea monster that threatens the locals.*Special Stars- Anthony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Robert Towne. DIR Roger Corman.*Theme- American ingenuity wins out. *Trivia/location/goofs- B&W. Cuba. THe monster in this film is unfortunately and clearly a guy in a rubber suit. It is too jokey to be appreciated.*Emotion- Clearly a low B-movie film with hardly anything to get enthusiastic about. A LOW B-movie example.*Based On- Cuban missile crisis worries.

This movie was a parody, nothing more, nothing less. It was not meant to be taken seriously in the least bit. It wasn't meant to be scary in the least bit (one idiot's movie review actually criticized the movie maker for having such a phony looking sea monster...DUHHHH!) Yet, over half of the lame brains writing reviews here, don't appear to understand that. It was you see, a DELIBERATELY BAD MONSTER MOVIE, like "Airplane" was a deliberately bad action, adventure film! Funny? Yes! Hilarious? No, but this movie was as low budgeted as it was way ahead of it's time... way ahead! Some of these other movies followed suit, but much later though. Movies like, Airplane, Scary Movie, Scary Movie II, Scary Movie III, Scary Movie IV, The Naked Gun, The Naked Gun 33 1/3, Hot Shots, Hot Shots Deux, ... God need I go On!