Instant Favorite.

Excellent, a Must See

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

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

Uninteresting story line gives way to lots of monster action. There are plenty of closeups of a miniature drooling Scorpion head. The movie is all done by miniatures and the stop motion is at times very jerky. Willis appears to be stuck in the 1930s. There are a lot of background rear projection effects which are incredibly out of focus and the miniatures look very much like miniatures, toy trains and all. Why these insects make sounds at all is weird but the roaring makes it more interesting I guess. At times, sounds are taken from "Them", the other, better big WB insect film. Some monster sequences look older and may be test footage from King Kong or elsewhere. Most of the monster shots are separate and are not composite shots with people other than rear projection. Perhaps the best shot is one of the smaller creatures chasing after the kid. The WORST shot is when there is a giant scorpion mixed with large crowd scenes. It's basically the scorpion appearing as a transparent black cartoony effect that is very jerky and laid over the crowd shot....one of the worst of that era. Maybe this was a budget issue. The scorpions fighting each other and eating other miniature people are the best shots and must have taken a lot of work...but still, very jerky. Anyway, it's 1950s B Horror, and lots of fun. For some reason, I had never seen this as a kid. I guess the NYC market didn't show it. So, it was nice to see a new (for me) 1950s monster movie from a major studio.

I don't know why the haters bother to watch flicks like this, you've got to know going in that it'll be pure Velveeta. With an explosive intro before any opening credits, the picture sets up the viewer for a veritable smorgasbord of creepy, crawly creatures that are enough to satisfy any fan of Fifties schlock horror.I appreciate the fact that no cheesy, pseudo-scientific rationale was offered for the giant scorpions in the picture, they were just there when the local Mexican volcano went kablooey. The first one appears about a half hour into the picture, after we get such appetite whetting teases as a 'demon bull' of the Maricopa on the prowl. What's also interesting is that the scorpion hordes don't necessarily act in tandem against their human rivals, they actually battle each other! Out of the melee, one giant creature comes on the scene to claim the film's title as The Black Scorpion. Just like it's Tyrannosaurus forebear, he was given the name Scorpionida Rex by one of the Mexican scientists, a neat touch indeed.The only downside to the story was how relatively easily the military defeated the big buggers for the finale. They simply aimed for their weak spot and applied an electrified jolt to their vulnerable throat. For the principal players, it wasn't difficult to see how they got upstaged by their arachnid counterparts. American scientist Hank Scott (Richard Denning) probably said it best when he and Artur Ramos (Carlos Rivas) first made their way to the floor of the scorpion cave - "We've just hit bottom".

If you can forgive that "The Black Scorpion" has a low budget (which means not only is it in black and white, but there's stock footage used and limited use of Willis O'Brien's special effects), it's an enjoyable B-Movie. It's a monster movie made very much in the style of the decade about a giant scorpion that terrorizes unsuspecting humans. There are some scenes of genuine tension and horror, which is always a bonus, but odds are you're coming to this movie because the monster right? How do the Willis O'Brien effects look? As you might have suspected, the star of the film is easily the stop-motion effects, so if you're a fan of the medium it's an enjoyable flick and the special features on the DVD are excellent.On the things I really enjoy about the film is that once you've seen it, you notice clips and screen caps of it everywhere. If you've ever seen "Teeth", that movie about the girl with razor-sharp fangs in her vagina, there's a point in the film where the lead girl happens upon a clip of "The Black Scorpion". The scene she watches, a close-up of the film's monster with its wide mouth full of teeth and its pincers gnashing gives makes her eyes go wide and in a very clever way gives you a pretty good mental image of what her mutation probably looks like.There is a nice variety in the monsters and a good battle scene towards the end where the titular creature attacks a train and then faces off against the army. Basically, the movie is fun whenever there are giant creatures on the screen, but when it comes to the story, it's pretty generic. The film is just average monster mayhem with uneven quality in story and pacing and I give it a mild recommendation, higher if you're a fan of Willis O'Brien or his most famous pupil, Ray Harryhausen. (Dvd, May 17th, 2012)

Edward Ludwig directed this science fiction horror thriller that stars Richard Denning as American geologist Hank Scott, who is recruited by the Mexican authorities when an earthquake unleashes a horde of giant scorpions upon the Mexican countryside, causing havoc and destruction as they threaten to overrun the nearby city, then the world. Good model F/X on display, with some harrowing attack scenes(including a vivid cavern sequence), but there is no story or character involvement at all, with the plot being overly familiar and uninspired. A pity, because the film pushed the violence boundaries for its time, but the film just comes up short, and has been strangely forgotten. Basically a rehash of the much superior "Them!"