Stylish but barely mediocre overall

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Virgil Vogel directs this Sci-Fi classic concerning two archeologists, Roger Bentley (John Agar) and Jud Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont), who discover an underground civilization of albinos deprived and fearful of sunlight making slaves of a populace of half-human, half-mole creatures. The only weapon the two explorers have is a...flashlight. Bentley and Bellamin befriend the slaves from their torturing and earn their trust in showing a way back to the earth's surface. Very low budget and the mole people are not very scary after a decent introduction.Cynthia Patrick plays Adad, a pretty outcast of the albinos, who is given away to Dr. Bentley, compliments of the High Priest (Alan Napier). Other players include: Rodd Redwing, Nestor Palva, Phil Chambers and Joe Abdullah.

I know that I was introduced to this movie on MST3K but even so, I still judge movies as they are as movies. I rarely try to judge them on how the show portrays them. The show is funny, but it isn't the movie itself. Anyways, with that aside, I will talk more about the actual film itself. It was alright as a general whole and it makes more sense than a lot of sci-fi flicks that were made in that time period. There is a bit of a confusing and yet decent enough story line if you actually manage to get yourself to care for it at all. Although I do wonder what the whole thing on slavery on over 5,000 years was really even an idea to begin with coming along. The effects are the same generic stuff you would expect in a movie at the time although the mole people as the film calls them are actually not that bad in terms of looks. And the acting was decent... just decent though. Overall, a better entry in MST3K than most of the movies in their list, even if it isn't exactly a great movie as a whole. But I am just looking at it as is.

While digging somewhere in Asia a team of archaeologists uncover an ancient Sumerian tablet which warns of tragic consequences for those who take possession of it. Not long afterward they are presented with an ancient oil lamp recovered on top of a large mountain nearby with Sumerian engravings which tells the story of the "Great Flood" from the Sumerian point of view. Climbing up the mountain they discover an ancient Sumerian temple but it's at this time that the ground under one of the archaeologists named "Dr. Paul Stuart" (Phil Chambers) gives away which causes him to fall a great distance to his death. The archaeologists then use their mountain climbing gear to descend into the earth to find their fallen comrade. Unfortunately, a rock slide causes the death of another member of their team and subsequently traps them inside what appears to be a large cavern. After further investigation they are taken captive by some strange mole-like creatures and upon awakening meet an ancient Sumerian civilization whose king immediately sentences them to death. But they soon escape only to come face-to-face with some mole people who have been enslaved by these underground Sumerian people. Now, rather than reveal any more I will just say this movie had all the ingredients necessary for a Grade-B movie of this particular time. Although the acting was fairly adequate, the costumes were bad and the plot was just plain ridiculous. In short, unless a person really enjoys movies of this type or from this particular era I would avoid it all together. Below average.

No need to recap the plot.Okay, I admit to coughing up my teenage dollar for the theatre release of this wacky 70- minutes. But then, in those days, a movie had to sound ridiculous to get me inside. But little did I realize then that there's a sneaky allegory lurking beneath the loony screenplay. The way I got it figured is that bad actors Agar and Beaumont are bringing knowledge in the form of the flashlight from the upper world of light. That challenges the fallen albinos who dwell in an underworld of darkness and ignorance. They can't stand the light because they lose their power over their slaves, the poor mole people who are freed by that same light. So the story's really about liberating the ugly hunchbacks from their bleached-out masters. How's that for a twist on all the monster movies of the 50's. Now if someone could just wake up Hugh Beaumont, and get a 5th-grade art class to draw a better underground city, we might get beyond a drive-in classic. And, oh yeah, ditch that old guy opening. He still sounds like my sleeping-pill high school teacher.