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The Navy vs the Night Monsters
USA 1966
produced by George Edwards, Jack Broder (executive) for Standard Club of California
directed by Michael A.Hoey
starring Anthony Eisley, Mamie Van Doren, Edward Faulkner, Billy Gray, Bobby Van, Pamela Mason, Walter Sande, Phillip Terry, David Brandon, Kaye Elhardt, Taggart Casey, Russ Bender, Mike Sargent, Del 'Sonny' West, Biff Elliot, William Meigs, Garrett Myles, Paul Rhone
screenplay by Michael A.Hoey, based on the novel The Monster from Earth's End by Murray Leinster, music supervisor: Gordon Zahler, music editor: Igo Kantor, special effects by Edwin Tillman
review by Mike Haberfelner
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An aeroplane containing biological samples from the South Pole lands on
a small island - with all its crew vanished into thin air safe for the
pilot who's in deep shock. While Lt Brown (Anthony Eisley), interim army
commander on the island, tries to find out what happened on the plane,
people start getting killed under mysterious circumstances, and after much
to and fro, he and the scientific head of the island Doctor Beecham
(Walter Sande) have to come to the conclusion that some plant samples from
the Antarctica actually turn into carnivorous beasts at night, and their
favourite food, as it seems, is humans.Brown and his men throw everything
at these plants but the kitchen sink, but nothing seems to work, until
Beecham comes to the conclusion the killer plants are allergic to gasoline
and can be burned. So, to bring the story to a happy ending, the whole
island is bombarded with Napalm ... Top-billed Mamie Van Doren plays Lt
Brown's sweetheart, Edward Faulkner the civilian rival to her affections. In
a way, this film, a not too imaginative mix between The
Thing from Another World and Day
of the Triffids, is fun: It's less than subtle militaristic
undercurrents are as silly as they are unbelievably blunt even for the
1960's, it's happy ending thanks to Napalm is macabre especially in
hindsight, and the clumsy special effects representing the walking plants
are pretty hilarious. That all said, The Navy vs the Night Monsters
is by far not the trash gem all of the above makes it sound to be,
basically because the storytelling is way off: For example, hardly
anything happens the first 20 minutes or so, instead we are introduced to
an endless array of clichéed characters, several of which make their
first and last appearance in the whole film. And not only is the film
overpopulated with characters, their difficult relations to one another
also make this film seem more like a soap opera than a sci-fi/horror
flick. To put it more bluntly, over quite a stretch of time, this film
is actually nothing but boring - and that simply enough isn't a good
thing.
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