V.CI. have gone creature crazy and have slapped two spine-tinglers from the golden age of Drive-in madness together on one Blu-ray disc titled (appropriately enough) Creepy-Creatures Double-Feature!
This monster mash gets underway with The Crawling Hand from 1963…
A manned space mission goes tits-up in the worst possible way resulting in a self-destruct request from an astronaut that’s miraculously lived without oxygen for over twenty minutes.
The cosmic wreckage from said blast rains down over a small California beach town where it’s discovered by young science student Paul (Rod Lauren) and his Nordic gal pal, Marta (Sirry Steffen).
Among the debris is one of our bomb-shattered astronauts arms with hand still attached (which is solid for title accuracy’s sake), and soon that arcane appendage is up and about causing that patented monster mayhem died-in-the-wicked-wool Monsterkids like us love six ways to Sunday… but, that horrid hand doesn’t stop there as it possesses Paul for a lil’ Jekyll n’ Hyde riffage!
A sentient limb is usually a good time cinema-wise, and The Crawling Hand isn’t an exception, even if it’s occasionally more padded than a bra on prom night… but what budget fright flick of the era wasn’t?
The narrative is fun enough to overcome that little obstacle, and the performances of the supporting cast (including Gilligan’s Island’s/Bill Rebane’s The Giant Spider Invasion’s Alan Hale Jr.) make things incredibly entertaining… with special mention going out to Arline Judge as trigger-happy boardinghouse matron Mrs. Hotchkiss, and Syd Saylor as a doomsayin’ soda shop proprietor who hates his young clientele to an absurd degree considering they are keeping his lights on and all…
There’s also a smattering of cool early on-screen gore…
The Crawling Hand is one for the putrid plus column for Creepy-Creatures… let’s see how the second flick, The Slime People (also from 1963) fares…
Howard Hughes-lookin’ mother fucker Tom Gregory (Robert Hutton, They Came from Beyond Space… he directed this picture as well) lands his small plane to find the airfield to be abandoned… abandoned until Professor Galbraith (Robert Burton) and his daughters, Lisa (Susan Hart) and Bonnie (Judee Morton), come tear-assin’ up in their sensible family sedan and escort Tom back to surrounding, nearly-abandoned Los Angeles.
Once there, they have to fend off both drunken looters and members of a monstrous subterranean race, affectionately nicknamed The Slime People, who have thrown a dome over the city and it’s rural outskirts, keeping the outside world at bay!
Will our heroes, along with gun-toting military man/Slime survivor Cal (William Boyce) and local yokel asshole Tolliver (a delightfully snarky Les Tremayne, 1953’s War of the Worlds, The Angry Red Planet), be able to withstand the shocking onslaught of the warty weird-oh’s?!
The Slime People is a highly enjoyable sci-fi shocker on a budget, and it manages to be pretty clever at times as well!
For instance; we learn of the Slime People’s invasion through a newsreel that details their arcane advances upon L.A. which provides a solid bit of world building economically (both in budget and time).
And the eponymous Slime People are unique, looking like frog/fish/human mash-ups… it’s a fun, hodge-podge of elements that work to create a memorable monsters indeed!
And, whatever didn’t look so “memorable” got covered up with so much fog that even Lucio Fulci would say ”That’s a bit much… “
Special features here include a brief look at ‘50s-’60s era sci-fi creatures, a super cool drive-in poster gallery, a nearly hour-long retrospective on the film (including an interview with Susan Hart) courtesy of film historian Tom Weaver, and an upbeat informative audio commentary courtesy of artist/podcaster Rob Kelly.
A double-dose of creatures on the march… or in some cases crawl… that belongs in the creepy collection of classic monster-lovin’ maniacs!
