Lower Decks

This wasn’t nearly as dreadful as I expected. It certainly wasn’t as bad as Robot Holocaust. Once it became clear that the movie was attempting to parody monster movies, I actually somewhat enjoyed it. The humor wasn’t subtle or even all that good but at least there was no attempt to take the movie seriously. That helped quite a bit. So did Betsy Jones-Moreland as Mary-Belle Monahan — alias Mary-Monahan Belle, alias Belle-Mary Monahan, alias Monahan Marybelle — gun moll for mobster Renzo Capetto (played by Antony Carbone). She also had a role in The Last Woman on Earth. Both movies were produced and directed by Roger Corman.

The premise of Creature from the Haunted Sea is that the Cuban government has been overthrown and is on the run. And they’re taking the treasurer with them. In order to smuggle out a crate of gold, famed crook Renzo Capetto is retained to take it aboard his ship and sail it across the ocean. Along for the ride is a Cuban general, his assistant and several soldiers. But Renzo doesn’t want to deal with the Cubans and comes up with the perfect plan: kill the Cubans and blame their deaths on a sea monster.

Making up Renzo’s crew are Pete Peterson Jr. (played by Beech Dickerson), who just loves making animal imitations, Happy Jack Monahan (played by Robert Bean), Mary-Belle’s brother, and Sparks Moran (played by Edward Wain), an inept secret agent attempting to stop Renzo. Sparks falls in love with Mary-Belle and wants to take her away from her life of crime. The fact that she wants nothing to do with him means nothing.

Renzo, Pete and Happy Jack kill one of the Cubans. But another turns up dead as well. There’s a real monster on the loose! After wrecking the ship and sinking the crate of gold, the group lands on an island and begins diving for the gold. Renzo and the others also start picking off additional Cuban soldiers. Pete and Happy Jack both find love on the island, but Happy Jack’s new love wants Sparks. So Happy Jack finds a new love in the form of the daughter of Pete’s love.

The monster kills Happy Jack’s new love and then kills Happy Jack as well, angering Mary-Belle. The surviving Cubans attempt to kill the monster but it instead kills just about everyone else. Ultimately, only Sparks Moran and his new girlfriend survive the vicious attacks while the monster lives to kill another day. It’s a hilariously cheesy looking monster, almost indescribable. Big white eyes, a costume that is supposed to look like seaweed (I think) and giant flippers.

It’s a short movie, though, and doesn’t run long enough to really start annoying.