The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1955)

Dire .

There have been some good low budget sea monster movies but this most emphatically is not among their number as it fails on every level-acting ,effects ,script and photography .

When Professor King ,played by Michael Whalen ,begins experimenting with an underwater atomic light there is an unforseeen consequence -the creation of a mutant combination of a turtle and an alligator (and clearly played by a performer in a rubber monster suit).To add a layer of cold war paranoia to the plot we also have a secondary story in which the Soviets set out to steal the light and the intrepid US agent Ted ( a wooden Kent Taylor) ,must thwart the dastardly plans of the Soviet spy ,Wanda (Helene Stanton).Being a resourceful sort of chap he also finds tme for an amorous dalliance with the professor's daughter,Lois -played in the nearest thing to an adequate performance by Cathy Downs .

Combining the worst aspects of low rent monster movies and anti -communist propaganda movies this is a tedious farrago of nonsense and the murky underwater photography is especially painful
I suggest you give this dull and turgid picture a miss October 12, 2007

For collectors of pure crap

This was a waste of time. When watching this movie the real challange is to stay focused and watch the whole thing through. The photography is dismal to say the least, the monster is another rubber suit that was recycled from/into other monsters from this genre, and the plot is dreadful.

For a one word review, imagine Homer Simpson's voice here.... "Boring." July 18, 2005

Whale Dung...

PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES is one of those movies that induces a state of near-hypnosis, before deep REM sleep sets in. Kent Taylor could well be the dullest leading man to ever saunter onto a movie set! His Dr. Ted Stevens is a snore-a-minute mannequin in a suit. Anyway, Stevens must investigate a series of deaths (don't worry, they're boring too) that have occurred at the hands (fins) of a creature, obviously designed / constructed by a team of monkeys with mittens on. This "phantom" is almost as frightening as Sigmund The Sea Monster, and looks nowhere near as realistic. Of course, radiation is to blame, causing the soggy sea-turd to attack local rowboat enthusiasts without mercy. This film goes out of it's way to be non-entertaining! I mean, at least CREATURE FROM HAUNTED SEA had some moronic humor to balance out the ridiculous monster and "tension"! This one's a real dogfish... July 12, 2005

The Inside Scoop on the Phantom

I am so amazed to see people spending so much time watching and reviewing this movie! I thought my family was the only group left on the earth to watch it! I am especially impressed by your fine observations about the unweildy monster suit! And I am equally amused by your observations about the poor man in the suit!

Here is the secret you have all been dying to know--it wasn't a man in that suit, but a woman! In fact it was my grandmother, Norma Hanson. And the young teenage girl on the beach with the boy was my mother! So you can see my family has reason to sit around and watch this movie.

If you have no other interest in the movie (like your mom in a bathing suit), I really can't see watching it for free, let alone buying it!

Cheers! June 19, 2005

Death rays, sea monsters, and murder by spear gun...

Okay, I certainly had no illusions of grandeur when I popped this one into the DVD player, and neither should you. The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues? A more apt title would be the Guy in the Cheap Monster Suit From 20 Feet (or 0.00109730 Leagues, if you want to get technical)...

The film, directed by Dan Milner and presented by Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson (hence the incredibly cheapness of the entire affair) stars Kent Taylor, who also starred as Boston Blackie in the television series of the same name along with various cinematic wonders as The Crawling Hand (1963), Brides of Blood (1968), Satan's Sadists (1969), The Mighty Gorga (1969), and Brain of Blood (1972). The film also stars Cathy Downs, who later appeared in films like The She Creature (1956), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), and Missile to the Moon (1958), Michael Whalen (who also appeared with Ms. Downs in Missile to the Moon, Rodney Bell, Phillip Pine, Vivi Janess, and Pierce Lyden as Andy, the janitor.

The film opens with a fisherman casting a net off a small dingy, I guess, to catch some fish. Underneath the boat we see a man in a somewhat elaborate, yet highly unresponsive, monster suit. He pushes some on the bottom of the boat, and this causes the man to let out a feeble yell and fall into the water. The creature then proceeds to...the best way I could describe this is to say the creature began having relationship with the man in the water. I suppose it was meant to look like it was attacking the fisherman, but it surely didn't...anyway, the next scene shows the fisherman's corpse and his dingy on the beach, and we meet out main character, Dr. Ted Stevens (Taylor), or, as he's calling himself Ted Baxter, for reasons of his own for now, discovers the body. As the good doctor is looking over the body, government man William Grant (Bell), or Mr. Grant as he's known throughout the film, arrives and starts questioning Ted Baxter about what he's doing. Ted Baxter? Mr. Grant? I know, I know...if characters named Mary Richards and Murray Slaughter show up, we got us a full blown episode of The Mary Tyler Moore show...anyway, it appears the fisherman died of burns produced by exposure to radiation. So the pre-martial activities with the sea serpent were just salt in the wound? Bleeech...

The story progresses, and we learn that a professor of a local university, Professor King (Whalen) is working on some secret project, one of great interest to his secretary Ethel Hall (Janiss) and the professor's opportunistic assistant George Thomas (Pine), both whom he doesn't trust, for good reason. We also meet the professor's daughter, Lois (Downs), who really has no other purpose in the movie other than looking good and being a romantic foil for Taylor's character. Apparently the fisherman who turned up charbroiled wasn't the first victim, and the locals have concocted a story about a phantom(?!) haunting the cove, taking people. What is this, a Scooby Doo mystery? And what's Dr. Stevens role in this story? Turns out, as an expert in atomics and `death ray' technology (I kid you not), he was assigned to investigate, but no one told Mr. Grant, who is also looking into the matter. Apparently Professor King has developed a way to mutate normal sea creatures into monsters, and now one is guarding and feeding off a fissure of uranium within the cove, and killing anyone who comes near it. Also, it seems the Professor's assistant George Thomas is working with some unknown group to steal the Professor's plans, whatever the heck they are, and get paid big time. As for the Professor's secretary Ethel, well, she's just nosey, and we all know what happens to nosey secretaries, right? They get shot with a spear gun in the back. Oops...I give too much away...oh man, this is too good...who's the killer running around shooting a spear gun at people? It's no big mystery, as the culprit is highly moronic...I mean, a spear gun? Anyway, this mess of a movie shambles along, some more people die, people commit acts of idiocy, and the whole thing gets resolved about twenty minutes later than it should have, filling out the 80 minute run time.

The whole film is just so very cheap...the cardboard sets, clunky and unwieldy expository dialogue, utterly inane characters, and the complete predictability of the plot. It may seem like I've given things away in my review, but I really haven't, as you'll see most of what I talked about coming long before it does...

The print here looks really shoddy, being washed out, grainy, and just all around generally poor. Is there a better source print out there? Perhaps, but who's going to bother finding it? Retromedia does provide a good amount of extras for its' release including Drive-In Antics featuring Fred Olen Ray and Miss Kim (there is a bit o' nudity here, so don't let the kiddies watch), intermission spots, the kind you used to see in theaters and drive ins spouting the virtues of the snack bar and removing the speaker from your car window before leaving the drive-in, a still gallery for the film, Drive-In Antics bloopers/outtakes, and a whole slew of trailers of highly dubious films like the one on this disc along with trailers for Beast of the Yellow Night (1971), Curse of the Vampires (1971), Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972), Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988), Fatal Justice (1993), Evil Spawn (1987), and Scalps (1983). I guess if I take one thing away from this film it's if you're going to choose a weapon to murder someone, a spear gun probably shouldn't be your first choice. I mean, if you miss, it just takes too long to reload, and you completely lose the element of surprise. There are several releases of this film out there, so features subject to change.

Cookieman108 April 27, 2004

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