With hard-hitting investigative reporter, Tom Lewis (Harper), our prologue does begin, who, along with his impressive porn ‘stache, is currently interviewing a series of eyewitnesses who claim to have had a recent close encounter with a UFO in the rural areas around Athens, Georgia. Here, as part of his news feature, Lewis receives vox populi testimonials from a college professor, a senior citizen, a young couple -- who actually claim to have been abducted by some telepathic aliens and examined before being safely returned and relatively unharmed, and a couple of ranchers, who claim the flying saucer they saw caused a light plane to crash on their property that only received a cursory investigation for reasons unknown -- as if the government already knew what had happened to the doomed pilot and plane.
And while Lewis’ footage of “I don’t know what I seen but I saw it” reinforces a lot of familiar flying saucer scenarios -- bright lights, swamp gas, weather balloons, lost time, equipment failure, EMP flashes, animal mutilations, abductions by benevolent and technologically superior beings, and a military conspiracy to cover it all up, which is reinforced further with a series of classic black and white snapshots of alleged UFO sightings over the years during the myopic opening credits. (And not to spoil too much but these are the only UFOs we will be seeing for the duration of the movie.) But once the slideshow credits wrap-up, the anal-probe is suddenly yanked out from under us all as the film proper will implore to essentially forget all that nonsense about flying hubcaps and little green men because it all couldn’t be any further from the truth as far as extraterrestrials are concerned. And, boy, do we have the guy who can get us to the real truth! Well, sort of. But not really,
Now, this man in question is Allen Grimes (Plakias), a post-grad teaching fellow in electronic engineering at the University of Fauxsville, Florida. And on the afternoon of March 26, 1974, when Grimes attempted to telephone a colleague for some “academic business,” this call would forever change the grad-student’s life! See, he winds up on some ersatz party-line thanks to some static interference of unknown origin. And what he hears is an unsecured conversation between a Colonel Crabby-Ass and a Major MacJerkface, who discuss a rash of UFO radar intercepts around the Buford Power Plant near the town reservoir. And as slack-jawed Grimes silently listens and takes notes, they continue on about a sudden interruption of the local power grid and a course of action to investigate whatever the hell is up there.
Alas, we do not get to see a sorte of jet-fighters buzz the area and engage with any UFOS because that would be both engaging and exciting. Nope. Instead, we stick with Grimes, who, while processing what he just heard, flashes back to his childhood, where a much younger version of himself awakens from a nightmare about a bright light, like a star, that was burning him. But his consoling mama says not to worry because that was just his ‘morning star’ come to wake him, and how everybody has a morning star that guides them. And as we puzzle over just what in the ever-lovin’ hell THAT was all about, we cut back to Grimes in his office, who finally manages to pick his jaw up off the floor long enough to make another phone call to a girl named Vivian, whom he must see in person immediately.
Now, this Vivian (Cline) is a little on the freaky-deaky side as she’s developed an acute sensitivity to strange alien phenomenon, or so she claims, and carries the social stigma that comes with this belief. She’s dubious of Grimes’ motives for speaking with her as he records their conversation, meaning her responses are rather clipped and guarded when he puts the question to her: can she really feel extraterrestrial beings around us? Vivian confirms she does have ESP, but not in the way he thinks, which is too “dimensional.” What she feels is an energy, and if she could just tap into the proper wavelength Vivian is almost certain she can communicate with the source. This news really excites Grimes, who would like to explore the possibilities further with Vivian after he consults a few more experts.
And after talking with a rather affable astronomy professor about the probability of alien life visiting our planet (-- which we will expound upon later), Grimes meets up with Vivian at a local watering hole. Here, she expands on a strange feeling she had when they first met; a strange oppressive malediction that is definitely emanating from him. And when she takes his hand to tune in better, she is overcome by some kind of psychic feedback, gasping about energy and bright stars. And this feedback loop is so great it ripples into their surroundings as the lights flicker and the jukebox drops several RPMs until Vivian breaks contact.
Later, Grimes consults with his old physics professor, Dr. Mansfield (Light), about this strange encounter he just had with Vivian. Seems in less than one hour after her physical contact, there were enough UFO sightings in the area to make the national news. (And do we get to see any of these? Again, that would be both exciting and engaging; so, no, we do not.) And while Grimes had hoped Manfield would be just as excited about this as he was and help him spitball on his rapidly developing theory of what’s really going on at the reservoir, the elder Mansfield, instead, preaches caution. But Grimes will not hear it, and in his zealousness the man does not realize he is now the target of something not of this Earth. And his life kinda depends on whether this ‘something’ is benevolent or hostile...
American physicist Enrico Fermi was instrumental in the successful development of the Manhattan Project during World War II. It was Fermi who was credited with creating the world’s first working atomic pile, making him the father of the Nuclear Age and one of the key architects of the first atomic bomb. Fermi was rare in that he excelled in both applied and theoretical physics, earning himself a Nobel Prize for his work in induced radioactivity as well as significant contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics.
Fermi was still working at Los Alamos at the National Laboratory in 1950, where one day, while walking to the commissary for lunch with several colleagues, he joined in on a spirited conversation with the others about the recent deluge of UFO reports that had been accelerating since Kenneth Arnold’s first sightings of a flying saucer back in 1947. And then the conversation turned to other subjects as the meal commenced until Fermi stopped suddenly and exclaimed, “Where is everybody?!” Edward Teller, a friend, colleague, and witness to this eureka moment, recalled, "The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi's question coming from the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once he was talking about extraterrestrial life." Another colleague, Herbert York, added Fermi would not let this go and followed up on this observation with a series of calculations on the probability of Earth-like planets elsewhere in the galaxy; the probability of life spawning on these planets; the likely rise and duration of high technology; and concluded we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over.
This contradiction between a lack of solid evidence of alien contact to prove they’ve actually been here and the high-probability estimates for the existence of other civilizations out there, somewhere, formed the basis of what was to become the Fermi Paradox. To illustrate, put on your thinking caps and try to wrap your heads around this: there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone that are similar to the sun, and many of these stars are millions of years older than the one in our solar system. And with those numbers, there’s a high probability some of these stars systems have spawned Earth-like planets; and if our Earth is typical, others, too, may have developed intelligent life. And with that big of a head start, surely one of them developed some form of interstellar travel by now.
So, the question remains. Where is everybody? To answer that, first, let's presume every sighting ever recorded of a UFO on Earth really was just a weather balloon, swamp gas, or a hoax. Next, to address the reason why no super-advanced alien civilization has ever made contact with Earth is, in theory, something called The Great Filter, which basically states at some point all life hits some kind of wall or dead end, where things stall or get derailed, be it evolutionary, environmental, social breakdown, or advancements in technology get out of hand (think nuclear or robot holocaust) before they reach an intelligence level where, say, the difference between magic and science is almost nonexistent as author Arthur C. Clarke once theorized.
And if you want to stay up all night pondering imponderables, read up on whether we of Earth have already survived this Great Filter or have yet to plow into it. Have we stalled out? Is technology getting out of hand? Will a gamma burst from space fry us all? My money is on we destroy ourselves through hubris by letting the Earth become uninhabitable due to greenhouse gases and climate change. And if not that, we’ll blow it all up over something stupid and petty -- most likely differences in dogma. Are we doomed then? Is Soylent Green our future, or, by some miracle, will we achieve something akin to Star Trek? Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. Then again, this is just one of many theories or possibilities.
And another one of those possibilities is our current technology is too primitive or we’re simply listening for the wrong things. As Carl Sagan once pointed out; it could be that our minds work exponentially faster or slower than another form of intelligence out there. Maybe it takes our galactic neighbors 12 years to say “Hello,” and when we hear this message it sounds like nothing more than garbled white noise. Do you speak bacteria? I sure don’t. And so, maybe, as we reach out with more powerful instruments we might just finally pick up on something. (I know there’s been efforts to go over old Seti data and widen the parameters when crunching it on the computers to translate what we’ve picked up over the years.) Also, it’s a mighty big universe in a “You Are Here” sense, and there’s a chance, however slim, they just haven’t found us yet, which might not necessarily be a bad thing if you buy in to the Alpha Predator theory, where the most advanced civilizations out there are systematically wiping out all other forms of intelligent life.
And lastly, maybe, just maybe, they have been here all along, which fits with the Cosmic Zoo option, which believes the aliens are here essentially on safari as observers, trophy hunters, or catch and release. Personally, if they have visited I think they’re just rubbernecking. It’s always been my pet theory with Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), contending it was the little juvenile potbelly aliens who have been buzzing the Earth all these years, stealing stuff and taking unwitting folks on a cosmic joyride, until they get caught by the elder ganguly aliens, who make them give it all back, apologize, and promise to never do it again in a musical extravaganza, light show, and obscene hand gesture exchange on the Dark Side of the Moon at Devil’s Tower.
And while UFO: Target Earth (1974) is no Close Encounters -- not even remotely close enough to even encounter, and I shudder to even mention them in the same sentence, producer, director, and writer Michael A. DeGaetano’s magdumb opus does address the Fermi Paradox, albeit indirectly, when Grimes sits in on a lecture conducted by Fauxville’s chief astronomer, Dr. Whitman (Erickson), who goes on and on about the arrival of comets being harbingers of great cataclysms over the centuries. What he’s selling probably isn’t true but it's kind of interesting in a some forgotten tome of Time Life’s Mysteries of the Unknown sense. After the lecture, Grimes consults with Whitman on the odds of extraterrestrial life existing elsewhere and the possibility of them ever visiting the Earth. The older man puts the odds of alien life at three to five-percent (-- meaning at least three out of every hundred stars could produce sustainable life somewhere, so that isn’t quite as minuscule as it sounds), and then expounds further on how it is possible for them to visit but highly improbable they would have the means to ever find us let alone get here. It’s a fun little scene that doesn’t completely reek of bullshit like everything else and really sticks out amongst the existential dreck to come as DeGaetano, through Grimes, commits to his own pet theories on non corporeal alien life.
And this ongoing thesis begins with Grimes and Vivian hitting the road to interview eyewitnesses and collect data to be crunched and collated back in Mansfield’s computer lab, which includes a talk with Colonel Crab-Ass, who is obviously rattled when Grimes reveals he listened in on his earlier conversation, but will neither confirm or deny anything except to stay away from the Power Plant, which is on military lockdown for reasons he’d rather not discuss. Still, rumors persist of structural damage around the plant, as if touched by some concentrated heat source that leaves blisters in the metal, which our protagonists only recount because telling is always a helluva lot cheaper than actually showing your audience something. Well, to be fair, we do get to see something. That something being the boom mic for a laughably extended period in the next interview with an elderly woman, who describes something flying over the reservoir, something so big it eclipsed the sun before plunging out of sight. Something shaped like a disc that turned into a bright light as it fell.
Once the interview wraps up, Grimes can barely contain his excitement about this documented sighting of an “energy source with a flight pattern.” Next, he checks in with Mansfield, who says all the data she’s received and put into the computer with her assistant, Dan Rivers (Arcuragi), confirms there has to be some massive energy source located at the bottom of the reservoir. What that data was exactly I do not know because they never bothered to tell us. And, hell, even talking about data entry at this point would be considered an action scene in this damnable movie.
Anyhoo, to follow up on these findings, Mansfield direly instructs Grimes to place some fancy sensors that will detect … something, on the opposite side of the lake and as far away from their camp as possible. Meantime, Vivian is starting to act even more strange as she gets closer to the water, and accuses Grimes of trying to buy her soul with his technology. After assuring this was never his intention, Grimes loads up the sensor on a boat and the director fills out a reel by following our hero as he putters all, the, way, across, the, water, and, reaches, the, opposite, shore, where he sets to work. (ACTION!) Back at the camp, Vivian anxiously awaits his return, clutching the walkie-talkie Grimes left with her, which suddenly crackles to life and a strange ethereal voice starts calling out her name. And as this persistently repeats, Vivian freaks out and flees into the surrounding woods.
She’s still missing when Mansfield and Rivers show up with more equipment, which they leave behind to go and look for the girl. And when they do finally find her -- stress on the ‘finally,’ Vivian appears possessed by another presence, who warns them all to get away from this place with all the urgency of unwrapping a stick of gum before snapping out of her fugue state. Vivian has no recollection of what she just said as they sit around the campfire later that night, where Mansfield also takes a massive plot dump, explaining there’s most likely some kind of alien ship at the bottom of the lake. And what the old lady witnessed all those decades ago was this ship losing power for some reason, causing it to crash and submerge into the lake, where it has sat for all these years, occasionally sending out scout ships to secure power for life support, and what Vivian is most likely sensing is some kind of psychic S.O.S. from the occupants as they await a rescue.
Grimes, of course, doesn’t buy this at all because it doesn’t fit his pet theory, which leads to a lengthy philosophical debate with Mansfield over what is possible, emotions vs. reason, which is making my eyes retroactively glaze over again as I type this sentence. It’s pure nonsense passing for something deeply profound. And it only gets worse from there, folks, as we take a time-out to finally address Vivian’s backstory just as Dr. Mansfield becomes dizzy and swoons. And as Vivian sees to her, Grimes is called over to the van where Rivers is monitoring the readouts of all the sensors, which are currently going bonkers, and the magic Etch ‘o’ Sketch is detecting a high energy spike coming from, ah, you guessed it, under the lake. Vivian senses “they’re here” and begs Grimes to take her with him. Meanwhile, a confused Grimes becomes mesmerized by a certain monitor displaying something akin to a Windows screensaver circa 1992.
What follows next is a big old heapin’ helpin’ of metaphysical bullshit as a voice through the monitor calls out to Grimes, which says he was the one they’ve been waiting over 1,000 years for. And, I quote, “We are beyond the jaws of darkness, where the light springs from the consciousness of your mind and bends upon itself to become the truth.” Apparently, these aliens are some kind of sentient energy, who did crash-land on Earth, and who’ve tried to contact earthlings for centuries only we weren’t ready yet and couldn’t understand; and so, our fearful brains manifested this contact with delusions of flying saucers and bug-eyed Martians, leaving them stuck here. Well, at least until Grimes came along. Vivian sort of sensed this, and I think that childhood trauma flashback was to show the alien’s first attempt to contact him but Grimes was too young to understand at the time. But now, he is the chosen one, who must “choose between two time spans: yours or ours. Give us the power to return, and your time will be destroyed. Nothing will be left. You will die. Only a memory in the mind of your friends will remain. If you refuse, all will end within your lifetime anyway. Your planet will crumble. Already your mind purifies itself of the memory, transforming the imagination into our needed energy."
What follows next is a K-Mart knock-off version of the climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), where Grimes, his body rapidly ageing as his -- what, essence?, becomes one with the aliens, pulls himself away from the psychedelic monitor and stumbles toward the lake. We don’t follow him, though. Nope. We get to keep staring at the screensaver for about an hour as the soundtrack digs into a deeper groove. And when we finally cut to the lake, Rivers tries and fails to stop the now elderly Grimes from going for a swim. And when the other man plunges in after him, what he pulls to shore are the mere skeletal remains of Grimes, whose essence has been converted, giving the aliens the power boost they needed to finally get the hell off Earth and head back into the cosmos. And then the movie leaves us with a quote from the Book of Revelations, chapter five, verse nine, which tries to tie all of this nonsense in with the Rapture, causing the audience to reflectively punch this movie right in its smug metaphysical face.
As the old axiom goes, a drowning man will surface three times before taking a permanent dip. I kinda apply the same logic to watching films in that if they put me to sleep more than once, it won’t be getting a third chance at being a non-narcotic sleep inducer because, you never know, it might prove fatal. Or worse: addictive. I had honestly forgotten what a load of pretentious twaddle UFO: Target Earth was as my first attempt at a re-watch ended in a nice nap about 20 minutes in. The second time I made it over an hour before the Sandman came calling. And here, I broke my rule and took the plunge for a third time because, well, with a deadline looming, it was too late to back out now.
Needless to say, I finally made it to the end. And once this turgid turd mountain had been conquered, I can honestly say it’s not all that terrible on a technical level. It’s competently shot, as even the extended boom mic cameo can be blamed on improper matting in the full frame home video release. It has a decent electronic score, and the actors do a commendable job of getting their portentous dialogue out in a timely manner. And yet all of these efforts cannot save the film from itself -- well, make that full of itself. For while I can respect the lofty ideas of the script and the ingenuity on display with such a limited budget to achieve said script’s astronomical ambitions, the end result is nowhere near as good or profound as DeGaetano probably imagines it to be; and so, the call of “pretentious twaddle” on UFO: Target Earth still stands.
What is Hubrisween? This is Hubrisween. And now, Boils and Ghouls, be sure to follow this linkage to keep track of the whole conglomeration of reviews for Hubrisween right here. Or you can always follow the collective head of knuckle on Letterboxd.
That's 20 reviews down with 6 to go! Up Next: Fangs for the Memories, Hammer Films.
UFO: Target Earth (1974) Jed Productions :: Maron Films / P: Michael A. DeGaetano / AP: Thomas H. Tolbert / D: Michael A. DeGaetano / W: Michael A. DeGaetano / C: Jerry Crowder / E: Michael A. DeGaetano / S: Nick Plakias, Cynthia Cline, LaVerne Light, Tom Arcuragi, Phil Erickson, Brooks Clift, Tom Harper
Somewhere along the base of the Himalayas on the wind-swept and frozen tundra of Tibet we spy two desperate and weary travelers making the final push to reach their destination. Now, this isolated outpost Connie Hayward (Maynor) and Trevor “Hud” Hudson (Nelson) have attained is just a staging area for climbers and explorers looking to head further up into the mountains. And the hope was to catch Connie’s brother, Dr. Hames Hayward, before his expedition departed. Seems there’s a medical emergency her brother was not aware of concerning certain experimental drug treatments he’d taken not reacting well at high altitudes. And when I say ‘not reacting well’ I mean potentially fatal. And so, with no way to communicate with him, Connie and Hudson, who volunteered to escort her, have been on Hayward’s trail and trying to catch up with him for weeks with no luck.
Well, they’ve just missed him again according to Steve Cameron (Maruzzi), a mountain guide with jaw of square, who says Hayward left nearly a week ago to establish a base camp up in the Himalayas. But, as Cameron continues, it seems Hayward’s partner, Dr. Eric Erickson (Lewis), lit out to join him just the day before. Seems those two doctors of anthropology are on an Abominable Snowman hunt. Well aware of her brother’s obsession with finding proof of the mythical creature’s existence, Connie is more interested in finding him than a Yeti right now and begs Cameron to help them on their quest. And while Cameron isn’t sure if they can catch up with Erickson before his party reaches the snowline, where several alternate paths present themselves, meaning they’ll never find ‘em then, he agrees to at least try much to Connie’s relief.
However, Cameron reminds these two travelers of the hardships they’re about to face, and how he hasn’t led an expedition into the area they’re heading without losing at least one man -- let alone a woman. And whether that’s a testament to the dangers of scaling the Himalayas or an indictment on Cameron’s skills as a guide, well, I guess we’re about to find out as these three head out and then up. And up and up and up. And up and up and up and up. And then up and up and up and up and up some more. And when things finally plateau out a bit they spot three dots moving along the horizon about to enter a vast snowfield, who stop when they hear Cameron firing his pistol to signal them after he confirmed it was Erickson’s party through his binoculars.
Told they are still at least a day away from the base camp, where Connie’s brother and the lead sherpa, Varga, are waiting, Erickson orders his man, Kheon (Haffner), to go ahead and set-up camp so his exhausted guests can recuperate before making the final climb tomorrow. Later that night, as they all gather around the campfire, Erickson gets to postulating on his quest and quarry. Theorizing the Yeti might just be the missing link between man and ape, he shows a sketch of the large bipedal cryptid to the others based on all the reported sightings, which are most concentrated where his base camp is located. But this is all conjecture as no one has ever gotten a good look at Yeti -- or proof of one. Lots of tracks, strange hair fibers, and a few brief glimpses. That’s it. And perhaps that’s why Erickson’s goal goes beyond just finding and documenting the creature but capturing one and bringing it back to civilization.
The following morning, Connie expresses concern about the brutish Kheon to Cameron. Seems she doesn’t like the way he keeps leering at her. But is it menace or concern, as the man appears very nervous about something. Perhaps it’s where they’re headed; Yeti country; a place where the superstitious natives fear to tread unless Varga is with them. Here, Cameron flat out asks the man if he’s ever seen a Yeti. To which Kheon replies he has not, and then punctuates that point with an old Tibetan axiom: If you see a Yeti, you die. Meantime, Hudson, who has been vocally regretting his decision to ever help out Connie since they left the outpost has been equally spooked by these Yeti tales. Convinced something’s been watching them for days, and overcome with a premonition that something bad will happen to him further up the mountain, the man refuses to go any further until Erickson puts his concerns to rest, assuring the Yeti are most probably a docile creature. But when they finally reach the base camp, it has been violently torn asunder with no sign of Hayward or Varga. And the only evidence as to what happened here is a series of large footprints that lead off into the snow...
Like a lot of kids who grew up in Los Angeles, notoriously bad filmmaker Jerry Warren had a dream of making it in showbusiness. And luckily for him, but perhaps unluckily for us, his dreams came true. After high school, Warren formed a small combo band, Jerry Warren and the Pets, managed to get signed by Arwin Records, but not a whole lot came of that. But while his musical career stalled, Warren’s skill as a jitterbug dancer got him noticed by several talent scouts and landed him some bit parts as a background dancer in the Ole and Johnson vehicle, Ghost Catchers (1944), and George Sydney’s barn-burner musical, Anchors Aweigh (1945). And it was during one of these productions where Warren became enamored with one of the producers and took his advice to heart: “In this town,” he said, “producers are the ones that have it all.” And so, seeing where the real money was to be made, well, then, that’s what Warren would do: produce a film, setting him on his crash course with B-movie infamy.
But it took Warren almost a decade to scrounge and scam several people and police departments (long story) out of the $30,000 needed to set up his production company, Associated Producers Inc. (API), and bankroll his first feature, Man Beast (1956). And Warren wasn’t alone. By this time in the mid-1950s independent productions were springing up all over Hollywood; and reading the trending breeze it became obvious a monster movie would be the most marketable and easiest to sell to an exhibitor. As for his subject matter, the world had become positively Yeti-addled around this same time with tales of Abominable Snowmen running around the Himalayas thanks to constant reports of tracks and sightings of some strange beast during the conquest of Mt. Everest. And when eccentric Texas oilman and notorious cryptid hunter, Tom Slick, prepared to mount his first of many fabled expeditions to find proof of the creature’s existence, the time was ripe to cash in on this phenomenon, cinematically speaking.
And while W. Lee Wilder’s Snow Creature (1954) beat him to the punch (-- a film so bad even I won’t review it), Warren had no problems settling for second place. And to pull off his vision and stretch his budget out as far as he could, the first time producer and director secured the rights to -- and relied heavily on, some stock footage of mountain climbers from Allied Artists that most likely traced back to their Monogram days. This footage appears to be Alpine in origin, explaining why the characters look like the Von Trapps traipsing around in the snow and scurrying up rocks, who, honestly, don’t really look properly outfitted to tackle the harsh climate of the high Himalayas. But, I’m sure that was the least of Warren’s worries as he and editor James Sweeney used the footage rather deftly as he cut in the inserts of his actors culled from the Pasadena Playhouse with an eye for casting people who kinda sorta matched the footage -- meaning he got there were two men and one woman on the vintage reels and cast accordingly, and then molded his plot around this trio. (Just don’t ask where the backpacks went, and get used to those close-ups of boots.)
To get those live inserts, Warren took his novice cast and crew to the area around Bishop and Lone Pine, California, near Mt. Whitney in the Sierras, using Owens Valley as a substitute for the Himalayas. So, at least some effort was made to match things up as cast and crew trudge around in the snow, climb a rock, hug a cliff face, stop, sit, smoke, and dump the plot. (Lather. Rinse. Repeat.) Also of note, to get the needed scenes at the mountain outpost, Warren and his band of merry filmmakers committed a felony, jumping the fence and trespassing on the Paramount Ranch to utilize an old and still standing Mongolian set there, and managed to get the footage they needed and then got back over the fence without getting caught. For the interior scenes, Warren rented out the Larchmont Studio on Melrose Avenue; the same place Ed Wood shot most of his films -- Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).
And like with the equally notorious Wood and a lot of other low-budget filmmakers of any era, Warren was a tell, don’t show, kinda filmmaker by necessity because telling the audience something was always a helluva lot cheaper than actually showing them anything on screen. And while B. Arthur Cassidy was the credited screenwriter for Man Beast, odds are pretty good that was a pen name for Warren. And while his initial set-up is rather tepid and moves with all the urgency of a melting glacier things start to get a little weird once the expedition reaches the destroyed camp and the narrative takes an extremely perverse and morally deviant turn as we breach a whole ‘nother level of exploitation concerning bestiality, of all things, and a cross-breeding of species endgame as Erickson and Cameron return after a long reconnoiter but found nary a sign of their missing comrades only to find the not-so-missing Varga (Skaff) waiting for them back at the camp with the others.
But the mysterious Varga has no explanation about what happened to Connie’s brother or what happened to the camp, saying Hayward ran off into the night claiming he heard something. Varga pursued but lost him in the dark, returning to the since ravaged camp only a short while ago. And so, the search for the missing Hayward will resume in the morning. But at some point during the night, all the other sherpas apparently abandoned them and disappeared. Thus, what’s left splits into two parties with Varga and Erickson heading east, with Varga pointing out where all the Yeti sightings took place to his eager companion, including where one of Erickson’s overzealous Yeti-hunter colleagues died, while the other three head west. Neither Connie, nor Hudson or Cameron trust Varga or his story. And the ever paranoid Hudson begs Connie to give up, head back to civilization, and leave it up to a properly equipped search party to find her brother before they all meet the same fate as everyone else whose gone in search of a Yeti.
And turns out Hudson wasn’t so paranoid after all as several Yeti have them all under covert surveillance as the search for Hayward proves fruitless. And stranger still, these creatures appear ready to attack the group on several occasions only to be constantly waved off by Varga until some tracks Hudson discovered lead them all to a cave. Here, Varga gives the clandestine signal and the Yeti charge en masse. Hudson is killed in the resulting melee but the others manage to hold the monsters off with flares and Cameron’s pistol. Again, Varga shows his treachery by taking one of the dead Yeti’s clubs and beans Cameron with it, knocking him out. And then, one clumsy jump cut later, we’re inexplicably back at the campsite where a concussed Cameron finally comes around.
Convinced it was Varga who struck him, Connie believes Cameron but Erickson does not, saying the sherpa acted heroically in saving them all. To throw off the scent, Varga returns Cameron’s pistol and encourages Erickson to return to the cave with him to study the beasts’ habitat further. He happily agrees. Cameron begs to come along, too, but asks if they can wait until morning to give his head a little more time to recuperate. They agree. But fearing Varga is leading them into a trap, and unsure of what his endgame is, Cameron arranges for Connie to pack up as much food as she can carry and then, once the men clear out, abandon the camp and meet him at a predetermined spot down the mountain a bit. He hopes to talk Erickson into joining them in this retreat, but will leave him behind if he refuses to see reason. Connie adds if Varga finds her first, she won’t hesitate to suicide-out by jumping into the nearest and deepest ravine she can find.
Sure enough, as they trudge back to the cave, Varga signals the Yeti who trigger an avalanche that overwhelms Cameron, who was bringing up the rear. And while Erickson wants to search for him, Varga forces him into the cave at gunpoint. Once inside the primitive lair, Varga at last reveals his true nature and what he’s up to. And what Varga is, is part Yeti -- his mother was human, his father … was not. And as the appointed leader of the Yeti, Varga intends to weed the beast out of the bloodline completely through a series of kidnappings and selective breeding -- five human women in total have already been procured as breeding stock. Six, once he rounds up Connie, whom he intends to impregnate personally, “hedge-hopping” two generations of half-breeds ahead of schedule, beaming about how his offspring should turn out to be “interesting.” He also vows to destroy any expedition that comes searching for his people, including Erickson, saying perhaps they will meet again in another incarnation before he is shot dead.
Meantime, an anxious Connie awaits Cameron’s arrival unaware a Yeti is lurking nearby and ready to pounce. When Varga suddenly appears, he claims Cameron was killed in an avalanche and Erickson was badly hurt by the same and needs her help back at the cave. She refuses and a struggle ensues, where Varga reveals he killed all the others, including her brother. But! The rumors of Cameron’s death were a bit exaggerated as he springs to the rescue. And after using all of his bullets to deal with that Yeti sentinel, Cameron and Varga must have it out in a pretty well-staged brawl.
With Cameron victorious, he and Connie flee down the mountain. But a recovered Varga manages to get ahead of them, and prepares to repel down the mountain to cut them off at the pass and renew the fight. Fortunately, the half-man half-Yeti’s mountaineering skills are lacking as his anchoring spike gives way and he plummets to his death. With that, Connie begs Cameron to get them (and the audience) the hell outta there. He gladly complies.
Aside from the gonzo-but-genetically-questionable motives of the villain, one of the few other bright spots in Man Beast is the Yeti itself. The costume was an off the rack rental which began life as the albino gorilla in Sam Newfield’s White Pongo (1945), where it was worn by Ray “Crash” Corrigan. Warren changed the creature’s head a bit -- it looks like he just ripped the snout off, and pressed it into service rather effectively. Here, it was worn by actor Jack Haffner, and I liked the scenes where a slow pan away from the interminable dialogue reveals a Yeti has been observing the protagonists the whole time, catching the audience off guard a bit on a couple of occasions. I also liked the scenes where they emerge from the fragile snowpack, with multiple edits giving the illusion of more than one creature lurking about.
And the Yeti attack in the cave is a minimalist nightmare of action set against a pure black backdrop (-- most likely nothing more than cheap muslin), illuminated by the harsh light of phosphorescent flares that borders on the avant garde; though this does breakdown a bit in a total Flintstones moment when, since the production could only afford one costume, they edited together the exact same shot of a Yeti running across the black screen five or six times to give the illusion there was a veritable army of snowmen attacking. All that was missing was the sound of Fred’s galloping feet. That, was hysterical.
Now. During the pre-production phase of Man Beast, Warren ran across Brianne Murphy, a wannabe actress and rodeo trick-rider, who had crashed the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus on opening night at Madison Square Garden in 1954, sneaking in dressed like a clown and inserted herself into several acts. This chutzpah landed her a job with the traveling circus as a staff photographer until she sought greener pastures in Hollywood, where she met Warren and his co-producer, Ralph Brooke. And just like with the circus, Murphy fudged her credentials and got hired on as a production assistant, helping out with casting, makeup, wardrobe, and script-supervising; but she really gravitated toward the camera, loading film, pulling focus, shooting a scene; and she even wound up in the Yeti costume for several pick-up shots.
Once the film wrapped, Murphy helped Warren punch up the credits and press-kit for the film, too, inventing lead actor Rock Madison out of thin air -- a combination of Rock Hudson and Guy Madison, most likely, to trick less discerning ticket-buyers, who was not only given top billing but was credited with a character who does not even appear in the film at all in an effort to make the cast look bigger and make the film seem grander so Warren could charge more when he tried to sell it. But Warren couldn’t find a distributor for just a single feature. And so, he managed to get his hands on a copy of Gregg Tallas’ Prehistoric Women (1950) and hit the road with Murphy, selling Man Beast and Prehistoric Women on a double-bill State by State and territory by territory. Two months later, they were married in Las Vegas and the two started concocting a follow up feature. And while trying to secure financing through one of her relatives, Murphy hit upon the notion if they cut more corners they could actually make two features for the same $30,000. And that’s how Teenage Zombies (1959) picked up its co-feature, The Incredible Petrified World (1950), which sort of set Warren on his path of making even cheaper and even worse films.
Because after those two films, Warren really didn’t bother with shooting original inserts any more -- and if he did, it was usually just John Carradine sitting in Warren’s garage next to a potted plant, and relied totally on stock footage and foreign films already shot by others in the Netherlands, Mexico, Panama, or Chile, which he would then butcher and splice back together with some nonsensical narration that usually just made things even more confusing, resulting in some spectacular and exploitable, and most importantly, salable titles like Invasion of the Animal People (1962), Terror of the Bloodhunters (1962), The Violent and the Damned (1963), No Time To Kill (1963), Attack of the Mayan Mummy (1964), Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964), Creature of the Walking Dead (1965), and Curse of the Stone Hand (1965). But all of them are worse than terrible, and boring as hell. Some of the pilfered footage does look amazing, and makes you wonder what the original film was all about and why the hell Warren didn’t just dub them over and release them as is? Warren did briefly return to actual filmmaking with the all original feature, The Wild World of Batwoman (1966), to cash in on the Batman TV series mania, but was sued into changing the title to She Was a Hippy Vampire. And while it has its moments, it’s also pretty insufferable.
Which brings us back to Man Beast and why I find it to be such a frustrating experience after having already seen a good chunk of Warren’s later catalog first. Sure, all of Warren’s earmarks are there. It only runs 65 minutes, with 40 minutes being nothing but repetitive stock footage abuse, 20 minutes of static dialogue scenes inserted into that footage, and five minutes of passable action. And yet there was some ambition and effort to make it engaging at least on some level.
Again, Sweeney’s editing to match the footage is pretty good and fairly seamless. I love how perversely bonkers the plot gets even though, just like with everything else, we never get to see anything and are just told about Varga’s lecherous and lascivious schemes; so don’t get too excited to see any Yeti nookie -- for that you’ll have to check out The Beast and the Vixens (1974), but I wouldn’t really recommend that. And, yeah, as it plays out, Varga’s motives don’t really jive with his actions -- I mean, Why did he save them in the cave? His actions make no sense, then, except in editing because the film simply wasn’t long enough yet. And I love the stock music used by Josef Zimanich and the sound design that amplified the constantly howling wind, adding a sense of dread and menace to the ear even though the eyes are kinda glazed over. And I can appreciate the effort to get the actors out into the snow and rocks when it would’ve been much cheaper and easier to just shoot them against a white backdrop on a sound-stage.
So, there was a spark of potential there in Man Beast. A small spark, sure, but with a little fanning? Who knows. And the end result, I think, is a first effort that was no worse or less interminable than Roger Corman’s or American International’s earliest efforts. But unlike Corman or AIP, Warren didn’t seem to learn anything from this experience or evolve as a filmmaker. Instead, he got worse. Much worse. And worse still, he simply didn’t care. In an interview with Tom Weaver, Warren stated “I was in the business to make money. I never, ever tried in any way to compete, or to make something worthwhile. I only did enough to get by, so they would buy it, so it would play, and so I'd get a few dollars. It's not very fair to the public, I guess, but that was my attitude toward [filmmaking]."
Warren and Murphy’s marriage and partnership didn’t last more than two years. But Murphy used her experience working with API as a springboard to become the first female cinematographer to get her union card, working in TV and film, earning both an Emmy Award and a "Scientific and Engineering" Academy Award in 1982. Warren, meanwhile, left the business for over a decade before returning one last time for Frankenstein Island (1981), which might just be the worst thing he ever did. And while one could argue that he was one of the worst filmmakers of all time, there should be no doubt that Jerry Warren was definitely the laziest.
What is Hubrisween? This is Hubrisween. And now, Boils and Ghouls, be sure to follow this linkage to keep track of the whole conglomeration of reviews for Hubrisween right here. Or you can always follow the collective head of knuckle on Letterboxd. That's 13 reviews down with 13 to go! Halfway home! Up Next: The Battle of the Jesus Freaks!
Man Beast (1956) Jerry Warren Productions Inc. :: Associated Producers Inc. / P: Jerry Warren / AP: Ralph Brooke / D: Jerry Warren / W: Jerry Warren (B. Arthur Cassidy) / C: Victor Fisher / E: James Sweeney / M: Josef Zimanich / S: Rock Madison, Asa Maynor, George Skaff, Tom Maruzzi, Lloyd Nelson, George Wells Lewis, Jack Haffner,
