Another b&w sci fi horror B movie, made at a cost of only $175K.
This time around the giant killer animal is a Gila Monster. To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs, giant grasshoppers, and now a giant gila monster.
The setting is rural Texas where a giant killer gila monster is smashing cars along the roads leading into a small town, and devouring their occupants. It even derails a train. The monster builds up an appetite and by the end of the movie attempts to break into a barn rock hop party.
Quite a flimsy production. The Gila monster attacks on cars are before and after shots. We never see the actual attack. The train in the train wreck scene clearly looks like a toy train that is being drawn off its toy tracks. We are reminded of the monster by a sequence of separate close-up shots of a lizard crawling along. In fact, a Mexican Beaded Lizard was used instead of a Gila Monster. The movie ends with the leading man putting an end to the killer monster in a very implausible way.
The movie's male lead is Don Sullivan who also starred in the 1959 B horror "The Monster of Piedras Blancas". His female co-star is the French actress Lisa Simone who was Miss France 1957. The executive producer of the film, Gordon McLendon, was a wealthy Texan who owned several radio stations. McLendon saw to it that one of his rock disc jockeys was written into the script. We get to hear two or three catchy rock songs in the film.
The movie is currently rated 3.6 on IMDb. Available on YouTube including a colorized version.
This time around the giant killer animal is a Gila Monster. To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs, giant grasshoppers, and now a giant gila monster.
The setting is rural Texas where a giant killer gila monster is smashing cars along the roads leading into a small town, and devouring their occupants. It even derails a train. The monster builds up an appetite and by the end of the movie attempts to break into a barn rock hop party.
Quite a flimsy production. The Gila monster attacks on cars are before and after shots. We never see the actual attack. The train in the train wreck scene clearly looks like a toy train that is being drawn off its toy tracks. We are reminded of the monster by a sequence of separate close-up shots of a lizard crawling along. In fact, a Mexican Beaded Lizard was used instead of a Gila Monster. The movie ends with the leading man putting an end to the killer monster in a very implausible way.
The movie's male lead is Don Sullivan who also starred in the 1959 B horror "The Monster of Piedras Blancas". His female co-star is the French actress Lisa Simone who was Miss France 1957. The executive producer of the film, Gordon McLendon, was a wealthy Texan who owned several radio stations. McLendon saw to it that one of his rock disc jockeys was written into the script. We get to hear two or three catchy rock songs in the film.
The movie is currently rated 3.6 on IMDb. Available on YouTube including a colorized version.