Forgotten Horror Gems Vol. 12 - The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues

So this week's movie was a total mystery.  I don't even remember how I found out about this one but here we were about to fire it up on a Sunday night and Karen and Lil were trying to get an idea of what their criteria for the list would be.  We looked at all the clues we could pull from the title and the poster art, then came up with something we figured would yield some results.

For instance, if you're watching any horror or sci-fi movie from the 1950's then you can probably bank on there being some talk about atomic radiation.  Also, it's a general rule of thumb that in every big bug movie someone will put on an educational short film to explain what's happening (a favorite of Karen's and why it exists on every list she makes for these).  So after some debate, we hit play and settled in to one of the worst but funny movies I've seen in a while.  I'm not sure I can recommend it.  At the same time, I kind of want to see it again.

So there's this town on the California coast where sailors/fishermen are being killed by something.  Our hero looks like a walking ad for hair oil and nicotine.  He happens to be a doctor who's published papers on the effects of atomic radiation on marine life.  He's here to see a local scientist who may also be doing experiments on this topic.  Let's just say that there is intrigue and red communists everywhere in this flick... Well, sort of.  I mean, there are some kind of shadowy agents who we can assume are communists and there's a lot of double crossing and spying happening which should be intriguing but is really just slow.

There is a "Phantom" of sorts. It's a mutated something or other that looks like that lizard guy from Star Trek only with bigger teeth and a ridge on his head.  He's guarding a uranium deposit that everyone's trying to find the location of.  Those that do, even by accident, get killed by the creature pretty quickly.

So, how did the girls do in their guessing and scoring?

The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues Scoresheet!

Was there a Phantom? +1
Was there an Opera? 0
Were there submarines? -1
Was there atomic stuff? +2
Was there an educational short?  -2
Were there commies?  0
Was there military might on display? 0
Were there octopus or squid? 0
Was there a "man meeting"? 0
Was anyone sea sick?  0
Was there a scene where a character mansplained to a female? 0
Was there a decent plot?  0.5

Total:  0.5

Yeah, it's pretty bad.  Not quite funny/bad enough for me to recommend to anyone, but I'll probably catch it again at some point.  You can find the complete film on YouTube if you're interested.  Here's the link!

Next week, we'll be checking out a sci-fi film with a great premise.  See you then!