BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE (1959) * Marlon Brando is great as the monster from...yeah, ok, I'm lying. Marlon Brando isn't really in it. But it would be better if he was! He would have been waaaay better than the stupid skinny fake spider with its fly-away web. I think what happened, without spending much time thinking bout it, must be that Roger Corman decided that other people could also do his sort of films, and they took to it like accountants to red tape (i.e., very seriously). Which, obviously, misses the entire point. It's a cool title, though. I wonder if they sat around thinking up all their titles for the year in a single ten-minute sitting, or if they let them percolate and marinate and ferment and fester in their minds. It may not matter much, but it matters at least as much as any of this other stuff. Except for Sheila Carol. She's convincing as the young lady who's already seen too much (before the spider even), and just wants to drink her way out the other side. It's one of those strategies without much prospect of short-term success, but she seems tough enough to emerge on the other end. Too bad Marlon Brando wasn't the spider, they could have had some good scenes.
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