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SPOILERS AHEAD, I think… Usually "spoilers" spoil an ending by giving away too much information that unravels out of the narrative, but is it really a "spoiler" to say "nothing makes sense when the movie is over"? And not in that cool PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK "ponder these enigmas for days later" kind of thing, either.

I know that I shouldn't expect too much from the guy who edited SON OF INGAGI (1940) and later directed the CFHB favorite FROM HELL IT CAME (1957), but I'm flummoxed by how mixed-up and incoherent this one was. Obviously, the single motivation behind this flick was to cynically cash in on an audience triangulated between THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953), THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954), and 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954), and to fill out the bottom half of a double feature with THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955); as such, my best bet as a viewer is to just relax and let the plot-points hopscotch around with fever-dreamish free association. But it was just too dull with nothing visually hallucinatory to groove on… my mind wandered and would fixate on the parts of the story that I just couldn't begin to digest.

Maybe I tried too hard to read too much into it. I know this happened as I tried to understand what was going on with the protagonist Ted Stevens/ Ted Baxter, a smarmy secret-agent government scientist internationally known for his whose controversial monograph, Nature's Death Ray (who does this guy think he is? Dr. Benton Quest? Or Jonas Venture, for that matter?). For the first half of this movie, I struggled to figure out why he was so smug and sarcastic to everyone, and then I remembered the actor playing him (Kent Taylor) from THE CRAWLING HAND (1963). This is what Taylor calls "acting." There is nothing below the surface; this is just Taylor practicing his craft.

I'm not one of those people who expect the science in their sci-fi to be plausible or sound, but c'mon, already-- they could have at least put a little bit more effort into this. Someone upthread already brought up the whole "league" vs. "fathom" thing, but that's not the worse of it. For me, one thing that stuck in my head happened when the police say that they were able to apprehend a killer after "ballistics confirms" that the guy's spear-gun was the murder weapon. Ballistics evidence on an elastic-powered spear-gun? (There are so many instances of brandished spear-guns in this movie that it is a relief when someone finally gets killed with one --- the Law of Chekhov's Gun in full effect, I guess.)

Really, what in the heck is going on here? Like the old song says, there's a hole in the bottom of the sea, and from this hole shines a light like the one from a refrigerator with a door left open. Stevens/Baxter prattles on and on about hydrogen isotopes and fish swimming through heavy water; slinky, vaguely Central European femme fatale spy-type Wanda is trying to deliver information about *something* to a foreign power; tormented rogue oceanographer Professor King gnashes his teeth about the horror his hubristic genius has unleashed --- but what is it that everyone's talking about and fighting over? And what does it have to do with the monster?

And what's with the monster? It's a kelp bed-lurking, blisteringly radioactive biped that "guards" the light-hole, looking a lot like a cross between a fu lion statue in front of a Buddhist temple and the critter from HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. ("It was being guarded by a sea serpent," Stevens/Baxter blandly says in a matter-of-fact tone of voice at one point. "It was a hideous beast that defies description.") But what is it and where did it come from? There's some suggestion that it's a mutated turtle (I could've sworn that Stevens/Baxter or King called it a "muton" at one point), but it's never made clear. The design is terrible--- I saw it move its mouth once and move its arms a little, but mostly it just sorta floats around and head-butts rowboats and bakes fisherman with its death-ray glow. Or something.

And speaking of boats, I have another question: you know that boat that blows up towards the end? Whose boat is that? Why does it blow up? What does it matter? What does Professor King have to do with it?

Sheesh…

"Science is such a devouring mistress…"