Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

An independently and cheaply made monster movie, Monster of Piedras Blancas has several notable features.  For one thing, it was produced by Jack Kevan, previously a make-up artist at Univeral, who had worked, uncredited, on such monster movies as Creature From the Black Lagoon and The Mole People. Indeed, director Irvin Berwick was also a former Universal employee, having been an uncredited dialogue director at the studio,  The monster suit itself was partly constructed from parts of costumes Kevan had worked on for Universal - the feet, for instance, were originally designed for the Metaluna Mutant in This Island Earth, while the hands are borrowed from The Mole People.  In fact, the studio co-operated a great deal with Vanwick Productions during the making of Monster, providing production equipment and vehicles, apparently as a sort of unofficial compensation to the various laid off studio employees working on the picture. The picture was also notable for what constituted, at the time, some graphic gore effects - the monster is seen carrying a severed head, which also turns up later on the beach, with crabs crawling over it.  Strong stuff for a late fifties Hollywood B-movie.

It has to be said that, despite such shock effects, the movie remains cheap-looking with a decidedly tatty looking monster.  In its favour, however, its cast of B-movie supporting players do a decent enough job with the script, which itself offers some interesting plot details.  The creature, it seems, has been kept placid for many years due to the cranky old local light house keeper feeding it meat off cuts and offal from the local store.  Well, he actually isn't sure what he's been feeding - he leaves the meat in a dog bowl and it is gone by the morning - until the store owner fails to keep the meat for him.  Naturally, a hungry monster starts wandering into town in search of a substitute meal.  From there, it all unfolds pretty much as you'd expect.  It is nicely shot, mainly on location, (but not in the real Piedras Blancas, but rather in a town a few miles down the coast), creating an effective small town atmosphere.  Ultimately, Monster of Piedras Blancas provides an undemanding seventy minutes or so of monster mayhem, but just isn't quite up to the standard of the classic Universal monster movies it tries to emulate.