Caltiki - The Immortal Monster (1959)

Caltiki - The Immortal Monster (1959) has some claim to historical significance, being one of the first science fiction films produced in post-war Italy.  Running a brisk seventy six minutes, the first part of the film involves an archaeological expedition exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico.  In the remains of a temple they discover an idol of the Mayan goddess Caltiki overlooking a pool of water, which turns out to contain a huge amorphous monster that absorbs the living flesh of anything it touches.  After suffering several casualties, the expedition destroys the creature with fire, but one member survives an attack by Caltiki, but is left with fragment of the monster eating away at his right arm.  Taken to Mexico City, the monstrous blob is removed from his arm - which is now a fleshless ruin - and, somewhat oddly, entrusted to the care of one of his colleagues, for study at his home laboratory.  It is eventually deduced that the creature grows in the presence of radiation and, as luck would have it, a radioactive comet which passes the earth every eight hundred and fifty years is fast approaching.  In the meantime, the archaeologist injured by the creature, now quite mad, escapes from the hospital and makes his way to his colleague's house, convinced that his wife, who is staying there, is having an affair with him.  Under the comet's influence, the lab specimen starts to grow and divide, bursting out of the basement lab and threatening the scientist's wife and child, while her husband tries to get the army to move in and destroy the creatures with flamethrowers.

Inevitably, the film has been compared to the previous year's The Blob, with obvious comparisons to be made between the two movies' respective monsters.  There is, however, a case to be made that Caltiki also owes something to the Hammer Films adaptation of The Quatermass Experiment (1955), with both films featuring a key character whose arm has been infected by an alien organism and the scenes of the creature growing and reproducing in the lab echo a similar sequence in the earlier film.  Indeed, arguably the plot structure of Caltiki far more resembles that of The Quatermass Experiment than it does The Blob, with a monstrous alien presence being discovered during a search for missing colleagues, an infected individual running amok and a scientific investigation into a fragment of the monster going awry.  Ultimately, though, Caltiki is somewhat lesser film than either The Blob or The Quatermass Experiment, lacking the vigour and pace of the former and the suspense and tension of the latter.  Nonetheless, it is quite effectively directed by Riccardo Freda and an uncredited Mario Bava (the film's cinematographer and special effects director), with some good visuals, such as the smouldering volcano in whose shadow the temple excavation is taking place, and some atmospheric scenes in the house as the creature escapes from the lab.  But, after a good start at the Mayan ruins, it gets bogged down with too many talky scenes and the sub-plot involving the infected archaeologist's jealousy over the imagined affair between his wife and his colleague.  It is also badly let down by some poor miniatures work at the film's climax, when an army of clearly toy tanks attack Caltiki.  That said, the effects showing the aftermath of the monster's attacks on its victims are somewhat more graphic and realistic looking that anything you'd see in contemporary English-language films.  The movie's relatively short running time ensures that it never becomes tedious and overall it remains an entertaining enough B-movie.