MONSTROID
Hey do you remember about forty years back when a lake monster in Columbia was responsible for a few deaths? It was in June 1971 according to the titles before the movie. No? Well, they made a movie about it anyway called MONSTROID a.k.a. MONSTER. It starts with a bang as a Freddie Prinze lookalike is killed by Mostroid. We don't get a good look at Mostroid but he has dinosaur feet. Just to make sure we get it, another title tells us once again this is based on a true story. There was a chick with the Freddie Prinze guy and now the natives think she is a witch, I suppose because she survived and they are idiots. There's some plot about a chemical plant that is having difficulties with some environmental activists who are using the lake monster story to scare the natives into not working the plant. As if big evil chemical companies don't have enough trouble, there is also an investigative lady journalist digging around. The company send big Jim Mitchum down there to sort through the crap. About fifteen minutes into the movie, the supposed witch flashes back to the Freddie Prinze death scene but then is chased by a mob. A "young and attractive" secretary is soon murdered by Monstoid, but is blamed on lake sharks. The kind of lake sharks that chew on a girl than drag her up on the shore.
Jim Mitchum wanders around a lot, asking questions but mainly looking like he can't wait for lunch. John Carradine is a local priest who also wanders around a lot, which in itself is impressive as he is about a million years old. At one point Mitchum decares" it's kind of hard to believe stories about sharks, monsters or elephants in lakes." True enough. This is either a really lame lake monster movie or a Noam Chomsky influenced allegorical tale. Priest Carradine says it's all God's punishment which his idiot followers take as the green light to burn the witch. Finally they decide to kill Monstroid with dynamite in a fairly ill conceived plan. By the time we get a good look at Monstroid, he turns out to be a dopey "Nessie" looking thing with a green Fu Manchu mustache and big yellow eyes. After a fairly clumsy battle Big Jim Mitchum wins and saves mankind, or the chemical plant anyway. Unless the camera pans to a nest of eggs. Which it does. Nobody seems to give much thought to the woman the mob burned to death. The lady journalist got it all on camera so I'm kind of surprised we have never seen the real footage.
MONSTROID is on an Elvira Movie Macabre DVD which makes it a little better. It comes with co-feature BLUE SUNSHINE, the bad acid movie. The picture quality is pretty crappy and dark overall. Unless your an Elvira freak there just isn't enough here to recommend. If it's independent drive in Lake Monster action you want, try THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER. I do think that the title MONSTROID should be used for an evil asteroid picture just so I could here someone say Look Out! Monstroid is coming"