Because I'm not that lazy, I'm not going to just cut-n-paste my review from Tarantula and rename it. Okay, I am that lazy, but I'm not going to do it. I could though. It's virtually the same movie with a different creature. Like so many B-movie creature features from the 1950s though, there is a certain charm to the badness, thrown in with some groan-inducing moments here and there for good measure. Silly, fun and entertaining, three things I'm looking for when I see a movie titled The Black Scorpion.
Recruited to investigate a massive volcanic eruption in an area outside Mexico City, geologists Hank Scott (Richard Denning) and Arthur Ramos (Carlos Rivas) head into the affected area looking for some answers. They quickly find that as hard as the area has been hit, stranger things are happening that defy logic. Farm animals are missing, and bodies turn up dead but with no sign of foul play. It doesn't take long to find out what's going on. A giant scorpion escaped from some sort of prehistoric cave in the volcano upon the eruption and is now terrorizing the countryside, killing everything in its path. With help from local law and even the army, Hank and Arthur strategize how to defeat the creature, only to find out there isn't one scorpion, but many.
As I mentioned with Tarantula or the other recent creature feature reviews, no matter how badly done or executed the creation of said creature is, it's going to be a little scary unless it is completely botched. Little regular scorpion? Creepy. Gigantic, man-eating scorpion with no real weakness? Genuinely terrifying even if the stop-motion technology limits his attacking. Animating the creature is Pete Peterson who does a fine job bringing the scorpion to life and all his buddies who prove to be no match for him. When the scorpion movies, it isn't as stilted or stiff as so many other movies, moving smoothly across the land. I still maintain if people would run instead of standing still screaming there would be less of a problem. But maybe that's just me.
Certain parts of these movies always provide some interesting tidbits. Working with a mostly Mexican film crew and supporting cast, director Edward Ludwig appropriately enough filmed in Mexico. Most of the filming was done on indoor sets, but that's not necessarily a bad thing here. The venture into the scorpions lair/cave is a pretty cool sequence (watch part of it HERE) as Arthur and Hank descend several hundred feet into an enormous cavern that rests only a few hundred yards from the now-active volcano. The coolest part was the end though when Ludwig films his finale in Olympic Stadium in Mexico City, the site of the 1968 Olympics. Now when the scorpion does show up, it's clearly a miniature model being used, but its a unique, very cool use of on-location shooting. Check out the finale HERE with obvious SPOILERS of course.
Now onto an annoying tidbit I've noticed in these creature features, and maybe its just bad timing that I have seen three or four similar movies in a short span of time. There's always the heroic lead, the beautiful love interest, the trustworthy sidekick, and the most annoying of all, the precociously obnoxious little Mexican boy, played here by Mario Navarro, later of The Magnificent Seven. He plays Juanito, a little runt of a kid who apparently has no adult supervision. Where other little kids in these movies are just annoying in the background, Juanito continually sneaks into situations where he will eventually be attacked and needed to be rescued. The annoying levels are taken to a whole new level here, and as bad as this is going to send, unfortunately Juanito makes it in the end. At least there wasn't a tearful close-up as he mourns the death of the dying creature.
The casts for movies like this are so often workmanlike efforts that don't call for much in the way of actual acting. My usual thought is 'Don't be awful, don't distract from the creature.' Denning -- later The Governor on Hawaii Five-O -- plays the lead capably enough with Rivas his minority sidekick. Corday is the love interest, a Mexican ranch owner who falls for Hank. Carlos Muzquiz plays Dr. Velasco, an expert on geology and scorpions (apparently they go hand in hand) with Arturo Martinez playing Major Cosio, the armed forces representative.
Some other high points include Denning's Hank and his not so subtle attempts at seducing Corday's Teresa which somehow work. Worried about these giant scorpions attacking all over the Mexican countryside seems like a minor disturbance to horny Hank as he seems more worried about Teresa and what she's wearing. It's funny stuff and really throws you for a curve, but I laughed...intentional or not. It's a good enough movie if not quite on par with the better flick from two years prior, Tarantula.
The Black Scorpion <---trailer (1957): ** 1/2 /****
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