The Giant Claw

These serious-minded, but through and through stupid films entertain more than many intentional comedies. A giant bird that looks like the nightmare of the creators of Sesame Street, trapping fighters and bombers, and then feasting on the poor pilots who are parachuting down... What a load of crap. Literally. There's no need to make a parody of such an act - it certainly wouldn't be any funnier. (06/07/2014)

Poster tagline: FLYING BEAST OUT OF PREHISTORIC SKIES! BIG AS A BATTLESHIP! FLIES 3000 M.P.H! ATOMIC WEAPONS CAN’T HURT IT!!! The charm and fun of 50's B-movies is that they are extremely silly and naive while taking themselves deadly seriously, which is twice as evident in the case of this one. The opening pathetic male voiceover that introduces the main characters already creates a "dramatic" atmosphere. Sometimes you get strange associations when you first see monsters in films like this, but here my friend Cooper and I were in rare agreement: Jů, Hele and Muf. Not that they are that similar to the monster here, but they evoke approximately the same terror and have a similarly childish look. That is, a monster – a big… uh – maybe bird (???) with bulging eyes, toothy beak, long ostrich neck, and a funny mohawk on its head, with jerky movements, where the filmmakers didn't even try to hide that it’s a puppet on strings. This isn't about the plot really, you're praying every second that Mitch and Sally will stop blabbering and leave the stage for one of the most ridiculous monsters in cinema history and its – in the words of one of the characters – "fantastic orgy of destruction" (car bombings with exuberant teenagers, taking a freight train into the stratosphere, and the final demolition of the Empire State Building). And if that wasn't enough, there's also a treat in the form of a scene in which a nuclear physicist explains why neither rockets nor machine gun fire work on the "bird" (let's call it "Dodo"). So, in the words of the physicist, the atoms of our terrestrial matter consist of "positive nuclei" and "negative electrons". But in the distant cosmic galaxies where the deadly Dodo comes from, it is said that it is exactly the opposite, the atoms of Dodo's body are therefore composed of "negative nuclei" and "positive electrons", and thanks to this alien anomaly he emits a protective energy shield, and therefore no Earth weapons can cause him injury. I've heard a lot of shit in my lifetime (sometimes I fall asleep watching Parliamentary sessions on TV), but this exceeded all expectations. Best scene: Pretty much every one featuring the deadly Dodo, but still, the first one when he suddenly shows up, that initial shock when you laugh and can't stop, that’s unforgettable. Especially when it's a really "cool" attack on a military plane with paratroopers jumping out of it and Dodo pouncing on them and eating them one by one (using the same rear projection). (08/02/2008)

The Giant Claw clearly relies on the fact that the enormous monster is its biggest draw. That's true, but to pull that off, good effects are essential. Unfortunately, those are lacking here, and the special effects are overly simplistic. Instead, it foregrounds melodramatic speeches and dialogues that simply bore. It's a shame, but at that time, the focus was more on military speeches than on action itself. The film is overly simplified in terms of special effects, and that's a real shame. It can't even compete with its peers in that regard. (16/02/2014)