The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues

Poster tagline: FREEZING HORROR!!! ... AS A LIVING NIGHTMARE STRIKES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA!!! The only interesting thing about this film is its enticing title and poster, otherwise it's an almost unbearable experience. The famed producer Samuel Z. Arkoff probably suspected that it wouldn't be a hit, so he paired it with Corman's (and much better) The Day The World Ended in a one-night-only screening for distribution purposes, which proved to be a shrewd and profitable act – after all, that's how most B-horror films of the time worked. It's not that the 2nd tier actors don't have anything to play, it's just that Milner's direction is really sloppy and what he didn't mess up, his brother in the position of editor did, so that some scenes build on each other in a very clumsy way. And the cherry on top is the monster itself, it’s as unremarkable as the animated tree in Milner's subsequent film From Hell It Came, which can no longer be a coincidence. Unfortunately, however, it lacks that same potential for unintentional fun. The monster spends the whole film peeking underwater, in brief shots of a few seconds, its skeleton is so clumsy that it’s unable to even grasp the leg of a drowning fisherman, and in the final "action" scene the actor has to attach its tentacles to his body to give at least some semblance of interaction. The plot itself is at least slightly enlivened by a detective subplot with a murderer killing his victims with a harpoon, and the character of Dr. King, the head of the Oceanographic Institute, is in physical form a literal double of the infamous "cellar master" Josef Fritzl. (16/02/2013)