Nerding Day: Beast From Haunted Cave

You know the king of cult films, Roger Corman, ok, so he had a younger brother who was sort of the court jester of cult films. He wanted to make cheap films as quickly and dangerously as possible, which makes Beast From Haunted Cave his biggest success. They shot it in 13 days, nearly suffocated a bunch of actors in a cave, and the final product is actually kind of dope.

Gene Corman would "informally survey" Hollywood high school students on potential film titles, which was the SEO of the day, so that's probably how the movie ended up with a title that sounds like a Kindle Plus book for women with a monsters and vagueness fetish. They couldn't tell you what [the] beast from haunted cave was because they didn't know. Gene was mostly focused on making another movie that shared a plot with his successful film Naked Paradise, which borrowed most of its plot from Gene's favorite movie Key Largo.

Key Largo is about an ex-soldier trapped in a hotel during a hurricane with a group of criminals posing as tourists. Naked Paradise is about a sailor trapped on his ship with a group of criminals posing as tourists. Beast From Haunted Cave is about a ski instructor trapped in his remote cabin during a snowstorm with a group of criminals posing as tourists. Also, there's a giant spider monster stalking them, but it is SUCH an afterthought.

That's a lot of movies coming out fairly close together that all have the same basic plot. It's like if Friends With Benefits and Just Friends were produced by the same guy, but in one of them Natalie Portman is eaten by a giant spider.

That's a great question, Beast From Haunted Cave. I keep saying you're a giant spider, but actually, it's never made clear what you are or what your purpose is. You could be the Republican candidate for Governor of South Dakota, for all I know. There's no lore about this creature. Most of the movie is just men having a casual posture off while quietly hating each other.

I have to say, for being filmed in thirteen days, one of which was mostly a bust because the crew had never worked in cold weather before, and it was ten below zero in South Dakota where they were shooting so the equipment had trouble functioning, the acting isn't that bad, and a lot of the shots are pretty cool. Maybe my TikTok poisoned brain is simply desperate for any interesting angle but I feel like they really utilized all twelve and a half of those shooting days to the fullest.

The movie opens on a mountaintop with a group of people drinking and skiing. I wonder why we don't do that anymore? Things were so much more glamorous when you could get shit faced on martinis and roll down a mountain at 10 in the morning.

Ski instructor Gil is giving a lesson to Alexander Ward, his secretary/girlfriend Gypsy, and their two associates, "Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith." Gil is going to lead them on a cross-country ski trip the next day with a stop at his secluded cabin. What he doesn't know is that this is all an elaborate setup for Alexander and his gang to escape town after stealing a bunch of gold bars from a local bank. A plane is going to meet them at Gil's cabin, where they'll kill Gil and escape. This sounds so similar to a plot I've heard twice before recently. Anyway, the only real problem in the beginning is that the Gypsy will not stop flirting with Gil right in front of Alexander. I mean, it's not subtle.

They're all hanging out at a bar the night before the heist when "Mr. Jones" (played by Richard Sinatra, Frank Sinatra's actual cousin) takes off with a waitress from the bar (played by Playboy Playmate of the month for July, 1958, Linne Ahlstrand). Don't worry, it's cool. They're just going to make out in a haunted cave. This was before women stopped going into haunted caves with strangers. Mr. Jones is also in the cave to set up a bomb that will act as a distraction for the robbery. (this is before women stopped going into haunted caves with men who have bombs). Of course, after he sets the bomb, they start macking down and we get our first glimpse of the monster's wobbly pool noodle arm.

Let's talk about the monster for a bit. It was actually made from less than a pool noodle. They would have been thrilled to have a pool noodle budget because the budget for the monster in this monster movie was literally zero dollars. It was made by an actor who wanted his first on-screen credit for special effects. I don't mean that he just worked for free; he paid for all of the materials himself. Which is why the monster ended up looking like this:

This is the best shot of the monster we get in the entire movie, and it's not one of those Jaws situations where it's creepier because we don't see it. The issue with the monster is the entire cast mostly doesn't care or forgets about it for the whole movie. After the waitress from the bar is ripped out of Mr. Jones's hands, he comes back to the bar distraught, and the other mobsters are like, "Wow, this guy is being a real pussy about watching a woman get kidnapped by the devil or whatever," so he drops the issue. This happens several times as the monster begins to follow Mr. Jones and company on their ski trip. The beast even brings the kidnapped waitress around with him, like a baggy full of almonds to keep his energy up, as he stalks the criminals.

When Mr. Jones finds the waitress like this in the woods, he runs away and later tells everyone he's fine, but they all clock that he's acting weird, and the other two criminals plan to kill him along with Gil when they make their escape. They make it to Gil's cabin with absolutely no monster encounters for the rest of the group. Gil introduces the group to his housekeeper, a native american woman named Small Dove. She takes a liking to Mr. Smith for some incomprehensible reason and shows it by feeding him graham crackers and milk. I'm guessing this is a 1960s mating ritual of some kind.

Gil hears about the robbery on the radio and is immediately suspicious, but also trapped by the storm and, to a much lesser degree, a monster, but who gives a fuck about that? He deals with his suspicions through lots of slouching and subtle accusations. Meanwhile, the beast is vibing out there somewhere, I suppose.

Finally, in the literal last ten minutes of the film, someone remembers that this is technically supposed to be a monster movie, and the monster attacks Small Dove and Mr. Smith, taking Small Dove away to a cave where it's also got the waitress tied to the wall. Gil and Gypsy decide to try to leave the cabin together during a lull in the storm. The entire cast ends up in the titular haunted cave with the monster. Mr Jones and Mr. Smith are both looking for their kidnapped girlfriends, Gypsy and Gil are trying to escape, and Alexander is chasing down Gil and Gypsy. There are five minutes left in a monster movie with no jump scares. The scariest thing in this movie was the extremely loud commercials for probiotic Slice that I had to endure every ten minutes.

Wait, I take that back, the scariest part of the movie was knowing that the actors were firing real guns inside of real caves in real life. Sometimes the ceiling would start to crumble a little bit, and the actors would be like, "Hey, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of dying in a cave," and the director would not care even a little. Also, they had to pump air into the cave because the actors were suffocating, an OSHA acceptable amount for the time period, but it's hard to say your lines when you're passed out. So in the cave scenes, the actors tied to the wall by the monster are displaying genuine lethargy!

To be fair, they found a super cool looking cave to die in. If more of the movie had been filmed in the cave, it would have been way better. The monster goes around picking off the criminals with his terrifying pool noodle arms, until finally "Mr. Jones" shoots a flare gun at it and it goes up like it's a bag of wigs, Christmas tinsel, and piñata goop, because that's exactly what it was.

Gil and Gypsy are the only two left unharmed, and I guess they're in love now or something? I can't decide if I would call this movie a cozy Jaws or a Hallmark movie with a giant spider creature. Either way, I love it. I do have a lot of unanswered questions about the monster, though. They speculate at one point that the explosion in the mine disturbed its slumber, so the initial robbery was the trigger for the monster, but it showed up when the explosives were being set up, so… I'm not sure how the math on that works, but whoever wrote it was probably slowly suffocating in a cave, so I'll let it pass.

The monster never gets a name, and that's a little strange. Even if you name your monster something lame like "Jason," at least tell me whose name to scream as I flee? The creator of the beast called it Humphrass, and I have to say, he looks like a Humphrass. I think? He's so hard to see.

The movie set was way scarier than anything Humphrass did, but at least the actors didn't have to be there for very long. After the thirteen days of filming were up, they got to go home and rest…for one whole day before shooting the movie Ski Troop Attack, a war movie that utilized the exact same cast, crew, and locations. The actors had to memorize both scripts simultaneously and occasionally forgot which movie they were making. So, my complaint that they seemed like they didn't know they were in a horror movie is justified. At times, they didn't! It was truly the golden era for whatever the hell this is.

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