Welcome to the old west,
Mexico style. South of the border Jimmy
Ryan (Guy Madison) runs the Rancho Bonito with his buddy Felipe Sanchez (Carlos
Rivas). They are doing their best to raise cattle in the shadow of the Hollow
Mountain. Unfortunately many of the local villagers fear the mountain and the
swamps around it. Few who enter the area are ever seen again. When some cattle
disappear after wandering near the mountain, Jimmy figures that they sank into
the quicksand. But Felipe is convinced that they were lead astray for a reason.
You see Enrique Rios
(Eduardo Noriega) runs a competing ranch in the area, and he is pretty adamant
that no gringo is going to get to succeed in the area. Throw in the fact that
the local governor’s daughter Sarita (Patricia Medina) is engaged to Enrique
but has the hots for Jimmy and you can see all kinds of trouble in the mix. So
you have a standard western plot in Mexico. What’s the catch? Well there turns
out to be a Beast of Hollow Mountain to contend with as well.
Movie Review:
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Crow tries to be a buckeroo. |
If you read my review of Reptilicus then you know how I feel about monster movies that spend way too
much time on the human characters and only wheel out the monster about half way
through the film. Well folks, strap in because The
Beast of Hollow Mountain takes
this concept to a whole new level of tediousness. Now we aren’t talking about Monster
a-go-go levels of “there was no monster” shenanigans. But really the
best way to look at this film is that it is a Western first, a love triangle
next, a buddy film third, and a story about a little boy and his drunk dad.
After all those elements eat up screen time, whatever is left, no matter how
small, is left for our titular beast. Seriously, it is about 15 minutes of
screen time. If you know that going in, then you might be able to get some
enjoyment out of the film.
But, if the Western
elements of the story are good enough, they’ll hold our attention. Guess what?
They aren’t good. They are very, very dull. If you’ve seen any Westerns of the
era then you can pretty much figure out how this is all going to play out. All
the tropes are included, fist fights, stampedes, and blazing guns. And yet, the
whole thing feels lifeless.
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He's the only gringo for miles around. |
Part of it is the
characters. There is nothing terribly interesting about any of them. Jimmy is a
very bland hero. He’s the straight shooting white hat that just wants to make a
living on the ranch and talk to Sarita without someone trying to punch him.
Some tension or interest could be generated to explain why he ended up in
Mexico in the first place, or how he met Felipe. But we don’t get anything. He’s
just supposed to be the hero because he’s the only one that speaks without an
accent, and he is good at roping trees. I think they missed an opportunity to
have Jimmy on the run from the law up north, and his actions in fighting The
Beast of Hollow Mountain could
be his redemption. Yeah, it is also clichéd but it would be more interesting
than what we get.
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Would you trust these two? |
Everyone else falls into
Western stock characters 101. Felipe is the loyal friend. Sarita is the love
interest. Enrique is the jerk. Pancho (Pascual Garcia Pena) is the funny drunk.
Panchito (Mario Navarro) is the cute kid. But actually Panchito gets the most
characterization. When his father is devoured by the beast, his despair causes
him to do some stupid things, but at least the kid gets to have a story arc.
And little Mario does a solid job in the underwritten role.
So obviously the writers
didn’t really care about the characters, or the Western plot elements, because
they just took a template and slapped some character names in there. Sure they
are missing a saloon brawl (replaced by a fist fight in a marketplace) and an
old fashioned shoot out. But they have other things going for them – the beast!
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Way too much time spent on the love triangle. |
Well let’s take a look at
that portion of the script. So you have The
Beast of Hollow Mountain being
hinted at through the bulk of your movie. You have the superstitious villagers
refusing to go near the swamps. And um, yeah that is about it. The Beast hardly
figures into the Western plot at all. These two elements aren’t meshed
together. It almost feels like someone took the end from another movie and just
stitched it to the end of a Western film. Because of this, there is no growing
dread in this movie. I’m fine with holding the monster back, as long as you
give me something to build tension about it. Reptilicus does this by keeping the monster the front and center of the
story, even if he doesn’t explode into rampage mode until late in the film. If The
Beast of Hollow Mountain had
focused more on the missing cattle, and had our hero exploring the hollow
mountain and discovering signs of the beast, that might have helped. Drop the
love interest and have the hero trying to figure out if Enrique is just messing
with him or if there is a monster. Or maybe Enrique does create a fake monster,
but is surprised when the real one is revealed. I don’t know, but honestly
anything would be an improvement over this pseudo script.
Now some of you
Harryhausen fans may be saying to yourself, “This sounds kinda like Valley
of Gwangi.” And you’d be right.
You see Willis O’Brian, the creator of King
Kong had this story idea
about cowboys and dinosaurs knocking around for a while eventually he sold the
idea and The Beast of Hollow Mountain was
adapted from it. Years later Harryhausen managed to wrangle the rights to the
concept. He considered O’Brian to be his mentor and he wanted to do the concept
right. So Valley of Gwangi was born from the ashes of this stinker.
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Hollow Mountain looms behind the cows. |
Now The
Beast of Hollow Mountain isn’t
all bad. This film was shot entirely on location in Mexico in full-blown color.
It actually has some gorgeous vistas that get shown off. It is also refreshing
to see actual Mexicans playing Mexican characters. None of them are terribly
interesting, but at least there is that. Panchito is cute. Um… I’m running out
of stuff here. Well, let me put it this way. As dull as the film is, it is not
poorly made. Poorly written, yes. But the actual production doesn’t look cheap.
It makes sense in its own way. I never get the feeling that the director lost
control of the film (like say Cry Wilderness or Avalanche).
It looks like we had a professional crew working on this one.
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Indiana Jones or Tarzan? Sorry it's cowboy Jimmy. |
Let’s talk about the
monster a little bit. You can tell from the movie poster that you have some
kind of Allosaurus running around devouring cows. Sure enough when he shows up
you get an amazing stop motion treat. I say amazing because he stomps around in
a jerky fashion that by itself is kind of funny looking. But when he opens his
mouth and his tongue is revealed… well to tell you the truth I just lost it. It
looks so ridiculous, and was nearly worth watching all the dull cowboy stuff
just to get to it. Most scenes with the monster feature stop motion antics, but
there are a few scenes where feet and arms interact with the cast. The feet
look especially silly. For those last fifteen minutes The
Beast of Hollow Mountain is
a laugh riot.
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Try not to look at the creepy festival masks. |
So the movie fails
spectacularly as Western and as a monster movie. The script lacks any
interesting element, except for the monster and it doesn’t seem like the writer
knew how to incorporate the creature into the story. I really wonder if he didn’t
have this Western script laying around and just changed the names when they
decided to shoot in Mexico, and then cobbled the Monster into the bookend
scenes. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. But with something this lifeless
do Jonah and the bots have a hope to survive this?
Episode Review:
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The Beast arrives, and can't find his six shooter. |
Over the years Mystery
Science Theater tackled
a handful of Westerns. If I’ve discovered anything from those episodes it is
that they seem to divide fans. Those who already enjoy Westerns usually find
something about those episodes to enjoy. But those that dislike the genre
usually find the episodes terribly boring. And for a movie that is already
inert, than The Beast of Hollow Mountain is going to be a difficult episode for viewers who don’t enjoy
cowboys and ranches. For me, I enjoy The
Painted Hills the
most of the Western episodes of MST3K. It has interesting characters, a plot
involving prospectors and even throws in some helpful Indians. Oh and did I
mention Lassie is in it! She is! And she takes the law into her own paws.
Lassie is Out for Justice! (cough cough) But I’ll get into that another time.
No, this one is closer to Gunslinger, where the movie is just plain bad, but the riffing really
helps get through it. And let me tell you, the movie is test for Jonah and the
bots. There aren’t any interesting characters to latch onto. There aren’t any
interesting plot twists. There isn’t much of anything. It really reminds me of
a Season Six offering. It takes a riffing crew at the top of their game to get
through this kind of beast.
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The Kirk vs Picard debate gets physical. |
Things start off rough
with Jimmy and two companions wandering around the swamps looking for cattle.
This scene seems to go on way too long and the boys kick in with some high
speed riffing. Luckily the sequence has very little dialogue (at least very
little that is actually important). So the speed riffing isn’t as distracting
as it was in previous episodes. But this is the last time this kind of riffing
actually happens in Season 11. From this moment forward, the pacing of the
riffs is steady and timed well. So that is a big plus.
There are lots of riffs
commenting on how there is no monster to be seen for 85% of the film. At one
point Jimmy is looking through some papers and Jonah quips, “I’m looking
through the script to see if there is a Beast.” In another scene Tom has
Panchito yell, “While you’re looking around, see if you can find a Beast for
the movie.”
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Even Jimmy doesn't get the chinstrap fashion. |
There are some funny
riffs on the village and costumes. For some reason Felipe has his sombrero chinstrap
just under his lip. The bots keep telling him that he’s doing it wrong, and
Crow finally says, “First master the chin strap, then tackle the lasso.” Lots
of people are wearing striped pants in this movie, and Jonah has one of the
characters shout during the stampede “If I die, turn my pants into a circus
tent!” When Pancho and Panchito arrive at an abandoned house near the mountain
Crow speaks for Panchito “I thought you said we were going to Chuck E. Cheese.”
Jonah replies as Pancho, “Well this isn’t Chuck E. Cheese, but there are mice.”
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That tongue is both hilarious and obscene. |
In all honestly the best
riffs in The Beast of Hollow Mountain come at
the expense of the Allosaurus. With his tongue flopping about all over the
screen, Tom comments, “He has some real problems. He can’t walk and control his
tongue at the same time.” Crow declares him the “Gene Simmons-o-saurus.” And
all the guys provide dialogue for the dino as she pursues our heroes around the
hollow mountain. Between the goofy animation and riffing this final 15 minutes
is really top-notch material.
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Tom and Crow bring the festival to the SOL. Jonah
is disturbed. |
The host segments are
pretty fun, with one stand out moment. For the invention exchange the crew
still has Avalanche on the brain. Jonah creates the Disco Cannon, which fires a
disco ball into the ceiling to create an instant disco whenever you need one.
Kinga creates a hot water cannon for ships to use to melt icebergs. Max injures
himself with it. At the first break the bots are really annoyed about the lack
of monster in the movie. So they come up with ways to make monster movies more
fun. Crow creates a hilarious monster buddy film with lots of frat humor. Tom
goes for the arthouse crowd with a nihilistic look at the life of the monster.
Sure to garner Oscar buzz, especially with Meryl Streep as the monster. When we
come back Tom Servo is inspired by the fashions in the film to create his own
line of clothing. This one is pretty silly, and will remind fans of the series
of a similarly humorous sketch in Time of the Apes.
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The festival causes terror for all who see it. |
But nothing tops what may
be the funniest sketch of the whole season. During the film a strange festival
plays out in the village, with villagers wandering around in bizarre masks.
When Jonah exits the theater Crow and Tom are dancing around in similar outfits
to strange music. They don’t say a word, but just keep dancing and dancing in
circles around Jonah. What makes this so damn funny is watching Jonah’s
reaction go from amused, to disturbed to panic to near insanity. On top of
that, we also get to see Kinga and Max reacting to the horror, and they get
more and more frantic as the sketch progresses. Patton Oswald’s tearful pleas
had me on the ground laughing. It lasts just long enough to give you some good
belly laughs before heading back into the theater. The final host segment
features Jonah and bots talking about movies that would be better if you threw
in a dinosaur attack at the end. When they get to My
Dinner with Andre the
gloves come off and it is pretty funny imaging Wallace Shawn locked in a Kung
Fu battle with a velociraptor.
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"It all look so fresh. I don't know where to start!" |
I’ve got to say that The
Beast of Hollow Mountain is
the very example of “your mileage may vary” type of episode. If you don’t mind
Westerns, and you know you won’t be seeing any beast for most of the movie,
then I’d say give this one a shot. The riffing is solid, the host segments are
fun (with one outstanding one) and the last 15 minutes of the movie riffing may
be the best they’ve done yet. I know, it is a lot of ifs. I’ve seen some people
put this at the bottom of season 11’s episode ranks. But I had a good time with
it.
I give it 3 wiggly
dino-tongues out of five.
This episode is available on
the Netflix download.
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Even the cows are trying to get out of this movie. |
I've seen most of the sci-fi (or paleo-fi) flicks from US and British studios in the '50s and '60s including this one and the much superior "Valley of the Gwangi." I have to assume the MST3K format is the far better way to watch it.
ReplyDeleteIt was a feature of most '50s monster flicks (there are exceptions) that the beastie doesn't cut loose until the final reel, but its hidden presence is central to the plot of the whole movie. The romances and comic reliefs are subplots that happen only because the characters are thrown together on account of the mysterious events caused by the hidden monster. This movie, as you say, is odd in that the monster seems to be the subplot -- a way conveniently (albeit lethally) to resolve the central conflicts.
I like "My Dinner with Andre," though I suppose a dinosaur attack can't actually hurt any movie.
Yeah that was my biggest problem with the film, was the fact that the dinosaur just seemed tacked onto a Western plot. And almost no effort was made to make the Western plot interesting. Just an odd movie all the way around. MSt3K did help, but as I mentioned a lot of fans didn't like this one much. It is a slow movie and if you aren't into the Western genre in its classic form than I can see this one boring a viewer to tears.
DeleteI think most Rom-coms could do with a full blown dinosaur attack at the end. Pulls a couple closer together I would imagine.
Check it out for some new insights on Joel: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-811-joel-hodgson-jonah-ray
ReplyDeleteVery cool! Thanks for sharing.
DeleteIt certainly wasn't Valley of Gwangi. It wasn't even Valley of the Dolls. It wasn't even Guys and Dolls. Etc.
ReplyDeleteOne scene which particularly stands out for me is the stampede. It's pretty obvious that the cows are going at a trot, but they sped up the film so that it would appear as if they're moving faster. As a result, it looks like they're speed walking.
Yeah I really got a kick out of that stampede scene too. I'd seen that technique used in a few other westerns, but in this one it was especially unconvincing.
DeleteThanks for reading and commenting!
For some reason, I'm fascinated by the festival/parade with the villagers wandering around in strange costumes.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if that's based on any real Mexican ritual or religious ceremony, etc? Or did they just make it up to be based on some kind of vague ceremony?