It is rather distressing to me,
the facility with which people will place their trust in technology. Perhaps it’s because I work daily with
machines which appear to have been “updated” simply for the sake of being
updated. Perhaps it’s that (for all my
claims to the contrary) I could very well be a Luddite at heart. I don’t think that people who trust in
ever-evolving technology (let’s call them “trusters” for the sake of brevity)
are by any means less smart than me or that they’re easily duped, per se, and I
can completely understand the desire of making things faster, more compact, and
more portable. Hell, I’ve been tempted
on more than one occasion to purchase one of these newfangled e-readers. But my main issue (which I’ll probably get
over around the time I’m on my deathbed) lies in the nature of data
storage.
Let’s say, I buy a book. So long as I take relatively decent care of
it, I can keep this book for the rest of my life. I can open it to any page at any time in an
instant. If I buy a digital edition of
the same book, I have now linked myself to a device which requires power of
some variety in order to read it. I have
to wait for said device to start up and say it’s okay for me to open up the
book file. If there is an issue that the
data gets corrupted or lost, I now have to go through a process to try and
retrieve that which I have spent my money on or risk having to buy the file all
over again (unlikely maybe but certainly possible). I’m sure there are some safeguards built in,
possibly at point of purchase, to protect against this, and you can even back
your data up (and give yourself some form of physical copy of the material,
thus defeating part of the whole reason for downloading a book in the first place),
though I would be wary of saving anything to ”the cloud.” How do you know you’re going to be able to
get to it? How do you know your files
haven’t been lost or corrupted in the cloud?
What if you’re experiencing problems with internet connectivity? How do you protect yourself in a growing sea
of cybercrimes as you expand your presence in the digital realm? I could go on, but I think I’ve made my
point. Books rock. You should read more of them. And besides, I’m fairly confident that an
e-reader doesn’t have that same pulp and ink smell which only a physical book
can give you.
One evening, as Doc Calkins (Bob
Hyman) is just relaxing at his cabin, he is startled by the sudden appearance
of Susan (Kacey Cobb) who declares that her boyfriend Dan (Richard Garrison)
has made an incredible discovery. Racing
to the mine-shaft-cum-archaeological-dig site, the trio wends its way down to a
wall upon which have been painted ancient depictions of Native American tribes
fighting with a (rather well-delineated) Plesiosaur. At that very moment, a meteor streaks across
the sky and hits the lake next door. The
force of the impact brings down the mine shaft walls and (I assume) floods the
caverns with water. Hitting up the mustachioed, limp-coiffed
Sheriff Steve (Richard
Cardella), the scientists try to investigate the meteor, but the heat is
too much for them to handle. Needless to
say, the meteor’s vicinity to a dinosaur egg at the lake bottom will prove to
have disastrous consequences for everyone.
I would wager that William R.
Stromberg’s The Crater Lake Monster was produced solely to cash-in on the
world’s fascination with the paranormal in general and the cryptid Nessie
specifically. It has the stop-motion
wizardry of the late, great David Allen as well as Jim Danforth, Phil Tippett,
and Randall Cook to recommend it. That’s
some lineup of talent, and when their work is onscreen, it’s as impressive as
it can be. However, I don’t know if it
was due to budget or time concerns (probably a combination of the two), but the
shots with the stop-motion creature are sparse, even though we get to see the
beast quite well early on. Consequently,
the monster never really has any sort of personality for the viewer to discern,
and the life-size model of the creature’s head is immobile, thus adding nothing
of value other than something to physically grab a character onscreen. It’s just a large, dumb animal which was
birthed and developed unnaturally and wants to eat people. If this were a
Nature Amok film, then having a creature of this type would be perfectly
acceptable, acting as an unknown and unknowable quantity (after all, who among
us can know what really transpires in the minds of Plesiosaurs?), but we see
the thing when it’s around, and all of its attacks are telegraphed. This is something of a letdown for someone
like me who has been a massive fan of the artistry of stop-motion techniques
for as long as I can remember. But I
suppose we take what we can take where we can take it.
Nonetheless, the film does not
follow a standard Nature Amok framework.
It does not follow a standard Creature Feature framework (and, to be
sure, the two are quite similar). It
doesn’t even follow a standard Melodrama framework. There is no evil corporation polluting the
environment or threatening to kick the indigenous people off their land. There is no big festival on the lake for the
monster to disrupt. There is no venal,
(but not strictly) evil city council member/mayor who places his constituents
lives in danger by ignoring the warning signs and allowing the annual
regatta/swim meet/seasonal park opening to proceed. Yet, we have come to expect a certain
structure in genre films of this era. We
expect an inciting incident to hook us.
We expect a lot of exposition and filler, punctuated here and there with
briefly satisfying bits to keep us from walking out. We expect an ending that, even if it doesn’t
bring the house down, fulfills something of the come-on which enticed us to see
the film in the first place. This is not
to say that we necessarily need to see generic conventions (despite our
anticipation of them), nor that a standard framework of any variety needs to be
followed in a film, but we’re getting to that, as well.
The Crater Lake Monster both meets and subverts expectations. It is, in fact, loaded with subplots which go
on for far too long and contribute nothing to the story other than enabling the
monster to (thankfully) make a few brief appearances. So far, so good. However, almost the entirety of the rest of
the film has jack shit to do with any sort of hunt for the titular
creature. In fact, what the vast
majority of the film centers on are the not-so-funny antics and misadventures
of local shitkickers and boat rental magnates
Arnie and Mitch (Glen
Roberts and Mark Siegel,
respectively). Like a Northern
Californian equivalent of something Hal Roach or Mack Sennett would have
produced (but not remotely as entertaining or sophisticated), this unseemly duo
just sort of gad about, take advantage of the “squares,” get wasted on what I
can only imagine is corn mash, and peregrinate through the woods, woolgathering
about how they’re going to be successful one day. The typically heroic characters for this sort
of film, the lawman, the scientist, the old wise man, predominantly occupy the
background. In effect, it makes the film
into a quasi-statement on hope and modernity.
Mitch and Arnie are low tech guys.
They can’t even fix their own boat motors. They talk big about what they’re going to do,
their future constantly ahead of them, never living in the moment. The creature comes along, and the pair
suddenly have something new (ironically from the Mesozoic era and therefore
being both modern and primitive) on which to hitch their wagon. However, their hubris in believing that this
deceptively primordial animal can be mastered may very well prove lethal. Arnie and Mitch’s dreams run into the reality
of the modern world in which they are living.
It is how they adapt (or if they can) which will determine their
survival. And yet, even with all of that
in mind, I still prefer physical books to digital files. Oh, well.
MVT: The monster is the
headliner, and he (she/it) is the reason to watch. That it gets short shrift is somewhat
disheartening, but to be frank, I’ll take any excuse I can to marvel at a
stop-motion monster. Sure, they have an
artificiality to them, but if that’s your argument for not liking them, I would
suggest that you’re missing their charms entirely.
Make Or Break: I was
actually surprised that they showed the creature as clearly and for as long as
they did for how early it first shows up in the film. Essentially, the monster’s first appearance
is both payoff and inducement, and that the rest of the film is so unusual in
approach as well makes the whole movie stand just a few inches away from the
rest of the crowd.
Score: 6.25/10