Port Sinister

Port Sinister is a nice little b-movie. It's nothing spectacular, but its entertaining.

To me, it has the feel of a movie serial (in fact, there are a few actors in it from the old chapterplays). The story is relatively preposterous even for fifties science fiction: The legendary pirate town of Port Royal is scheduled to rise again from the sea and a scientific expedition to study it is hijacked by a band of criminals who hope to get all the hidden loot of the Governor's mansion.

The only "name" you'll probably recognize in the cast is William Schallert (The Patty Duke Show, The Man From Planet X) who is cast as one of the double-crossing bad guys.

There are some interesting special effects though. The sets are rather involved for a low-budget movie, with a lot of elevation and nooks and crannies for the heroes and baddies to get around. The crab monster that attacks some of the characters is actually one of the better crustacean monsters I've seen, with the only drawback being some stilted puppetry.

I mainly wanted to watch this film because I collect fifties science fiction films. I wasn't expecting anything tremendously brilliant, but was pleasantly surprised at the relative cohesiveness and compactness of this little story.