The Milpitas Monster

This is a feature movie but not of Hollywood quality. Here are some trivia about the movie:

The Milpitas Monster took three years to produce. The kids grew during all that time.

The director, Bob Burrill, was an art and photography teacher at Samuel Ayer high, he went on to write a book about the history of Milpitas and illustrated another history of the nearby town of Alviso. He was a student of famous photographer Ruth Bernhard and filmed a documentary of her shown on PBS. Some of his shorter projects can be viewed on YouTube on the moooose69 channel.

The persons in the film were often recruited from those families who contributed money, materials, and volunteer hours into making it.

The heroine, daughter of the Ayer High principal, and the young hero did marry in real life and raised a family.

A claw from the monster's hand was on display at the Great Mall, a shopping mall in Milpitas, until the President of the local historical society had it removed because she did not consider it to be part of the city's history.

The only professional, paid actor in the film was the drunk.

The film was shot in 16mm.

The attorney hired to copyright the film failed to do so, but the trusting producers never checked up on him. It took over 25 years for the error to be discovered.

The film has been pirated around the world with new covers.

The film is still shown in the South San Francisco Bay area as a fund-raiser for various charities, including an annual showing on Halloween to benefit the Niles Railroad Museum in Fremont, CA.

This movie was made by a high school, and not a rich one at that. Ayer High School in Milpitas, CA made this movie. At that time, Milpitas was a small suburb of San Jose. The movie was actually a big deal for the town and many had a blast making it, being extras and then watching it in our little theater.

Sure, as a movie, it's nothing great. But it was made for practically nothing by high school kids equipment that was not very modern at the time.

Ecology as it was known was just becoming a big thing back then, and this movie is about a monster spawned from pollution.

It is real easy to toast, roast, flay, and otherwise burn this film for all of its abundant flaws. It was made by high school students and faculty and a whole community; it shows! Sure, I could examine the script which is just ridiculous. A monster created from the garbage of a growing Californian city starts eating garbage and taking garbage cans all over the city. Soon this huge beast with wings no less begins to destroy buildings and even plays the "beauty and the beast" act with a young high school girl. Fortunately for her there is a gang of guys, her former boyfriend nicknamed "The Penguin," and the town drunk out to help her. The direction is awful, the production values just dreadful, the acting non-existent, and the pace sluggish. The movie is hard to sit through - period. However, that being said, it is also a miracle of a film when you consider that this thing was crafted by an entire community. You can see all the collective effort from the actors, the actual mayor and actual firemen and policemen, to the area location shots used. I also was really amazed at all the local businesses credited at the film's end with helping to finance or contribute in some way to the film. When you look at the film from that perspective, it is indeed quite an achievement. I didn't know anything about it before I sat down and watched it. Now that I have found out something about it, I am impressed. But make no mistake - I have no...NO...desire to sit through it again.

Pollution yields a winged gargantuan beast which proceeds to de-populate the community of Milpitas, California.

The general consensus on this flick is pretty reasonable...a grassroots love-letter to 50s era monster movies, funded with pocket change. Now...consider that production of this movie initialized as a high school project involving complete amateurs in every aspect of its penny-ante construction, and the results begin to look pretty darned good. Miniature sets are efficiently overseen, the monster is uniquely designed, and the various technical parts and parcels of filmmaking are roundly on the beam. It's high camp fun with a likable regional charm, and being observably rough around the edges only makes it that much more appealing.

There's a world of movies made by "professional" low-budget filmmakers that are far less enjoyable than this giddily ambitious curio. The median mainstream movie viewer will probably have a tough time with THE MILPITAS MONSTER, but it's pretty unlikely that they'd ever merge with it in the first place. For those among us with an interest in cinematic novelties with unusual production backstories, this should manage to entertain, and occasionally even impress, if accepted on its own realistic terms.

A+ for effort.

Of course both of the previous reviews are absolutely correct on this film. It is pretty bad. But let me fill you in on some details - you might appreciate it a bit more then. Or at least have more compassion.

This movie was created by High School students in the city of Milpitas (where's Milpitas? It's in Silicon Valley, California - next door to San Jose and and a little over an hour from San Francisco). it started off as a fake movie poster for an art class assignment and grew from there. The high school photo teacher got involved and kinda spearheaded it - turning it into a feature length film. Eventually the whole high school and then the community got involved.

You have to understand that although the movie came out in 1976 the actual filming as I understand it was done in 1974. This is waaaaay before the digital age of what we have today. So while the special effects are very crude for today's standards and they were pretty crude even back then, they are pretty good for a 1974 era community made movie.

There's a great scene in the film where there is an overhead shot of city hall - showing endless open fields surrounding it. Not so today! Shopping centers and industrial complexes now surround the building. At a benefit showing a few years ago - in a packed local theater, the audience spntaneously clapped and cheered when this scene came on.

The Washington D.C. Special Contact with the "odorolla" is none other than Bob Wilkins (I think I got his name right) who was a local host of a late night monster/sci-fi show called "Creature features" and also hosted a kids Sci-Fi show called Captain Cosmic.

Yeah - the movie's gots its flaws - but I think it's good for a low key evening of fun. Heck - it even has a good environmental message! Not to mention the fact that it came out on video in the 80's on "Le Bad films." Also, I also know a police officer and the then mayer who are featured in the film playing themselves. Now how many people can say they personally know people who have starred in a feature length movie?

But then again - maybe to really appreciate the film you just have to have lived in the city of Milpitas in the 70's.

PS - they tried to make a sequel a few years ago - but it failed to capture the community's interest like the first time. I also still have my Milpitas Monster coloring book - wonder what it will fetch on Ebay?