Those Chiller Theater fans in Pittsburgh who stayed up for the special triple (as opposed to the usual double) feature on October 30 1976 were highly entertained by both "House of Frankenstein" and "House of Dracula." Ah, but the real Halloween 'trick' was this rickety home movie, shown in between the two Universal classics, which actually saw two repeat airings over the next 6 years (Aug 2 1980 and Jan 23 1982). With its classroom instructor discussing the shark in "Jaws," some of it at least appeared to be new, but by the time the flashbacks began, I noticed the late 50s vintage cars on display, and slowly began to realize that someone had decided to take an unreleasable 59 minute turkey of uncertain origin, add 29 minutes of 'new' footage, resulting in a full length feature that was truly a difficult sit. All I can say is that Larry Buchanan's Azaleas look like beloved works of art in comparison. The first half hour, set in a classroom, is interrupted by interminable stock footage of logging (!) and a slow crawl through the woods after a Bigfoot wannabe, seen for all of 10 seconds. Once the flashback begins, relating the original "Teenagers Battle the Thing," it fails to improve. By the time the excavation unearths an ancient mummy, it doesn't start walking until the last 23 minutes out of the 88 total, and is glimpsed for about 90 seconds (if that sounds like fun, be my guest). Bad movie buffs may find some entertainment value here, with no actual relation to Bigfoot (topical only during the 70s), I just hope that the updated version and additional footage did help the filmmakers turn a profit, since it has proved to be, in a sense, unforgettable, though for all the wrong reasons (just getting it shown must have been an achievement in itself).
