Reptilicus (1961)

 

This film is well known for a variety of reasons. One of which is that - as far as I know - this is the only Danish film with a giant monster akin to the kaiju of Japan. 

The second is the fact that the titular monster is hilariously ineptly made and will cause more giggles than excitement.

I mean: they tried, they really did and their heart was in the right place, but there is no way in hell one could look at this and call it a good film. It sure is fun if you like this sort of fare. 

In Lapland, a drilling team unearths remains of a giant prehistoric reptile. Nothing really out of the ordinary there, except these specimens still have fresh tissue on them. So they are rushed to Denmark to be studied in a freezer. However, an absentminded professor accidentally leaves the door open, thus thawing out the flesh. But instead of it rotting away, it actually starts to regrow at a pretty brisk rate. Fairly soon, it transpires that the creature is a massive snake-like beast they dub Reptilicus. 

As is befitting any giant monsterfilm worth its salt, the creature eventually comes back to life, escapes and then goes on a rampage through the city of Copenhagen. The military is called in to try and stop it, but its skin is so tough it is excruciatingly hard to kill. So they then hatch a plot a little reminiscent of what they used in 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms'.

Heck, this film pays homage to quite a lot of giant monsterfilms. 

And you know what the worst part is? If they had a more convincing creature, this wouldn't be half bad, actually. The set-up is well done and it can stand next to quite a lot of earlier monsterfilms. The acting is also decent enough not to be distracting, even if motivations of certain characters flip around and it sometimes becomes a little hard to follow. 

For a film that's a mere 80 minutes long, there is also quite a bit of filler, with stock footage from miltary operations, a song at Tivoli park and even a short tourist interlude showing off the main attractions of Copenhagen. 

I do not jest.

But it's the special effects where they really dropped the ball, alas. Granted, the budget wasn't massive but at times inventive makers can work around this. However here, it's a bit along the "Yikes!"-category. Reptilicus is clearly a string puppet whose only mode of movement is a puppeteer yanking the head up and down. The mouth doesn't even move and the tiny little feet might have been cut altogether. The same goes for the wings. Apparently, at one point the creature was meant to fly, but the makers deemed that shot too unconvincing. If you've seen the rest of the beastie, that's a pretty tough pill to swallow, as it looks more like a big green sock with a paper-maché head attached. It also spits a green venom, but they figured the best way to do this, was to superimpose handdrawn fluorescent gel across the screen, so it never looks as if the creature is actually spitting this out. 

So you might have guessed that this is one for the hardcore fans of monster- and B-films only. But I will say: it has one of the most awesome titles ever in the genre.