Crater Lake Monster (1977)
If it weren’t for my love of stop-motion animation, this film would be too difficult for me to watch. There is tons of goopy dialogue that offer exposition we don’t need and character development of people with no character. It takes nearly a half hour before this Monster sneaks up on an unsuspecting camper. This thing is 30ft long and several tons, don’t know how this thing would sneak up on anyone. Bad hair cuts (or lack of them) and 70s porn star 
mustaches abound. We’re forced to follow the antics of two stooges who are not funny, (maybe if I was 6), and a Sheriff who is supposedly the smart one…supposedly.
The Monster is a Plesiosaur let loose from its underwater cave during a small earthquake. It eats a cow, it eats a chicken, it eats a camper and a guy that goes fishin’ – but nobody notices these people gone missing. The stop motion is outstandingly smooth and the plesiosaur model has great character (at least one character in this film does). The close up shots are terrible and consist of a large, stiff, fiberglass head that has no life in it. The soundtrack music consists of 70’s light fm and elevator music. Then, when the monster shows up it turns to 1950’s style sci-fi music used plenty of times in The Beast, the Deadly Mantis, and the Giant Behemoth.
David Allen:
If you like stop motion animation you have about ten minutes of great monster footage in this flick. The animation was done by David Allen. Allen was an active animator in film starting in his early career on the series, Davey and Goliath and the Gumby Show. He went on to animate sequences in Equinox and Flesh Gordon in the 70s. His work can be seen in Q, the Winged Serpent, Puppet Master, Caveman, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Batteries Not Included. In the circles of effects people he is most praised for his animation of Kong in the VW commercial in 1972. Perhaps his most known work was animating The Pillsbury Dough Boy.
If you like the art of stop motion animation you will find some nice work in this film. For the rest of you, leave this in the crater it had crawled from.
Fun Facts:
Stop Motion Animation is not necessarily claymation. In fact most films do not use clay for their stop motion effects. They use sophisticated puppets with metal skeletons inside called an armature, that enabled the animator to move it in small increments. The skeleton is covered with foam, rubber and latex, sculpted to simulate dinosaur skin and sometimes covered in fur (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young).
parlor of horror 
Personally I feel more love for these monsters from their stop-motion creators than I do in their easily churned out look-alike modern CGI counterparts.
Well, I wouldn’t Say CG is easy but I do agree that these old ‘hands on’ techniques produce creatures with more personality and ones that feel really ‘in’ the setting whether they actually look more real or not. I find that films that start with a real puppet, costume, animotronic, or creature creation – whatever you would call it these days – and just use CG to help animate it look and feel better to me. That would include JP I, II, and III. I can remember what every dinosaur looks like from those films but have trouble recalling exactly what the Anky looks like from Jurassic World. Same thing with the Dinos from PJ’s King Kong. Somehow it seems when the image is too perfect, my mind just calls BS and disengages it or something. I do think CG in the right hands is amazing. The visual aspect to all the ‘Pirates…’ movies is outstanding as they incorporated the bg. water movement with CG to outstanding results.
I agree. The stop motion critters had so much more charm and personality. Even in cheesy movies like Laserblast and Planet Of Dinosaurs, the creatures are still cool to watch.
Sounds pretty bad, but I love stop-motion as well so I’ll have to track this down at some point.
Yeah, its a shame that stop motion films in the 1970’s didnt get much budget or respect. I think if they did some of these films would have been a lot better.
I love the stop motion in this one and the poster and the locations. The rest is just very hard to take. It has some of the least likable characters in 70’s monster films…which is really saying something.
Actually saw this in a theater back in the day! I find it cheesy fun aside from the personal nostalgia.
I’d love to see some of these old Toho Kaiju flicks in a theater today – especially Godzilla 1954 and War of the Gargantuas.
I was lucky enough to see Godzilla vs Megalon, Godzilla vs Gigan (released as Godzilla on Monster Island) Godzilla vs Mecha-Godzilla and Godzilla 1985 all in a theater back in the 70s and 80s! Not the best of the original series but fun!
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