|
|
|
Beast from Haunted Cave
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Film Masters Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (24th November 2023). |
|
The Film
 High above the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, businessman Alexander Ward (The Great Silence's Frank Wolff) and his "secretary" Gypsy (A Bucket of Blood's Sheila Carol) along with Ward's employees Marty (None But the Brave's Richard Sinatra) and Byron (Little Shop of Horrors' Wally Campo) have taken to the slopes under the guide of Gil Jackson (King Kong Lives' Michael Forest) in preparation for a two-day cross country skiing trip through the wilderness to Gil's mountain cabin. What Gil does not realize is that Ward and his gang are really planning a heist of gold bars secreted in the local bank vault and are using his cabin as a rendezvous point with a getaway plane. Although Gypsy has been deployed to provide an attractive distraction for Gil, Ward is concerned that she is a little too convincing while Gypsy herself is starting to become disgusted with what her life has become and seeks escape in her flirtation with the unsuspecting guide who has eschewed the excitement of city life for a simpler existence. Things become even more complicated that evening when Marty decides to take local barmaid Natalie (Playboy Playmate of the Month Linnι Ahlstrand) with him to a derelict goldmine where he plants timed charges to blow the mine as a distraction during their heist the next day. Marty returns in shock and can only tell Ward that Natalie got killed not that she was grabbed by a giant web-slinging anthropoid spider creature. Eager to get as far away as possible from the gold mine, Marty recovers his wits and carries out the heist with Ward and Byron while Gypsy is distracting Gil by seeking some last minute skiing tips for their trip. As they venture out into the snow-capped wilderness, Marty starts to suspect that they are being followed by the creature now deprived of its den by the explosion and latched on to Mary's scent. Ward and Byron try to run interference with Gil over Marty's increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior. When they reach the cabin, however, it is to the news of the mine explosion that claimed the life of a lone guard, and Gypsy may no longer be able to contain her guilt over her part in the heist. As the weather worsens, and Ward doubts that their partner will be able to fly in and pick them up; but the beast tracking them has set up a new den in the titular "Haunted Cave" (hence, no preceding article) nearby and is eager to stock it with human morsels. One of a pair of back-to-back productions shot for Roger Corman's Filmgroup his own production and distribution side company to make lower-budget double billling productions as an additional revenue stream to his relatively larger-budgeted contract work with American International Pictures Beast from Haunted Cave utillized the novel setting of Deadwood, South Dakota and the Black Hills to take advantage of tax incentives and just to get away from their usual Bronson Canyon go-to location (seen in everything Corman from It Conquered the World and Teenage Caveman to Wasp Woman and Night of the Blood Beast). The film helmed by Corman associate Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop) while Corman concurrently directed Ski-Troop Attack with the same cast boasts some striking vistas and a creepy beast designed and played by then-unknown actor Chris Robinson (Stanley) but it is really the performances which keep the film compelling even if the characters are rather two-dimensional. Wolff makes a wonderful smiling villain given to sudden bursts of violence, Carol plays the self-loathing mistress in search of redemption with moments of subtle self-deprecation, and Forest easily conveys both moral uprightness and compassion. The supporting performances are also quite nuanced with Sinatra taking on a sort of Ahab "man versus beast" stance that excludes asking for help from anyone else, while Campo starts off providing comic relief before coming to care for Gil's housekeeper Small Dove (Kay Jennings), motivating his self-sacrificing attempt to rescue her when she is carried off by the beast. The budget makes itself known primarily in the fact that all of the beast's appearances in the snow tracking and attacking Marty and the others are depicted through very transparent optical overlays that do not so much give the creature a supernatural aspect as suggest that all of its footage was shot in the caves (one mine doubling for both the mine and the climactic Haunted Cave setting) and either Robinson was not available on the days they were shooting in the snow or it was just too cold to put the actor out there in full creature make-up. The finale is also somewhat rushed, making it unclear just who survives apart from the romantic leads. A few years later, Hellman, Forest, Sinatra, and Campo would return to shoot some additional scenes to pad the film for a ninety-minute television block when it was sold to American International Television (see below). 
Video
Following its theatrical release through Corman's Filmgroup, Beast from Haunted Cave was sold to American International Television along with a handful of other titles, and additional scenes were shot to pad the features which ran just over an hour to an additional five to ten minutes, sometimes with the original actors. The expanded television version supplanted the theatrical version in circulation even on gray market video and various public domain VHS and DVD editions as well as the better quality Synapse Films DVD (which presented widescreen and fullscreen transfers of the same 16mm element for the TV version) while Retromedia's Blu-ray double feature (with The Wasp Woman) extracted the TV scenes to recreate the theatrical version and included the aforementioned scenes as extras).  Film Masters' Blu-ray features a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen presentation of the theatrical version (65:22) from a 4K scan of 35mm archival elements and a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed widescreen presentation of the television version (71:56) as a composite of the 35mm transfer and a 16mm element. The television version adds a pre-credits sequence of Marty and Byron sightseeing before meeting up with Ward, a sequence in which Byron flirts with a ski bunny (How to Make a Monster's Jaclyn Hellman who is uncredited under her maiden name but married Hellman in 1962) who turns out to be Gil's sister contradicting his solitary man image in the theatrical version and a scene later in the film in which Byron discusses Gil's lifestyle as he thinks of going straight after meeting Small Dove. These scenes from 16mm look a little grayer in contrast next to the 35mm scenes, but both versions are satisfactory on a visual level in spite of some flaws that have to do with the presentation rather than the elements. A brief opening shot of the ski-lift mechanism is missing from the theatrical version but present in the television version, while a few snippets of dialogue in the theatrical version dropped by damage that were present in earlier transfers also missing in the television version are indicative of the composite nature of that version.
Audio
Both versions feature lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks as well as lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 ones and optional English SDH subtitles (which are helpful in clarifying one of the lines of dialogue partially dropped by a repair splice). The tracks sound clean despite the underlying hiss of the original mixing and appear to have been lightly cleaned. 
Extras
The theatrical version is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historians Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire who goes into detail about the South Dakota shoot, the penny-saving antics of producer Gene Corman including local articles that advertised the film as a student production or footage for a science fiction television series self-financed by the UCLA student actors, while also drawing from interviews with actor Forest (who is still working and provided a commentary for the Retromedia edition) who revealed the the Deadwood city council were not quite the yokels the Cormans believed them to be and insisted on Corman depositing fifty-thousand dollars in the local bank as insurance. They also point out an appearance by Robinson out of make-up as a bar patron and that the bartender was played by Richard McNamara (not the American actor-turned-dubbing director who remained in Italy after the war) who was the supposed UCLA representative for the production. They also reveal that the script was writer Charles B. Griffith's revamp of his own script for Corman's Naked Paradise which was also repurprosed for Creature from the Haunted Sea, as well as that Griffith insisted it was also reworked for Corman's Greece-lensed take on the Italian peplum Atlas (which also starred Forest and Wolff). The disc also includes the theatrical trailer (1:38) framed at 1.33:1 as well as a 2023 trailer re-cut (1:38) recreated with the 4K feature master and framed at 1.85:1, as well as a still gallery (4:22). An Easter Egg features an interview with actor Chris Robinson (6:30) who reveals how the Corman's sought to get around the expense of special make-up effects by putting an ad out for a performer who could also do make-up, traveling to his audition in a monster make-up of his own design, and doing research when he found that they wanted something more elaborate for the feature.  A second disc features the companion feature Ski-Troop Attack in which Forest plays Lt. Factor, the leader of a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines during World War II, following the German troops through the snow and reporting on them. When they learn that the Front is under attack, Lt. Factor must decide between continuing to follow the convoy of German tanks or joining in the fight, opposing positions embodied by an idealistic private (Sinatra) and Factor's gruff sergeant (Wolff) who questions his every decision. Carol turns up when the men find shelter at a cabin occupied by a lone woman who might not be as harmless as she appears. Despite action sequences featuring stock footage from earlier war films and confusing editing with shots of lone actors diving around the snow and behind rocks and trees to gunfire sound effects, screenwriter Griffith's focus on ideological conflicts and the film's performances once again keep things interesting. As Ski-Troop Attack is such a talky film, it is sometimes difficult to tell just where some of the television padding scenes shot years later by Monte Hellman start; however, there are indicators like dissolve indicating the passage of time but featuring the characters in roughly the same shot and positions or a cut between old and new footage of the same actor without a cutaway to smooth the transition. Like Beast from Haunted Cave, the theatrical version vanished from circulation when the television version was released and it was the latter version that turned up on various VHS and public domain DVD labels. Since a 16mm reduction print was only available for scanning, and there are apparently no available video masters to use as a guide for recreating the theatrical version, Film Masters' Blu-ray only features the extended television version (73:43 versus a reported length of 63 minutes for the theatrical) in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer, and it is quite obvious why this is a bonus feature. The materials are in so-so condition with variable grayish contrasts and the stock footage looking quite coarse and higher in contrast due to duping. The DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks feature moderate hiss and pops when the damage strays from the image to the optical tracks. Optional English SDH subtitles are included. Thankfully, Film Masters' have attempted to treat the film with the same respect as the main feature with an audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Howard S. Berger that questions Corman's choice to do a war film with the same resources Beast from Haunted Cave but with seemingly less money, touches upon some of the same information about the Corman's taking advantage of the South Dakota location and its tax incentives including casting local high school students to double as soldiers on skis as well as some of Corman's thrifty filmmaking techniques. The disc also includes Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story: Part One" (16:22) in which Joyner discusses Corman's work at American International and his decision to co-found Filmgroup with his brother Gene and some of the productions that preceded the South Dakota duo as well as a 2023 trailer re-cut (1:56) for Ski-Troop Attack. 
Packaging
Housed with the discs is a 22-page essay booklet featuring "Bantering with a Beast: Chris Robinson on Building-and Being-the Haunted Cave Creature" in which Robinson discusses deciding to learn make-up effects in college, being given thirty days to prepare the creature design for the film, the South Dakota shoot, and the struggle to get his Screen Actors Guild card upon returnign to Hollywood as told to Tom Weaver and "Corman Goes to War" by C. Courtney Joyner in which he discusses both Corman's careful planning to shoot the film around stock footage he already selected and the finer points of Griffith's screenplay and the performances.
Overall
Despite some minor flaws, Film Masters treats the Roger Corman productions Beast from Haunted Cave and Ski-Troop Attack better than he did with the cost-saving neglect of copyright registration consigning them to the public domain and ratty presentations until now.
|
|||||
|