The Beast of Hollow Mountain.

Review #1124: The Beast of Hollow Mountain.

Cast: 
Guy Madison (Jimmy Ryan), Patricia Medina (Sarita), Carlos Rivas (Felipe Sanchez), Eduardo Noriega (Enrique Rios), Julio Villarreal (Don Pedro), Mario Navarro (Panchito), Pascual García Peña (Pancho), and Lupe Carriles (Margarita) Directed by Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodríguez.

Review: 
What can one really say about a movie that combines a Western with dinosaurs? For the first hour, the only thing you can think is surprise that it takes so long to show the beast, and then the last twenty minutes the only thing you can think about is the sheer strange nature of a dinosaur being in a Western and share some sort of joy. Nothing says a good introduction like a faceless narrator telling us about this supposed hollow mountain in a back country that is supposedly evil - spooky, I suppose.  Filmed with an animation process called "Nassour Regiscope", the best parts of the film are obviously near the end with the monster, which certainly appeals to monster lover along with anyone looking for more than the conventional cattle rancher rival story presented for most of its 81 minute run-time. The idea for the film came from Willis O'Brien, who you may remember for his effects work on King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949), among others, although he was not involved with the film besides just giving the idea. This was an co-production between the USA and Mexico, filmed in CinemaScope (combined with stop-motion animation) while having English and Spanish versions filmed simultaneously.

Nobody from the cast generates too much excitement or interest. Madison and Medina fit the mold of conventional people in a movie that would've been just fine for prior decades. This can also apply to the generic adversary played by Noriega or the mildness of the kid played by Navarro. Everybody has a standard feel to them that is incredibly stale when faced with the fact that they dominate our attention for over an hour with barely a hint of a "beast", with the highlight moment to make fun of being a brawl between two characters that comes out of nowhere. Actually, I take that back, the sequence where footage of cattle stampeding is sped up to look more menacing is pretty amusing. The effects for the beast is interesting to look at, in a Saturday morning cartoon kind of way, complete with a large tongue. Four people provided effects work, with Louis DeWitt and Jack Rabin doing photographic effects, while Henry Lyon did model work and Nassour did the stop-motion animation work. The monster doesn't look too imposing in certain shots, and the minimal body count associated with it doesn't make for a particularly riveting experience, but on a basic level there is some enjoyment to be had with a dinosaur stalking a bunch of people. The climax is a bit abrupt, in that it just ends quickly without much closure given to these characters - for better or worse. One has a few options to watching this film - they could watch the film all the way as intended, or they could watch the 2017 riffing by Mystery Science Theater 3000, or they could simply watch the last 20 minutes with the dinosaurs. This isn't a good movie in any sense, but it will provide a basic mode of entertainment if one is in the mood for some junk.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.