thejcowboy22 Caught this movie way back in the 60's on Supernatural Theater. The movie The Blob Starring Steve McQueen was made one year earlier to American audiences. The success of the film despite the poor screenplay and acting gave Italian film makers an idea, a spin off.This movie was filmed in Black and white with poor dubbing. A group of archaeologists stumble across a cave laden with gold with the Mayan Goddess Caltiki. They find skeletons near the gold but fail to realize that a blob like substance is in the adjacent pool. Greed gets the better of our explorers as the first diver is consumed and the second diver Max (Gerald Haerter) barely escapes but has his arm consumed by the blob. Then you see the mass rise up from the pool ready to digest anyone in it's path. The crew barely escapes as the mass follows them out of the cave . Luckily a gasoline truck crashes into the mass/blob and destroys it. Next the team returns to Mexico City as their injured colleague is tended to to remove the blob scraps from his arm. Dr John Fielding (John Merivale) takes the blob substance and puts in his mansion for further analysis. Ironically a comet that passes the Earth every 850 years causes the blob to grow. Reminds me of the George Romero narrative in the Night Of the Living Dead. The Good Dr. Fielding tries to convince the Mexican government to destroy the blob but they arrest him instead. Meanwhile Dr. Fielding's house is being consumed with his lovely Wife and Daughter inside. I just enjoyed the ride from start to finish . Till this day foreign film buffs wonder who handled the bulk of the direction in the film. Was it Ricardo Freda or Mario Bava? I enjoyed this picture much more than the Blob despite it's many flaws especially in the special effects department. At times the mass looked like heavily stained bed sheets being pulled too and fro. The English voices were very distinguished, especially Max's character deep and throaty in nature. Just another 50's spaghetti sci-fi production that will leave you full.

paul vincent zecchino Bunch us nine year olds saw 'Caltiki the Immortal Monster', late winter, 1964, scared us to death. Leave it to the Italians, them guys brought us DaVinci, Michaelangelo and the founders of Criminology and stlawart supporters of citizen firearms freedoms, Cesare Becaria and Cesare Lombroso, to scare us to death with this horrific gem.You think I'm kidding? I'm not. Caltiki left me, my friend Cappy, now referred to as 'La Buonanima Billy', our pal Fort and the rest us all bad nervous back there, '64. The following summer of '64, another lifeflong friend, Judge Stephen, said that Caltiki scared him real good. That following autumn, new classmate, Reg, today revered as Maximo Aviator, expressed his portentious impressions of this masterpiece.You think after seeing Caltiki on the Zenith Space Command Black & White TV, we'd go down cellar? No way. What? You nuts, something? Not on a dare, for fear big, fat, radioactive blob-ola, Signore Caltiki, was down there, the root cellar or maybe even the coal bin, just waiting for us to come down so it could inhale us and spit out our skulls, while it killed time by shuffling around and stuffing its pie-hole with Grandma's pickles - or maybe just Grandma herself. Had Caltiki no deceny? No. None whatsoever.You remember that scene where Caltiki billows all over the room behind one them French door things? Whenever our parents would visit friends whose homes had them French door things, you think we weren't on edge, all sweaty, twitching? You bet we were. Wouldn't go near no French doors, ever, for fear La Caltikalazoni lurked hungrily behind it, just itching to grab us for a snack.How about them eerie sound effects you hear whenever El Caltiki Grosso Romano went active and worked itself into a lather? At night, drifting off to sleep? We'd swear we could hear old Don Calteech and we'd jolt awake, listening intensely and in terror for any indication he might be downstairs, slurping water out the Guests' Toilet, figuring a way to come up and git us. Too vulgar to be believed.No, you gotta see this guy here, Caltiki, you really gotta. Scared the living tar out us then as does it still today. Caltiki the Immortal Monster is as well, a blatant and perfect Cold War period piece, a parable in which Caltiki represents the covetous, vengeful, all-devouring Monster known as World Communism, one which will be done away with at Armageddon. Do you take comfort in that thought? Me to. Most my buddies do too.But that is another lecture in and of itself and for another time, yes?See Caltiki. Make Don Calteech part of your Film Library. Sit up late at night, open the windows, gaze skyward, and wait for Osaluway or whatever was the name the comet them actors said would 'come in the night sky' and cause Caltiki to grow fatter than does my stomach after polishing off dinner aboard a cruise ship by slurping down coupla/three deserts. TNow that is a terrifying sight indeed, is it not?Paul Vincent ZecchinoAuteur MaximoManasota Key, Florida23 February, 2011

TheFinalAlias Ours is a sick culture. Either that, or a strangely apologetic one. Because if there is any genre that is sure to garner praise without any reservation; it's a Holocaust flick. You want an Oscar? Make one. You don't like it? You must be an anti-Semite, cry the critics. Bizarre, America had no role in the Holocaust so why feel guilty? And with a few exceptions, most of those films are mediocre at best, exploitative trash at worst. Clearly, there is only one way to remedy this sickness that has held Hollywood in it's vice like grip:Make more giant Blob movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It's true. That is the one sub-genre that can do no wrong. Think I'm joking? Look at all the great blob films of decades past, from THE film which led to Hammer's first big hit; 'The Quatermass Xperiment' and it's sequel, to the studio's own talky but engaging 'X, the Unknown', Steve McQueen's acting debut Tour de Force; 1958's 'The Blob', it's charmingly awful sequel, it's amazingly superior remake(And I hate remakes with a passion), that awesome segment in 'Creepshow 2', Japan's 'Dogora' and 'Yog: Monster from Space' all are great. Not a truly bad or unwatchable film in the lot. So why not make more entries in this unbeatable sub-genre? Clearly, Hollywood has no guts to explore the boundaries of cinema that these films could expand. They just want to make safe and marketable holocaust flicks. Shame.BUT! As good as those films mentioned are, no discussion of these drippingly good classics or classics dripping with goodness is complete without mentioning the 1959 masterpiece 'Caltiki'. Directing was begun by Riccardo Freda, with much of the film completed by Mario Bava(I wonder if he moved on to anything good?*sarcasm*)and it's a gem.Legend says that Mayan Goddess Caltiki will return when fire is seen in the sky, and wouldn't you know it? A meteor passes through! While exploring Mayan ruins, explorers made up of bickering couples(One is a square-jawed white man with a white wife, the other couple is a sniveling, accented man named Max with an interracial girlfriend who he abuses, jeeze, who do you think is going to be the couple that survives?)stumble upon a cave with a lake inside, best of all, it has jewels at the bottom! Max decides to take the jewels, but fails to notice the tar like substance that is at the bottom of the lake that is rising......You can guess what happens next, it's all a lot of fun. From a plot development involving a maimed Max doing an imitation of Richard Wordsworth in 'The Quatermass Xperiment' for no real reason other than to provide a human villain, to a memorable sequence where the protagonist is jailed while his family is in danger, to a surprisingly deep performance from Daniela Rocca as Max's submissive girlfriend, to a surprisingly clever psuedoscientific explanation for Caltiki, to several scenes that must have been appallingly graphic for the era, it's all a hoot. You'll keep your feet off the floor in the dark for weeks.It starts off slow and the dialogue is silly, but it's more entertaining than the majority of 'A' movies now!!! See it, or have your arm burned off by Caltiki! It's the 'Citizen Kane'....of Blob movies.

pgspat Yes, this is the movie we ran out of ... my younger sister crying and the rest of us equally scared out of our pants. For years on end we have remembered this movie but never been able to find it. Finally I got a copy on DVD and enjoyed watching the rest of the movie... a great 50s Blob movie and one that brings back memories of that day when me and my brothers and sisters went to the Saturday matinée and were scared out of our wits... having to leave soon after the greedy scientist loses his hand to the Blob after he goes back for the bag of gold jewels. This review has to be longer so without giving away the ending I will just say that the only disappointing part of the movie is that the Blob is kinda slow... and needs radioactivity to grow and move. I would have like for him to cause more death and destruction before the end of the movie. There are some cool graphic death scenes and plenty of comic relief from the dated but entertaining acting and even a tribal belly dance. Plenty of greedy evil crazed scientists too.