moonspinner55 Only suave ladies man and eternal B-movie actor John Bromfield could get away with this role, that of plantation owner Rock Dean, who is investigating a series of attacks on workers along the Amazon River. Rock Dean isn't one to believe in legends (and with that name, you wouldn't either!), but it is said that a strange bird-like creature named Curucu lives near the river where no white man has ever tread. Along for the journey is a shapely female doctor in search of a drug that might be effective in shrinking cancerous tissue (it is currently in use by the resident headhunters, who need it to shrink something else!). Low-budget co-feature has some jungle adventure and humor, though it was misleadingly advertised by Universal as a horror movie. The credit "filmed entirely in Brazil" is also misleading, as a good portion of the running time is padded with wildlife and travelogue footage from stock. Fans of Bromfield and scream queen Beverly Garland might give this a pass. *1/2 from ****

mark.waltz "Can't get a man, so she gets a career." So says male chauvinist John Bromfield about the female doctor behind a screen, and flabbergasted when Beverly Garland opens it up, giving the death stare of all death stares. But she's a tough chick, able to withstand huge snakes, spiders and other jungle creatures as she heads into the Amazon with Bromfield to determine what kind of monster or beast...or worse...is attacking the local tribes people. Once the secret is revealed, it should be all over, but unfortunately, there are several more reels to get through.I'll give this credit in the sense that they did their best to find the best color stock footage to match the new footage, blending it in almost convincingly. The jungle settings are pretty but there's really little mystery in this cartoonish adventure. Once again, Garland is a sight to behold, but the creature is nowhere the campy sight of the vegetable monster she came up against in "It Conquered the World". The scantily clad natives are a muscular erotic sight, but unfortunately, this is the type of schlock that turned movie audiences away and put them in front of their newly bought television screens where, when something was bad, at least you didn't have to pay for it.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) Note: *SPOILER* Back in the early seventies this film turned up on "The Late Late Show" and I set my alarm and got up to watch it. After this film was over I was almost sorry I did. The only reason I didn't totally regret getting up at 4 in the morning to watch this was that at least I could truthfully say to my fellow monster movie loving friends that I had seen it. Except for the attractive color photography and real Brazilian locations, this film is a dud in almost every way. The "monster" is silly looking, the acting never rises above adequate and most of the time its less than that, and the dialog is lame. But thats not what irked me when I was twelve, I had seen lots of cheap monster movies with silly looking monsters and I had come to expect that. What irked me was the films cheat ending. The monster is revealed to be at the end simply a man in a costume trying to scare people away. All the fantastic stuff turns out to be a hoax. When will film makers ever learn? Every now and then somebody makes this kind film where the fantastic element turns out to be a trick. Although I can't recall any recent theatrical movies that employed this lately, it still turns in made for T.V./cable/video movies now and then. I can't think of a film, with the exception of MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935), with this "Ha! Ha! We fooled ya!" kind of story that was any good. I never liked this kind of film and most people I know don't either, although movie makers think we do. The only kind of people who like this kind of film other than some film makers, are the kind of ignorant self important high brow types who have contempt for all forms of science fiction and horror films. Their attitude is that "there are no monsters, ghosts, aliens etc in real life" so having the fantastic elements revealed to be a trick is supposed to make the film more believable. But it doesn't. In these kind of films it stretches the viewers credibility more to accept that someone could employ successfully the kinds of tricks needed to pull off a hoax of the type shown in these films, than to accept that something supernatural or fantastic is really going on. As in many of these films, the phony fantastic goings on are almost always employed to scare people from what ever it is the hoaxers are trying to keep hidden. Of course, in real life, reports of monsters, aliens, haunted houses, etc., almost always do the opposite. A report of "big foot" or a lake with a monster usually attracts hordes of reporters, investigators, and the just plain curious. So these kinds of films are not more believable. The only thing they do is make the viewer feel cheated.

Chris Gaskin Universal, which brought us massive hits like E.T. and the Jurassic Park movies, were responsible for this.It is the worst of the Universal monster movies of the 1950's, but I loved it. It is one of the better so-bad-it's-good movies and the thing that surprised me the most was that it was shot in colour, despite the low budget.The 'monster' has to be seen to be believed. The main female lead in this, Beverly Garland, is used to fighting out of this world monsters as she fought the 'carrot' in It Conquered the World.See this if you get the chance. It is worth watching just to see the 'monster'.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.