Claudio Carvalho In Oregon, a meteor crashes into Crater Lake and heats the water, hatching a dinosaur egg. Months later, fishes have vanished from the lake and a huge dinosaur hunts cattle and human to feed. The local Sheriff Steve Hanson (Richard Cardella) investigates the mysterious disappearance of tourists and even a criminal. He also tells to the rednecks Arnie Chabot (Glenn Roberts) and Mitch Kowalski (Mark Siegel) that they shall not rent their boats to the tourists. When he discovers the dinosaur, his friend Richard 'Doc' Calkins (Bob Hyman) and two scientists asks him to leave the animal alive for the scientific community. Will Steve let the dinosaur live?"The Crater Lake Monster" is a terrible and lame dinosaur film with awful story, screenplay, performances and special effects. The characters Arnie and Mitch are annoying and unfunny. There is a thief and murderer that appears in the middle of the story only to be eaten by the dinosaur in one of the most ridiculous scenes. When the sheriff discovers the existence of the dinosaur, he does not summon the army or the National Guard and prefers to confront the animal with a revolver and a bulldozer. The DVD from Rhino is very poor, without subtitles or extras; therefore adequate for this shameful flick. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): Not Available on Blu-Ray or DVD (fortunately)

MartinHafer This film is about a small lakeside town that is terrorized by a giant dinosaur. Now you'd THINK it would be easy to locate a 75 feet-long behemoth (give or take 10 feet)--but no one seems to realize what's happening during most of the film! The police as well as two local idiots all investigate and inexplicably don't notice the dang thing! As a result, there's a minimum of action or suspense in the film--something you'd certainly expect from a film about a creature that snacks on people! The bottom line is that "The Crater Lake Monster" is a very bad film. It obviously had a very low budget and doesn't have a lot to recommend it. However, in addition to the usual very bad acting and horrible writing you'd expect in a schlock movie with a score of 2.4, it has something even more laughable--a silly 'monster'. While it's supposed to be a scary dinosaur, it looks more like a children's plastic toy in many scenes. The closeups aren't much better, as the thing still looks very plastic and seems about as scary as a Twinkie. If you like laughing at terrible films, this one is for you. Otherwise, steer clear!

Aaron1375 First off, this movie bears a striking resemblance to the Japanese film "Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds". I would suggest one of them ripped off the other, but both came out in 1977. They have nearly identical setups as a dinosaur is released thanks to strange disasters and it begins to feed on the locals. That one though did have a huge volcanic eruption at the end and a monster bird thrown in for fun, while this one has two guys that are in the film way too much. So the winner of who was the better film goes to the Japanese film. It took itself a bit too seriously, but this one spent a bit too much time on two characters that I suppose the filmmakers thought were a riot. I have read how bad this film is and when it started I was thinking, "this is not to bad." Two people were killed in quick succession in between the monster attacking a herd of cows so I did not think it was going to be a super great film, but at least it looked as if there would be plenty of action. Then the film focuses on this two losers with a boat renting place and it will show you scenes that seem to have no reason for being in the film.The story has a meteor crashing into a lake and this will warm the lake up enough to incubate a dinosaur egg. Time passes, though there was nothing to indicate this, and it gets big and begins chomping on the locals and the tourists. Sheriff knows somethings is wrong, but it is not until later that it all comes together for him. The plot was okay, had they done a better job of crafting the film and had more bloody kills this one could of been a classic. Unfortunately, there are huge stretches of nothing happening and a strange moment where a man robs a liquor store and shoots two people that almost seems to come from another movie.The thing that really drags this film down though is Arnie and his buddy as they chew up more scenery than the dinosaur chews up people. You will have to watch them have discussions, fight, and sit around drinking and then walking and not having any encounters with the dinosaur until the end where I gave the film one more point than I was when the dinosaur at least got a hold of one of these bozos. If they had focused on the dinosaur and had some more action this film would have been still bad, but more watchable. Watching two guys being portrayed as funny, but they are not...boring.So this film pretty much is your standard Jaws ripoff. The only thing that makes it stand out is the two buds and the strange inclusion of a robbery and chase. The film was pretty boring for the most part, but I will say it was rather bloody for a PG rated film as we even have a severed head thrown into it. Could have been good, if the makers of this film did not think those two idiots were super funny.

Vomitron_G We have a lake. We have an animated meteor crashing. We have a killer stop-motion dinosaur with flippers. Okay, so let's call this movie THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER. What else can we add? Hmm, two idiots called Arnie & Mitch to define the ultimate definition of "comic relief". We also got to have a sheriff who doesn't really do a damn thing in this film and whom nobody listens to. Aw crap, we're over halfway through the movie and we forgot to insert a bad guy! No worries, let's introduce some guy with a moustache, have him rob a store to indicate he's a bad guy, then have him pop up somewhere near the lake, have him chased through the woods and all this for the sole purpose of him ending up as dinosaur snack food. That should work.A complete, clumsy mess, this film. Its logic will twist your mind to force laughter out of you. The first film to feature Dave Allen as a "stop motion supervisor". After this one, he joined forces with Charles Band for several years until the the mid-nineties, when Band ran out of money to pay him, I guess. The dinosaur effects are charming and the whole film is pretty damn unintentionally funny. Unfortunately, that's about the only good thing that can be said for it.Good Badness? Yes. The mind-bending logic in the narrative should be enough reason for that. If not, Arnie & Mitch will do the trick. 3/10 and 8/10