JLRVancouver "The Giant Claw" is an adorably horrible monster movie featuring a silly plot, inept script, pedestrian acting, and the most endearingly ridiculous monster ever to threaten mankind. Stories abound about disappearing budgets, Mexican puppet makers, Jeff Morrow slinking out of the theatre when he first saw his feathered antagonist, etc., all of which elevate the movie to the rarified status of one of the "Worst Movies Ever". This is, of course, nonsense, as most people would not bother to finish the "Worst Movie Ever"; whereas, people watch "The Giant Claw" (and its ilk) over and over again. I'd bet in 50 years people will still be snickering over the anti-matter space buzzard when, for example, "Star Trek: Beyond" doesn't even make it into trivia contests. How do you rate a movie that is awful by any measure but yet makes the world a better, or at least a more whimsical, place simply by existing? Metaphorically, HAL would give it a 0, Dave would give it a 10, so I'll split the difference and give it a 5.

O2D Here we go with another movie that had potential but ended up making 70 minutes seem like an eternity. A giant bird starts attacking Earth and scientists immediately know everything about it and how to defeat it. They couldn't have made it look less like a bird.I would have rather seen a guy in a bird suit. The majority of the movie is the generic scientist and his attractive female side kick getting close to the bird and "having planes ready" for them.Knowing that the bird(and anything from its planet) can't be hurt by earth weapons,they go to its nest(that they just assumed existed and instantly found) and destroy its egg with 3 bullets.Did I mention that there's a legend that says just seeing the bird means you are going to die?One guy knows that and when he gets killed(the bird throws some twigs on the people who destroyed its egg and then eats the other guy) the main guy says "He was right about seeing the bird", even though they see it every 5 minutes. There was absolutely no reason for this to be named The Giant Claw.Maybe The Giant Bird-like Thing? There's also no reason to ever watch this.

Robert J. Maxwell Near the beginning, the airplane in which hero Jeff Morrow and heroine Mara Corday are flying is forced down in the Canadian wilderness by some sort of UFO imperceptible to radar. They hole up in the cabin belonging to the heavily accented but affable Pierre Broussard, who gives them glasses of homemade applejack while they recover from the shock of the crash landing. The telephone rings. "Oui, this is the house of Pierre Broussard." A pause while the caller asks for Jeff Morrow. And the very French Pierre Broussard replies, "Ein moment," in German.I didn't mind. It was already clear that not too much directorial attention would be lavished on this story of still another flying monster appearing out of nowhere and bumping into airplanes and driving people crazy before eating them. If you want to see an outstanding spoof of the genre, try to catch "Q", with Michael Moriarty.The special effects could have been done by a child, but this is 1957 and it's Columbia Pictures with the stingy Harry Cohn in charge. One kind of airplane in flight may suddenly change to a different type. Footage is clipped shamelessly from earlier movies. When the monster eats someone, there is a crunch, as of a potato chip. Yet it's not that cheap a picture. There are several sets that are adequately done and enough extras around when they're needed. The dialog is straight-jacketed by the formula but it still shows a bit of originality, probably when the writers managed to slip it past the eyes of Cohn. Morrow even gets to paraphrase Shakespeare -- "Love sought is good, but given unsought is better." It's from "Twelfth Night" and not an old chestnut.Of course the UFO is a giant bird that attacks one airplane after another. Morrow plots out the attacks on a map but nobody sees any kind of pattern until he traces a spiral -- the bird knows Fibonacci numbers! And why shouldn't it? After all, the thing may be a bird but it's from outer space, and maybe we've been misapplying the term "bird brain" all along. I have a friend who holds deep conversations with his parrot, but the damned bird is a mind/body dualist and my friend is a logical positivist, so the parrot is more of an irritation than anything else. They argue so loudly and so frequently that it disturbs the neighbors.Soon enough, Morrow and Corday are working with the military, trying to figure out how this rubber chicken -- made of anti-matter -- could have gotten here and why. It seems to "absorb energy from whatever it destroys, buildings, people." How? "Sort of a molecular osmosis." It's finally destroyed with "mesic atoms" after Morrow discovers a way to make them last more than a few nanoseconds.It was a relief to see the thing flung into a tank of water by some guy off screen, not only because it saved the earth but because it saved the sanity of so many viewers.

junkof9-1 I'm a huge science fiction fan, constantly on the lookout for any film with a futuristic theme – everything from "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe", to "Forbidden Planet", to "Pacific Rim". As a classic film buff as well, I know that, from film's earliest days, up until George Lucas redefined the box office potential with the megahit "Star Wars", science fiction movies were usually relegate to "B" status and assigned budgets accordingly. What is really amazing is just how much the special effects wizards (in the time before ILM) were able to accomplish on such skimpy budgets. Sometimes though, the budgets were so skimpy there was no possible way to make a believable monster – which brings me to "The Giant Claw". Before I ever saw the movie I had a negative impression because it seemed to top all the "worst movie ever" lists (e.g. The Golden Turkey Awards). However, when I finally got the opportunity to see the movie for myself, I was surprised how much better the script and acting were than what I had expected. I ended up enjoying "The Giant Claw" as much as more highly regarded '50s Sci-Fi such as "Them", "The Giant Mantis", or "It Came From Beneath the Sea". If "The Giant Claw" had substance as good as those movies though, where it fell flat was style. You can have the best acting, directing, cinematography, and sound; but, as the old saying goes – at some point the monster has to jump out and say "boo"; and that's where "The Giant Claw" falls flat. I mean, as one reviewed noted, the best way to describe the monster is looking like a half plucked Christmas turkey that escaped a Safeway freezer - 50 years ago. One could speculate how much better it would have seemed - even then - if an effects wizard such as Ray Harryhausen could have had the time and budget to make a more believable monster. However, it is what it is and "The Giant Claw" is great fun to watch; sometimes adding a bit of cheese make the best tasting popcorn.