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 First off, they refer to star Robert Clarke as a "legendary science fiction
leading man of the 1950s" and trumpet the fact that he produced and directed
this movie. It is called an "Atomic Age chiller" about a scientist who becomes
a prehistoric creature whenever he is exposed to the light of the sun.
"[O]riginal cult classic" and "tense radioactive atmosphere" are phrases
bandied about on the box and they claim that the Sun Demon's "primordial mating
urges go berserk!" 1959, 75 minutes, DVD
Sometimes, an idea becomes an all consuming vision such that in order for it
to be done just right, the visionary behind it must do it all. Only in that way
can the artist's conception of things be fully realized. Orson Welles did it in Citizen Kane , Kevin Smith did it in Clerks and Robert Clarke did it in The Hideous Sun Demon . Clarke wrote, produced, directed and starred in this 1959
monster-on-the-loose shocker. Clarke, you see, was a "giant" sci-fi star of the
fifties, which is kind of like being the best player on the Iowa Hawkeye
football team. He starred in such milestones of the futuristic cinema as The Man From Planet X and The Astounding She-Monster . From the "successes" of these efforts, Clarke figured he could do it all
himself on a flick and make good money doing it. His big brainstorm was to do a
variation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He would write it, star in it, and make
it. It was to be his singular vision. Now the problem with such singular
visions is that they are often singularly bad. This is the case here.
Apparently, Clarke decided to update Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by making a crappy
version of it devoid of any of the pathos and themes of the duality of man's
nature that the original dealt with. Instead this one dealt with a dude in a
cheesy rubber mask running amok grunting at people.  Clarke plays a scientist named Gil (apparently scientists were named Gil in
the fifties) who was studying some weirdo isotopes when a horrible accident
occurred and he got some kind of sun poisoning from the whole fiasco. Also
working at the lab is his girlfriend, whose name escapes me, but we identify
her because she had dark hair. Later in the movie a blonde haired hussy, named
Trudie or Trixie or something is introduced to tempt Gil. Also at the lab is
Gil's boss, a stuffy sort who wears very tasteless, pinstriped, double-breasted
suits. He's worried about Gil, but also immediately attributes the accident to
Gil having a hangover, saying something like, "whiskey and science just don't
mix" and I'm thinking well, you probably should at least have a chaser if you
are going to try and mix the two. Gil's girlfriend is as faithful (and dumb) as
a loyal dog and retorts that Gil just had a headache. Come on he's a scientist,
not Scottie Pippen in the playoffs! Gil is rushed to the hospital, hits on some
nurses, is taken up the sun deck for a little sun (why would you take a hideous
Sun Demon up to a sun deck?) and the next thing you know old lady patients are
screaming their fool heads off as Gil starts a growling and turns into a bogus
Creature from the Black Lagoon. It seems that exposure to the suns rays turns
Gil into this reptilian monster who runs around and menaces people. The beauty
of this movie is that it is only 75 minutes long and all of the foregoing took
place in the first 14 minutes! Robert Clarke knows that us shambling-monster
fans have little patience for character and plot and reason and are in the
house to see dudes in ill-fitting costumes slobber on voluptuous hotties, the
size of their bosoms exceeded only by the size of their lungs.
Gil is now on the lam from everyone. He decides to hideout where most monsters
go when things get a little hot. He heads out to some dive of a bar on the
outskirts of the city. And his girlfriend bought his whole "it's just
headaches, honey" rap. What a mark. So he's at the bar and this is where we are
introduced to the blonde tramp that he takes an interest in. Trudie is playing
piano and singing. This is truly a double whammy because her piano playing is
the fakest I have ever seen committed to celluloid and her singing is almost as
stunningly bad as the song she croons. With her low cut dress and second-rate
pouting, you could see that she was trying to be the Aldi's version of Marilyn
Monroe. She and Gil hook up. I guess since he's a part-time hideous Sun Demon,
his commitment to his dark haired girlfriend is old news. I don't have a
problem if a guy is a Sun Demon during the day, but I just have no respect for
him when he uses that as an excuse for being a dog. Go MonsterHunter! Go
MonsterHunter! Go MonsterHunter! However, I will give the ole Sun Demon some
slick points for when he drives this blonde trollop to the beach, he lifts up
the arm rest in his vehicle to reveal a good sized flask of "headache
medicine." More slick points are awarded when he notices the sun coming up and
he takes off in the car, leaving that wanton harlot asleep on the beach.
Hideous indeed!  Eventually Gil hooks back up with his regular girlfriend and his boss and they
realize that he has become the Sun Demon. There is a scene where Clarke really
gets to show us his acting chops. It's one of those deals where he cries in
anguish over the beast he has become and that he killed a man while he was the
Sun Demon. Clarke was making these pained faces (prunes'll take care that) and
burying his head in his girlfriend's chest (five slick points) and wondering
what he had done to deserve this fate (um, Robert, you did come up with the
story, such as it was). I'm sure that when he did that scene, he was thinking
about how great a thespian he was, but it was so forced you just held your
breath and looked away until you heard his wimpering stop. The cops show up to
arrest the Sun Demon, so Clarke, who moments before was all broken up about
what a monster he had become, runs away. If you were really upset, wouldn't you
turn yourself in before somebody else got hurt? The coolest part was that in
his getaway, he drove over a cop. He wasn't even that crazy, monstrous Sun
Demon then! Just ran his ass over! A city-wide Sun Demon-hunt ensues, complete
with fake newspaper headline: WEIRD MONSTER ON LOOSE IN CITY! or something like
that. The Sun Demon goes running around and is chased by a dog at one point. I
was thinking, "what kind of lame monster gets chased by a dog?" But then the
Sun Demon turned around strangled the dog and threw a big cinderblock on its
head for good measure. "That's more like it," I thought.
Eventually, it was time for the climax. It was on top of a big watertower or
some really tall structure. A single cop was chasing him and shot him in the
back once. The Sun Demon played possum for a bit, then got up and started to go
after the cop. Instead of shooting him again, the cop throws his gun at the Sun
Demon who goes "ouch" and proceeds to try to choke the life out of the guy.
Somehow or other the Sun Demon gets shot again and falls off the top of this
really tall building and the camera takes a long, loving look at the dummy the
prop people threw off the building in place of Robert Clarke (durn!).
Conveniently, Gil's girlfriend and boss are there to watch his nosedive and
it's not too long before Gil becomes the Hideous Sun Pancake. Splat! The end.
Roll credits. The movie really didn't work on any level. It wasn't any good and
it wasn't bad in a spectacular way. It was all workmanlike and dispassionate.
Clarke couldn't approach Ed Wood territory because he didn't care enough about
the picture to make it deliriously bad. Wood did it out of a love making
movies. He just didn't have the talent to pull it off, but he was so earnest in
his efforts that absurdity was sure to follow. Clarke's film is unimaginatively
staged and comes off stilted. Much of the time, the single angle shots look
like those dull educational films of that era. I kept waiting to hear Gil's
boss talk about the evils of VD. The sound in the movie was so bad it sounded
like it had been recorded in vast, empty warehouse. This is one of those movies
you see simply so that you can say " The Hideous Sun Demon ? Yeah, I've seen that. It wasn't as good as Monster On The Campus ." Hey, when's that one coming to DVD?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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