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 This is all about a "terrifying creature from the past [that] brings the future
to its knees!" The creature in question is a "cold-blooded 90-foot killer".
In the Arctic tundra some Danish guys find "the remains of a huge prehistoric
monster" after drilling into it. The monster "regenerates itself and goes on a
"blood-curdling reptilian rampage". Bombs and missiles don't hurt him and now
that "he's defrosted...civilization is about to be COOKED!" 1961, 82 minutes, DVD
You never fully appreciate how great those Godzilla movies are (even when he's
taking on someone like Gigan or Megalon) until you witness what happens when
someone who ain't Japanese tries their hand at it. Just when you thought that Gorgo was the worst European effort to duplicate the giant monster rampaging across
a city goodness that served all of Godzilla's 477 movies so well, comes this
entry from Denmark. Denmark? That's one of those countries up north that I
always confuse with Holland, The Netherlands, and Amsterdam. Denmark is mainly
known for all its super-liberal immoral laws on sex and drugs while denying
their citizens the God-given right to arm themselves against all those horny
junkies that are running around over there sticking their fingers in dikes or
something (huh?). If there was a country more deserving than Denmark to be
stomped into a left-wing blonde grease spot, I couldn't name it right off the
top of my All-American head. The whole time I was enduring this Danish
bellyache, I was wiping tears away from my face, ashamed at how much I had
dumped on that poor old Gorgo. Oh Gorgo, if only you were here to lumber
through town and trample the decorative fountains and palace of the Danish
king! If only there was some unscrupulous circus promoter that chained you up,
so that you could break free and take a big dump on their art museums. If only
this movie was about a guy in a bad rubber suit, instead of an amateurishly
made and animated model terrorizing all the opium dens and kiddie porn
producers that make up most of downtown Copenhagen. If I wasn't into blaming
other people so much, I would probably have to assume a little bit of
responsibility, what with the whole "you knew it was a crap sandwich when you
smelled it
and took a big fat bite anyway" school of thought.  First of all, the people starring in this movie had last names like Ottosen,
Smyrner, and Heinrich. I don't know about you, but when I see a bunch of
foreign-sounding names that I never heard of populating a movie and none of
them are Italian, I'm mashing that panic button pretty good. Also, since this
is one of those MGM Midnite Movies, they have these dumb little "fun facts" on
the back. You know - pointless bits of trivia that usually is pretty
indicative of how awful the movie is going to be. For instance on the Fall Of The House Of Usher disc, it brags up how that film was one of the top five money makers of 1960.
In the case of this movie you've got little blurbs like
"900,000 people were used as extras in this movie - the entire population of
Copenhagen!" Well, I was pretty sure that this movie (or any movie for that
matter) didn't round up close to a million people for crowd shots. Though if
it ever could be done, you'd have to do it in a city where there's nothing else
for the locals to do. A place perhaps named after a chewing tobacco. Another
little tidbit they generously provided to whet your appetite for this frozen
guano pop was that the movie was such a cult favorite that clips were shown on
that hideous pre-fab four show The Monkees. I have never seen that show and I never will (well, unless they release it as
part of a series of DVDs like the Midnite Movies collection or the EuroShock
Collection, then I'd probably pre-order it), but I can't believe that Davy
Jones and the boys ran clips of this thing because it was good. Now, as soon
as the movie started and it was revealed that things were going to start while
some guys were drilling for copper in Lapland (is that near Santa's Village or
something?) and their drill accidentally drilled up some prehistoric flesh,
blood and bone and then somehow they managed to drill out an entire chunk of
prehistoric tail (you usually have to go to the nursing home for that!) and that
this tail was going to be shipped back to a refrigerator back in Copenhagen for
further study, I was ready to go play in one of the old abandoned refrigerators
in that vacant lot near my step kids' elementary school.  Since it was frozen and wrapped in aluminum foil or something for seventy
million years, this tail is perfectly preserved. Not only that, but it is the
tail of a reptile and not a mammal. This for some reason was a big deal, but I
was never impressed by that. To me, I would've have been just as impressed if
it had
been a giant mammal or giant fish one of those really big bugs that always try
to take over desert towns. Even
better would have been if it was a ninety foot tall caveman or something called
Neadercus or Cro Maximus or something equally catchy. They keep it in this
cooler at their lab and set about studying it. For some reason all the lab
guys are really old, decrepit types, but they do have young, blonde daughters
that hang around for some reason (probably to give Svend, the blonde driller -
is that his porn nickname? - and General Mark something to ogle while there's
some down time in the war against Reptilicus). There is also a blonde chick
from the United Nations (UNESCO to be exact) who is there for some reason.
These movies always try to suck up to those commies in the U.N. by having some
official there to get coffee or make copies or something. We know that in real
life that organization solely exists to promote its anti-American third world
agenda. If I was the mayor of NYC, I'd walk down there to the U.N. building
and nail up a notice of eviction on their door. Then I'd have solid,
proud-to-be-American companies move into there like Old Navy, Kay-Bee Toys, and
Waldenbooks and turn that sucker into a shopping mall. Who needs a Security
Council gumming up your foreign policy when you've got a food court with a Taco
John's and an Orange Julius? Back at the Danish lab, they hire a guy named
Petersen to keep an eye on things. I guess he's the Danish equivalent of a
security guard because he's got an I.Q. of 70 (that's average for a Dane, you
know) and wears brand new bib overalls, giving him that "lumbering molester"
look so many aspire to. He walks around checking gauges with a flashlight even
though every light in the lab is on and he does stupid stuff like sticking his
hand into the electric eel tank. He's also prone to wild facial gesticulations
that makes Ernest P. Worrell
look positively De Niro-esque. 
One of the old coots tells Petersen that he'll be working all night, so not to
bother checking on that tail because Old Coot will keep an eye on that tail
(and most likely a gnarled hand on it as well). Petersen leaves and Old Coot
promptly dozes off for the next 45 hours, accidentally not closing the door all
the way. When Old Coot's boss arrives, he finds out that Old Coot let the
dang tail thaw out and now it's all ruined. Except for the fact that it's
regenerating itself. I don't know if they ever bothered to try and explain
this, though I do recall someone babbling about how starfish can regenerate
themselves as well as flatworms as if that somehow explains how a chunk of tail
frozen in the ice for millions of years can be thawed out and grow into a giant
green-gunk spewing monster. If this Reptilicus guy was so awesome, how come he
didn't survive, except all frozen in the ice? Where have your regeneration
powers been for the last seventy million years, big guy? Where's the rest of
your species? Surely whenever you died or where killed, you could just
regenerate a hundred more of you and slowly spread your gigantic reign of
terror all across the globe until we had a planet of Reptilicuses where humans
were enslaved and they stole our women for their own dastardly purposes
(breeding or vacuuming most likely). But it didn't happen that way, did it?
Nope. So I'm not buying your regeneration gimmick. In spite of my utter
disbelief, this thing does regenerate into a terrible model of a big serpent
with little arms and/or wings (though I don't remember it ever flying - it just
sort of flopped its head around and barfed out its acid bile. Just to give you
an idea of what kind of minor league science operation they have going in
Copenhagen, the monster gets its name at a press conference when some reporter
asks what the creature's called and one of the old coots says they don't know
so the
reporter suggests Reptilicus something or other and the old coot says "sounds
goot
to me". That's professional taxonomy for you, Copenhagen style! As this thing was regenerating, I was thinking that maybe they should be taking
precautions against what would happen once this thing gets full grown. I
didn't expect that the thing would be housebroken or anything once it finally
woke up. To their credit, someone at the lab suggested that maybe they should
build a bigger tank, but the next thing you know Reptilicus is on the loose and
the absolute worst special effects you have ever seen are unleashed on
Copenhagen. Just how bad are the effects in this one? Well, there's one scene
where Reptilicus is eating someone and what we see is a paper cut-out of a
person going into this thing's mouth. It was like something out of Monty
Python. As bad as the movie was, I actually went back to that scene to watch
it again, because I thought that there was no way anyone could actually put a
shot like that in a commercially released movie, but there it was. The shots
of the green goo (Gak is what I think it would be called on Nickelodeon) this
thing barfs up on people were also some of the worst bits of effects work
you'll ever cringe through. I also couldn't understand how the military
geniuses
could lose track of Reptilicus periodically. Uh, he's a ninety-foot long sea
serpent that is stomping a mudhole in your town and walking it dry. I don't
think he's engaging in any deep cover operations here. The remainder of the
film involves
chintzy models getting damaged by even chintzier monster until someone fires a
bazooka with some sleeping drug in the rocket into Reptilicus' mouth causing
him to take a nap in the middle of the street. The movie even threatens
"sequel" on our dumb asses when they end it with a shot of a chunk of
Reptilicus in the ocean regenerating. Truly a horrifying experience in every
sense of the word. I'm not sure what these Danish dopes were up to when they
decided to shoot this thing, but if it was to get some free pub for their only
city,
mission accomplished! Thanks for warning me off of visiting your city full of
dimwitted scientists, sweaty generals, and pathetically half-hearted monsters.
They even stop the movie for about two minutes in the middle so that the
general and one of the broads can drive around Copenhagen pointing out all the
sights to him, like this was some kind of Chamber of Commerce travel video. I
used it to build up a wish list of places I wish that Reptilicus would urp all
over. Even if you like your monster booty calls to involve the destruction of
famous (or in this case famous to Danes only) landmarks, I would advise in the
strongest terms to stay away from this piece of tail.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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