Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)

Beast from Haunted Cave: Directed by Monte Hellman. With Michael Forest, Sheila Noonan, Frank Wolff, Wally Campo. A group of gold thieves pull of a heist and flee into the snowy wilderness, only to be pursued by a horrible, spider-like monster.

“One of the rarest experiences for a B-movie fanatic is to find a film you havenu0026#39;t seen in 30-plus years is much better than your childhood memory of it. While u0026quot;Beast From Haunted Caveu0026quot; was obviously made on a shoestring — itu0026#39;s a Gene u0026quot;Brother Of Rogeru0026quot; Corman production, so what do you expect? — first-time director Monte Hellman (The Shooting, Two Lane Blacktop) had a better-than-average script and capable actors, not to mention a director of photography who made effective use of the stark winter landscape near Deadwood, South Dakota.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film starts out slow as a gang plans and executes a robbery, but then it veers off into darker territory as they and their guide are trailed to the hideout by a surprisingly well-realized and startlingly nasty monster.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is by no means a perfect film: There are occasional stumbles in motivation, dialogue and the timing of events, yet for me these inconsistencies actually contributed to an atmosphere of dreamlike disorientation as the story plays out against the bleached-bone white of the snow and the soot-black shadows of winter pines. The plight of the Beastu0026#39;s victims — cocooned alive, and fully aware as it feeds on them — yields a heaping helping of shudders. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe DVD transfer (Iu0026#39;m talking about the most recent release, not the one paired with u0026quot;The Brain That Wouldnu0026#39;t Dieu0026quot;) was made from an excellent print; the soundtrack is quite clear. You may recognize the score as the same used for u0026quot;Attack Of The Giant Leechesu0026quot; and — I think — u0026quot;Night Of The Blood Beastu0026quot;: These guys knew how to recycle!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eEven with its defects, this is a distinctly weird and surprisingly gruesome chiller, a fine example of how much can be accomplished even with limited resources.”