ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE, part VII: "Creature From the Haunted Sea" and Bettergoods Italian Wood-Fired Margherita Pizza

The #1 reason Roger Corman is so lauded is because of how many people he helped along the way - not just burgeoning young filmmakers but established ones as well, helping to distribute Fellini and Kurosawa movies to U.S. audiences. He used his powers for good, and he obtained those powers from making his own movies - which weren't always good. 

Creature From the Haunted Sea is a 1961 Action Horror Comedy directed by Roger himself (though it's incredibly skimpy on those three elements). It's a Spy Movie and a Monster Movie, but technically it's a sendup of all the genres it attempts: when the budget's this low and the quality's this bad, maybe some cheap laughs will distract you. And there are a few genuinely funny lines, but a lotta the buffoonery falls flat to the point that you're not laughing with it or at it. The movie starts with a very promising animated sequence as an expository device, but the exposition carries over into the feature as our lead character (played by Robert Towne - yes, that Robert Towne) narrates the picture in a mockingly hardboiled way. The premise is a group of gangsters are trying to help some Cuban politicians flee their country with a treasure chest of gold, and then their boat sinks along the shore of an island of horny women, and there's sometimes a sea creature. Typically in dreck as humdrum and derivative as this we can usually bank on ample gore and T&A, but mostly this movie leans into its hijinks and commits to the "spoof". The monster is good for a brief laugh as it's basically a soggy bathmat with Freddy Krueger gloves and googly eyes, but the novelty of cheap costumes wore off, like, a thousand B-movies ago. It's a meandering 75 minutes which probably flies by faster at the drive-in than in your living room. 

 Do not be fooled by this hoity toity pizza brand - it is, in fact, Walmart brand in a fancy wrapper. Though this is their faux-gourmet, "trend-forward" brand, meaning they throw this label on their almond milk and Greek yogurt and shit like that. But if there's one thing we really kinda hate it's sophisticated pizza, regardless of whether it's Walmart or some bourgeois brick oven joint - so it's really hard to tell if it's the fanciness or the fact that it's still just store brand frozen pizza that's making it yucky. It definitely gives a homemade vibe in presentation and in flavor - were the sauce not so sour you'd barely notice there was even a pizza there. But still, we were at least successful in finding another match. 

The Movie: D+

The Pizza: D+