This movie could be a textbook definition of “psychotronic.” You’ve never seen anything quite like it. In fact, we really get two movies in one. It’s a horror movie! It’s a western! However, the two movies are unrelated until the final twenty minutes of the larger movie.
Tagline: “WANTED! Have you seen this sheep?”
Notable review: “Simultaneously grotesque, pitiable, and hilarious.” —- Stephen Thrower, Nightmare USA
WTF Factor: *****
Notable dialogue:
Silverdale: “What the hell have you done, Clemens? What kind of beast was that?”
Clemens: “Easy, take it easy. That’s my hybrid out there, Silverdale. You can’t kill it… This may be one of the most important scientific discoveries in history. If we can isolate the animal, study it, we may have the key to the mystery of creation itself.”
Synopsis: Movie #1 – We start with an unpleasant closeup of sheep. Eddie (Richard Marion) sells some of his sheep in Reno, accompanied by annoying music, and then goes into a casino where he wins $200 at slots. He falls in with a bad crowd at the bar and is taken to a party in Comstock. Needless to say this doesn’t turn out well. They end up in a sleazy bar with banjo players and old timey cowboy and saloon girl costumes. Eddie gets his pocket picked by a saloon girl, then gets beaten up and thrown out for accusing her of theft. The townies have clearly done this before.
Clemens (E. Kerrigan Prescott), a professor of anthropology at “a university in Reno,” takes Eddie home. Eddie jumps in with the sheep to sleep it off. He has hallucinations of flying sheep and golden spotlights and finally passes out, for which I am glad. Clemons and his assistant Mariposa (Karen Ingenthron) come back the next day to check on Eddie. They find him in the paddock next to what they describe as a half-formed sheep embryo.
Movie #2 – Historian Mayor Silverdale (Stuart Lancaster) despises tourists and watches Main Street of Virginia City through a telescope from his house. He prides himself on having restored Virginia City to its gold mining era glory days. His assistant Phillip Maldove (Steven Kent Browne) complains about Madame Alta’s (pseudo-?)whorehouse on Main Street, but Silverdale says it’s part of the real history of the town. Meanwhile, Clemens, Mariposa, and Eddie drive to Clemens’ private laboratory to try and save the creature.
City slicker Barnstable (Christopher Brooks) offers to buy the Comstock area for $10,000,000 on behalf of a buyer out East. Silverdale won’t sell. Silverdale points out the historic nature of the town, and also that he knows Barnstable works for a mining concern.
Maldove questions the junkyard caretaker about his recent discoveries, whatever they are. He wants a report on the waste from Clemens’ lab. Mariposa fetches electrical cable from Sheriff Gordon, who is setting up a town surveillance system. The mayor really does want to keep an eye and ear on everything. Then Eddie does this from Mariposa’s passenger seat:
Mariposa takes Eddie to the local cemetery where they make out. Unknown to them, Madame Alta is watching. Meanwhile, the embryo is growing larger and larger. It is apparently related to sheep but some sort of hybrid, according to Clemens. Madame Alta reads Mariposa’s fortune and warns her of evil, telling her to leave the area immediately. It turns out Maldove and Madame Alta are working together, although Alta doesn’t seem very happy about it.
Clemons and Mariposa visit the carefully labeled Chollar Mine. While Clemens digs up fossils, a yellow gas emanates from the mine and Mariposa becomes ill. Clemons says the gas is not poisonous. He exposition dumps an old miners’ tale about a prehistoric animal and speculates about a link to “phosphorated gases.”
It’s old-timey Bonanza Days in Virginia City. Maldove tells Silverdale that they are dealing with Barnstable “in our own way.” During a shooting contest, the Sheriff accuses Barnstable of shooting his dog, although the dog is just playing dead (none too convincingly, I might add). Barnstable apologizes but then says, ”It’s just a damn dog,” so we know he’s not a good guy. Later that day there is a church service for the dog. Afterwards Eddie tells Barnstable that the dog’s death was fake. Now none of the townspeople will sell their mine rights to Barnstable.
Barnstable is hanging out in Madame Alta’s saloon when a drunken Maldove comes in and pulls a gun on him. Madame Alta is not pleased. Meanwhile, Clemens tells Mariposa and Eddie about the legend of the “Great Mine Disaster of 1874,” when the miners suffered hallucinations from gases, and there were flames and explosions in the mines. Theoretically the prehistoric creature the miners were afraid of was incinerated. During this conversation, the creature in the lab is growling constantly, but no one seems to notice.
We cut back to more Virginia City festivities, including a pie eating contest. Eddie convinces the kids to throw their pies at Maldove, who blames Barnstable for it. Maldove goes looking for Barnstable and invites him back to his place for a drink. Maldove beats Barnstable up pretty good and shoots himself in the arm (a teeny, tiny bit) to make it look like Barnstable did it. Barnstable wakes up in jail.
Maldove gathers the “Society of the 601,” a local “frontier justice” group, and incites a lynch mob, even though Silverdale nominally objects. The mob don’t care. Hooded vigilantes kidnap Barnstable from the jail and haul him out to the mine where they’ve set up a noose for hanging. Maldove refers to it as “a little ritual.” Yikes.
Maldove says Barnstable will be found with a broken neck from a fall. Luckily a car pulls up and Barnstable manages to escape and jump in. Madame Alta is driving the car and they go to Clemens’ lab. The locals suit up with tear gas and close in on the lab. Clemens won’t allow the outsiders into the lab and when Barnstable doesn’t come forward, the vigilantes attack, filling the lab with tear gas. The eight-foot creature finally breaks out and our previously unrelated movies start to meld. Clemens gives up Barnstable and Barnstable gets beaten pretty badly.
The creature kills one of the vigilantes. Clemens wants to capture the creature alive so he can study it and Mariposa runs off to search for it. Mariposa finds the creature and tries to talk it down, waving her arms and sort of dancing with it. I think the creature is supposed to be hypnotized. Eddie misunderstands and throws a rock at the creature, who runs away.
The mayor declares a state of emergency and martial law. Clemens insists that the creature is intelligent and important for research. The Mayor and Sheriff figure it will make a good tourist attraction. The creature sneaks up on some children and steals their picnic. It then ambles over to a gas station, which blows up real good.
The locals come after the creature on horseback with ropes and cables, led by Silverdale and Clemens. They find the creature and encircle it with lassos. Clemens sedates it.
Silverdale meets with Barnstable and tells him that he has bought up all the mining rights himself for conservation purposes, except ha,ha, no, actually, he then sold them all directly to Barnstable’s boss back east for mining purposes, cutting Barnstable out of the action. They then arrive at a town meeting that appears to be held at the top of the city dump. Silverdale takes custody of the creature, although Clemens protests the commercialism of his plans. Eddie and Mariposa also loudly object at the meeting and the townspeople turn on the mayor when they realize he has sold their mining rights. A big fight breaks out.
Silverdale reveals the caged creature, which is on the back of a truck balanced on the top of the town dump. The townspeople attack the creature and a shootout develops. Maldove is shot, to no one’s dismay. The truck carrying the creature slowly rolls down the hill a bit and then explodes for no particular reason. Silverdale goes bananas, laughing maniacally, shouting, “Violence in the name of justice controls the masses!”
We end with another unpleasant shot of the sheep and another creature developing.
Thoughts: It’s always a warning sign when you see the credit, “Written, Directed, and Produced by…,” in this case, Fredric Hobbs. At least he didn’t star in it too (I’m looking at you, Harold P. Warren), although he couldn’t be worse than most of the other actors. Hobbs, I think, has a genuine claim to being an auteur of sorts. He was a legitimate artist and sculptor who dabbled in various forms of artistic expression. He made four movies in the early 1970s, this being the last. It isn’t a particularly good movie, but it is unique.
For example, at the beginning, Eddie walks into a deserted, silent casino, accompanied by loud, spooky music.
When he hits the jackpot, suddenly the casino is full of people and normal casino sounds. Like many scenes in the movie, it probably was intended to symbolize something, but who knows what? Another example is when Mariposa catches up with the newly escaped creature and dances(?) with it to calm it down.
The creature plot has very little to do with the rest of the movie, and in fact, has little to no impact on the mining rights plot. One disturbing note is Clemens’ frequent assertion that the creature is a hybrid and the result of “chromosomic breakdown and cross-fertilization” [Science!] I could buy that this was a mutant caused by the hand-wavy “phosphoric gases,” but what exactly went into the hybrid mix?
It’s really impossible to describe the creature design; it really needs to be seen in action. On the plus side, it’s not like anything you’ve seen before. On the down side, it doesn’t make any sense (Why would one front leg be at least twice the length of the other? On the other hand, why not?). The filmmaker deserves props for trying something different, at least. The costume must have been very difficult to walk in, since the creature’s slow, wobbling gait destroys any illusion of danger.
The movie is surprisingly expansive in its locations and scope. There is quite a bit of outdoor photography and relatively elaborate costumes. This is partially explained by:
Notable credit: …and the Citizens of Virginia City as Themselves
The movie was filmed on location at Virginia City, and it is difficult to imagine why the city would have cooperated in this venture, unless you know that Hobbs was a landowner there and had connections in the region. The citizens were wearing the costumes that they normally wore for tourist activities. This adds a lot of production value to a clearly low budget film. Throw in bottle shooting and pie eating competitions and it might be an advertisement for good clean American fun. However, the depiction of the town as a hotbed of corruption and vigilantism isn’t exactly a good selling point for tourism, especially the attempted lynching of the city’s only visible African-American.
On that topic, one could argue that the movie is anti-vigilante, and that Barnstable is being persecuted simply as a random outsider who pissed off Maldove. However, the messages are muddled throughout the movie. The end of Movie #2, where the mayor is ranting about power and yelling that he beat Barnstable (who walks away) is presented in a way that suggests the end of the world. And of course, the final ending makes it clear that our creature was not alone. The mind boggles at a sequel but really, it should have happened.
Totally recommended. It’s currently streaming on Amazon.
Random thoughts:
- The movie was never widely released into theaters, so it wasn’t generally available until it came out on DVD in 2001.
- The Chollar Mine, where Clemens digs for fossils, is a local tourist attraction.
- Most of the main actors also appeared in Hobbs’ previous movie, Alabama Flats (1973).
- Who, or what, exactly, is the Godmonster? I’d love to know the derivation of this title. I guess someone thought it sounded good.
Suggested double feature: I could argue that this movie stands alone, but it might pair up with the 2006 New Zealand movie Black Sheep.
Tagline for coming attraction: “Things you never saw before or even dreamed of!” (This would have been an appropriate tagline for Godmonster of Indian Flats too).
