Back in the 1970s, if you wanted a monster movie, you had a few options. You could spend a fortune making Jaws and redefine the genre forever. You could grab a rubber suit, splash on some ketchup, and make a drive-in flick that might at least be fun. Or, if you were the makers of The Crater Lake Monster, you could take the worst parts of both approaches, throw in some stop-motion magic, let a B-movie distributor butcher your final product, and pray for cult status. What you get is a film where the scariest thing isn’t the monster—it’s the editing.
A Monster is Born (and Mutilated)
William R. Stromberg, the man behind this beast, had a dream: to make a classic, old-school creature feature, the kind that made drive-in moviegoers spill their popcorn. Alongside his writing partner and lead actor Richard Cardella, Stromberg wanted to create a film in the vein of 1950s monster movies, with all the camp and charm that implies. But then Crown International Pictures, notorious for churning out bottom-shelf genre flicks, got their claws into the production and promptly turned that dream into a nightmare.
Crown’s involvement meant budget cuts, lost footage, and a final product that looked less like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and more like The Beast from the Back of Someone’s Garage. Post-production was virtually non-existent, with critical finishing touches—like tinting day-for-night scenes—left unfinished, making nighttime sequences look like they were filmed during brunch. The result? A film that barely understands time of day, let alone suspense.
Swimming with the Sharks (and Losing Badly)
For a movie that features a giant prehistoric sea creature, the real stars of The Crater Lake Monster are two bumbling boat renters and a sheriff with the reaction time of a tranquilized sloth. Richard Cardella took on the role of Sheriff Steve Hanson, the only person in town even remotely concerned that people are getting eaten. Meanwhile, Glenn Roberts and Mark Siegel play Arnie and Mitch, two entrepreneurs whose boat rental business has the same survival rate as the movie’s side characters.
The special effects are where things get “interesting.” David W. Allen, a stop-motion wizard, gave the plesiosaur some genuinely cool animation, but it’s shoved into a movie that does it no favors. The monster attacks are awkwardly inserted, often using a rubber head that looks like it was stolen from a knockoff Halloween store. And then there’s the editing. Scenes cut together with the grace of a car crash. There’s no sense of time or continuity—characters seem to teleport around, as if the movie itself got lost on the way to its own plot.
Cult Status or Just Cult-Like?
Critics weren’t exactly kind. George R. Reis from DVD Drive-In called it “one of the worst giant monster flicks of all time.” Buzz McClain from AllMovie described it as an experiment in how not to make a movie. Even the best reviews sound like backhanded compliments. Andrew Smith of Popcorn Pictures admitted the stop-motion effects were “worth one look” but only in the way that car crashes are worth rubbernecking.
Yet, despite (or because of) its flaws, the film has found an audience. It lives on in the dark corners of cult cinema, where bad movies are celebrated like beloved, dysfunctional relatives. You can still find it popping up in horror movie marathons, a reminder that sometimes, even the worst films can carve out a legacy—just not the one they intended.
A Monster Movie That Stays in the Shallows
Is The Crater Lake Monster worth watching? If you love unintentional comedy, baffling editing choices, and a monster that gets about five minutes of screentime, then sure. But if you’re hoping for a legitimate creature feature, you’d be better off watching Jurassic Park on fast-forward.
⭐️⭐️ (2/5)
Hashtag time: #PlesioSnore #DriveInDisaster #CrownInternationalStrikesAgain #StopMotionDeservedBetter #RubberMonsterMayhem
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