Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959 film)
Caltiki, the Immortal Monster, AKA Caltiki, the Undying Monster,
Summary
"Death dance of the Voodoo virgin! Crushing, crawling colossus of terror! Armies of the world combat deadly menace! None can stop it! Nothing can kill it! The ever-growing thing! Whole cities swallowed up by gruesome mile-high slimy glob of doom!" The stars are right, a deadly radioactive comet approaches Earth, and the vengeance of an obscure Mayan goddess is unleashed upon the modern world, in the form of radiation-eating blobs creeping from the depths of the Earth beneath her temple....
Details
- Release Date: 1959
- Country/Language: Italy/USA, Italian (English dubbing or subtitles?)
- Genres/Technical: Adventure, Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller, black-and-white
- Runtime: 1 hr 16 min
- Starring: John Merivale, Didi Sullivan, Gérard Herter
- Director: Riccardo Freda (as Robert Hamton), Mario Bava (uncredited)
- Writer: Filippo Sanjust
- Producer/Production Co: Climax Pictures, Galatea Film, Lux Film
- View Trailer: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: (not rated) (probably equivalent to a G or PG for mild and mostly off-screen 1950s violence)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; could be a very loose adaptation)
The stars are right, a deadly radioactive comet approaches Earth, and the vengeance of an obscure Mayan goddess is unleashed upon the modern world, in the form of radiation-eating blobs creeping from the depths of the Earth beneath her temple.... At least one reviewer implies that this film is an adaptation of "Call of Cthulhu (fiction)", but any resemblance to Lovecraft's work is probably more likely due to a common ancestry in general pulp horror. Still, there will likely still be something of interest here for fans of "Lovecraftian" film.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Orrin Grey at Innsmouth Free Press, (link) - "Really, Caltiki kind of has it all: giant monsters, mummies, hidden temples, Central American folklore, mutations, radiation panic, and a little Italian horror gruesomeness. There’s even an early found footage segment...."
Synopsis
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
Academic researchers are chased by a nuclear-hot specimen of ancient Mayan blob.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- film: compare to Quatermass (1953 franchise) (especially The Quatermass Xperiment, X: The Unknown, and Quatermass II), and to The Blob (1958 film)
- TO DO
