THE UNKNOWN TERROR (1957)
This film was delivered to my doorstep at just the right time. I've made it no secret that I've been in a rut in terms of what I've been watching. Some people would take that as a hint and maybe - oh, I don't know - change their viewing habits. Yeah, I don't see that happening anytime soon. But again, I won't need to change anything if I can keep finding pearls like The Unknown Terror. This is a heady slice of "scientific horror" where the antagonist seems drab on paper (shades of The Monolith Monsters). After anatomizing the lyrics to a calypso song, scientists head off to the Caribbean in search of the fabled "cave of the dead." Upon arrival, they are met with cold silence from the locals. There is a doctor who may know where the cave is located, but he isn't saying much either. Without spoiling everything, I can tell you that the unknown terror in The Unknown Terror is an aggressive fungus deleterious enough to cause gruesome deformities.
You know what that means, don't you? Cave monsters! It does take awhile to get to the good stuff, but the exposition is both tightly paced and written with panache. The relationships between our leads are a little more complex than I was expecting. At a certain point, a potential love triangle becomes a love...parallelogram? I dug Paul Richards as Pete, a geophysicist who walks with a pronounced limp. It could be said that this flick hobbles a bit, especially around the hour mark. There are too many shots of people looking, studying, spelunking. However, that's the only negative comment I can muster. The Unknown Terror is engrossing. I was just as intrigued by the human drama as I was by the spuming microbes. And let me tell you, I love me some spuming microbes. I know I already mentioned it, but if you enjoyed The Monolith Monsters (which came out the same year, coincidentally), you're going to want to hunt this baby down. Also, I recommend it if you're really into the weathering of rock.
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