Three men, Bill (Geoffrey Case), Cliff (John Hamill) and Malcolm (David Griffin), are spelunking when they find a previously unknown and unexplored cave. At the bottom of the cavern, they find a water source. Bill decides to follow the source to see where it leads. Soon after that Cliff follows him through the underground water system. Bill comes out into another cavern. Before Cliff gets there, Bill is attacked and killed by a humanoid creature. Cliff finds his buddy and gets a glimpse of the creature. What he sees sends him over the edge into madness.
Cliff is taken to the Brockton Research Center and is put under the care of Dr. Brockton (John Crawford). Dr. Brockton is an anthropologist involved in the study of primates. Brockton becomes intrigued by Cliff’s ranting about the strange creature he saw in the cave. Dr. Brocton convinces Malcolm to take her down into the cave system to see for herself what is really there. She manages to take a photograph of the creature. Convinced that it is a living example of a Troglodyte she then convinces local police Inspector Greenham (Bernard Kay) to search for the monster.
Greenham sends in the troops and ends up flushing the creature out of the cave system. It comes out of the cave and is blinded by daylight. The throng of news reporters, photographers, police, gawkers and one irate real estate developer named Sam Murdock (Michel Gough), scares the troglodyte who begins attacking people. Dr. Brockton shoots it with a tranquilizer dart and takes it back to her laboratory. She names the creature Trog.
At the lab, Dr. Brockton welcomes several other scientists who want to examine Trog. With the help of an implant in his brain, the scientists can communicate with the missing link. Through use of the implant the scientists are able to visualize the world that Trog came from. Dr. Brocton and the other scientists have hopes that they will be able to socialize the troglodyte, but Murdock has his own plans to sabotage the doctor’s work and destroy the caveman.
“Trog” AKA “The Missing Link” was released in 1970 and was directed by Freddie Francis. It is a British science fiction horror film.
This thing got pretty silly. I won’t go into detail but, it’s one of those guilty pleasures that combines science fiction and absurdity nicely packaged with a morality lesson in humanity.
Trog is played by former wrestler Joe Cornelius. The tattered ape outfit he wore was part of a monkey outfit from Stanley Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey” 1968.
There is a scene where Trog is remembering what the Earth looked like in the past. The dinosaur scenes used was stock footage created by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen for the Irwin Allen film “The Animal World” 1956.
This was Joan Crawford’s last feature film.