"Intercellular absorption. Why, it’s assimilating the meat."
There are reports of a sea monster terrorizing a Mexican cove. Julie Blair (Anne Kimball) is vacationing there. She meets marine biologists Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) and Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade). And don’t forget the deck hand Tommy (Roger Corman). The biologists are looking for ways to farm on the ocean floor. They peddle around in a one man mini-sub.
A diver in the area dies. At least they assume he died. All they found was his diving suit. Julie decides to investigate. She starts hearing other stories about a large creature with one red eye that lives in the sea. And it comes out during a full moon. The stories started in 1946. There is speculation that the creature was created from atomic testing. Julie sees the creature and faints.
Two of the locals who saw the creature, Pablo (Wyott Ordung) and Tula (Inez Palange), decide that it is a god and they need to make a sacrifice to the creature. They decide Julie would be a good sacrifice. The next day when Julie is scuba diving Pablo cuts himself and sprinkles blood into the water to attract a shark. Julie manages to escape. Being tenacious Julie doesn’t give up. She’s determined to find the monster and stop it from killing. Finally Dr. Dunning and Dr. Baldwin believe her and try to race to her aid.
"Monster From the Ocean Floor" was released in 1954 and was directed by Wyott Ordung. This is Roger Corman’s first movie production. Go Roger! Roger claims the movie was made in 1954 for $12,000. Others estimated it at closer to $30,000 or $35,000. No matter what it’s still low budget “B” movie stuff. You already know what Roger can do. Now you see what he did the first time he did it. Plus you know you are in low budget territory when the director also has a part in the movie. Wyott Ordung not only directed but he played the part of Pablo.
There must have been a lot of problems with the sound on the picture. There are large sections where dubbing had to be done and the pitch is different from one scene to another. Ocean waves can be so annoying. One thing that I thought was encouraging was that the female lead was a strong woman. The music for the movie was also a surprise. It was so good it didn’t match the movie. So how was the monster? Laughably lame. Just as I expected. It looked like a pipe cleaner octopus with a big eye ball in the center.
There’s nothing really special here. Low budget, “B”, lousy special effects. Bad dialogue, acting so-so. It’s average at best. But if you are a Corman fan you might want it just because it is his first.