The Black Scorpion (film)

For the 1995 film about a costumed crime fighter, see Black Scorpion (film).
The Black Scorpion

Directed by Edward Ludwig
Produced by Jack Dietz
Frank Melford
Written by Robert Blees
David Duncan
Starring Richard Denning
Mara Corday
Carlos Rivas
Mario Navarro
Music by Paul Sawtell
Cinematography Lionel Lindon
Edited by Richard L. Van Enger
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release dates
  • October 11, 1957 (1957-10-11) (USA)
  • January 15, 1958 (1958-01-15) (Japan)
Running time
 88 minutes
Country United States
Mexico
Language English

The Black Scorpion is a 1957 black-and-white Mexican-American horror film from Warner Bros., produced by Jack Dietz and Frank Melford, directed by Edward Ludwig, that starred Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, and Mario Navarro.[1]

The film's stop motion animation special effects were created by Willis O'Brien.

Plot

An earthquake strikes Mexico, resulting in the overnight birth of a new volcano. Sent to study this phenomenon are geologists Dr. Hank Scott and Dr. Arturo Ramos. En route to the village of San Lorenzo, the two men witness a destroyed house and police car. They find a dead policeman nearby, as well as an abandoned infant.

They take the infant to San Lorenzo and give it to friends of the child's now missing parents; they are welcomed by the village's priest, Father Delgado. In addition to the disappearances of locals and the destruction of their homes, there have been wholesale slaughters of livestock and strange roaring noises in the night. The villagers believe the culprit to be a demon bull and have been pestering Delgado for divine assistance. Undaunted, Hank and Arturo begin their geological survey as members of the Mexican army, led by Major Cosio, arrive in San Lorenzo to begin disaster relief efforts. Hank meets and falls in love with local rancher Teresa Alvarez and makes friends with a young boy named Juanito.

The volcano erupts again and the true culprits behind the disappearances and deaths are revealed as giant prehistoric scorpions. After killing a staff of telephone repairmen, the scorpions turn their attention to San Lorenzo itself, with the guns of Major Cosio's troops having no effect on them. The next morning, the scorpions have returned to their underground lair (which, in addition to the scorpions, is home to giant worms and spiders), leaving the authorities to seek the help of renowned entomologist Dr. Velasco. It is up to him, Hank, and Arturo to figure out a way to either destroy the scorpions or seal off the entrance to their cavern home, before more innocent lives are lost.

Despite collapsing the cave entrance, the giant scorpions make it to the surface and destroy a train, killing some passengers before fighting amongst themselves. In the end, one scorpion, the largest of the group and presumably the alpha scorpion, kills all of the smaller ones, making it the last scorpion alive, and it heads for Mexico City. Hank and Arturo come up with a plan to lure it to a stadium where the military is waiting with tanks and helicopters. Using a truckload of meat from a butcher shop, they manage to lure the scorpion into the stadium where the military's weapons are again proved useless against its armor. However, Hank manages to finish it off by using an electric cable attached to a spear and shooting it into its throat, which is its only vulnerable spot. After destroying several tanks and choppers, the scorpion is finally, and fatally, electrocuted.

Cast

Production

Special effects

Willis O'Brien, creator of the stop-motion effects for the original King Kong, on a smaller budget was the special effects supervisor. Pete Peterson, who worked with O'Brien on Mighty Joe Young and would again on Behemoth, the Sea Monster, did most of the actual hands-on animation.[2] O'Brien borrowed heavily from other previous movies for the special effects in this film. The models used for the trapdoor spider and the giant worm with tentacles have been reported to be the same ones that were used in the famous "Lost Spider Pit Sequence" from the original King Kong. However, biographers dispute whether O'Brien saved his models, and Ray Harryhausen's An Animated Life notes that many models used in "Kong" were still in storage at RKO in the 1950s, by which time many were decayed. The sounds made by the scorpions are a reuse of the ant sound effect from the movie Them!.[3] A large-scale scorpion "head" was used for closeup reaction shots, but the head's human-like features distracted from the realism of O'Brien's animated models.

References

  1. ↑ The Black Scorpion at the Internet Movie Database
  2. ↑ Pettigrew, Neil (1999). The Stop-Motion Filmography. McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 86. ISBN 0-7864-0446-9.
  3. ↑ Rajewski, Genevieve (2006). Introducing the Deadly Mantis. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 33. ISBN 1-4042-0848-8.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Black Scorpion (film)

Mystery Science Theater 3000

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.