Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 18: Beast From Haunted Cave

And alas we bid adieu to the 1930’s with their interesting vibe and return to the 1950’s and the millions of B films ground out for the drive-in teenager market. Or at least so it seems

Today’s slice is 1958’s Beast from Haunted Cave, note the name is not The Beast from The Haunted Cave – I can only assume the guy who did the title credits charged by the word.

Anyway we are in – we are told – South Dakota – at a ski lodge – near – we eventually find out – near a gold mine – well Gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota which are pretty high for hills – the discovery of gold there led to a few problems what with us promising the Lakota Sioux that this, their sacred land would be theirs forever, a promise we promptly ignored, much to Gen Custer’s regret.

I digress – anyway we start off with two guys one of whom is taking pictures with a Polaroid camera which in 1959 cutting edge technology – the other guy wears a hat, you begin to hate him right away.  At the ski resort they head for the lift  - after camera guy gets another shot.

There we meet the male lead, Gill who is about 6 foot muscles and teeth – he’s a ski instructor at the resort – it’s not clear if he’s the owner but that’s rather not important. With him is the leader of the pack – a guy who looks a bit like Richard Dryfess who is the boss of the guys with the camera. Also along for the ride is the blonde lady Gypsy who is the boss’s ‘secretary’ .

Gypsy has a drinking problem as she’s popping a martini down her throat at about 10:30 in the morning – which even in New Orleans is a bit off – but especially up in the black mining hills of south Dakota there lived a young boy named rocky raccoon – sorry wandered off.

So the hat guy and Marty (who had the camera) get a ski lesson and then all of them meet in the bosses hotel room – blonde lady takes a bath and sings off key – and plan the robbery of the gold mine –well not the gold mine but the office of the gold mine where they store the bars – huh? Listen I know it’s the 1950’s and such but if there was that much gold in that office the thing would be guarded like Fort Knox and far beyond the abilities of angry boss guy and Marty and hat guy. Anyway the plan is that they will put a bomb in the mine – to blow up Sunday morning  and in the confusion  hit the office where they keep the gold – then join Gill and Gypsy and be off via cross country ski to Gill’s cabin with their ill gotten gains to meet an airplane to take them to Canada – guys why not just knock over a bank or something – a lot less rube Goldberg style planning needed and frankly gold thievery is a bit out of your league.

Well the planning done the thieves get drunk – Marty hits on the bars one waitress and she ends up going off with him. In the meantime Gypsy is making goo goo eyes at gill , much to the Boss’s displeasure.

Meantime Marty decides to multi task – he takes the waitress up with him to plant the bomb in the gold mine – and them make kissy face – the bomb planting goes okay but the kissy face is interrupted by a very fake giant monster spider thing that snatches the waitress.

Marty  returns babbling about a thing but nobody believes him.

The next day Gill and Gypsy wait (and talk) on the top of the hill while the other three rob the gold mine office – the bomb goes off taking with it a watchman (hey omelets I guess) we then have a long interlude of cross country skiing – it’s not that exciting even with the hint that whatever attacked Marty and the waitress is following them.  We see what looks like a leg and then what looks like a leg –a massively  fake leg I must say.

It takes two days to get to the cabin – and we seemingly are with them every damn step of the way. Marty is slowly losing it sensing they are being followed – and at the camp at the end of the first day he sees what looks like the waitress spiderwebed to a tree –(did the beast carry her along? It’s not clear)

At the cabin we meet Gill’s American Indian housekeeper Small Dove – hey it’s the 50’s (barely) a man can’t be expected to make his own food yes? She is, as they say in westerns,  much woman – hat guy ends up taken with her cause she feeds him. (interestingly enough the infallible Internet Movie Data Base does not list her in the credits.) one wonders how she gets supplies – if it’s a two day slog on foot to the cabin – unless there’s a road leading out the other way that nobody talks about.

Also the beast wanders about but considering it’s a oh 15 foot spider looking thing – people don’t really pay it no mind.

So as the gang waits for the airplane – delayed by a blizzard – tensions rise and gypsy tells gill the gang is going to kill him when the airplane arrives – Gill decides to leave that night and suggests gypsy come along – so she does – not without drawing the boss's suspicion – he sends hat guy after the girl – but the beast shows up and grabs little dove – Hat guy takes off after it

They all meet in the cave – hat guy finds Little dove webbed to the wall by the spider thing – and shortly thereafter Hat Guy is as well. Really the gold robbery was punching way above their weight. Shortly thereafter the beast comes into feed on hat guy who tells us what we are watching “it’s coming for me!” et al – at this moment I was thinking oh shut up.

Meantime meantime Gill and Gypsy show up in the cave as well – the blizzard (which we never see) is forcing them to take shelter in, per Gill, a haunted cave. (da Da DA!) first mention of that – of course a more accurate title would have been spider thing living in a gold mine that nobody working at the mine noticed until it was blown up and follows the folks what blew up the mine brining the waitress along like she was snack food and who settled in the haunted cave as it was confidently located - but that would be too many words for the title screen so Beast From Haunted Cave it is.

Turns out bullets don’t do much to the beast – neither do Rocks – hurled by Gypsy – but after the beast kills the boss – why we don’t know – since it drinks blood from the living why kill a potential meal and apparently mortally wounds Marty – Marty shoots it with a flare gun and it goes up in flames. At this point Gill and Gypsy leave with the words (The End) showing up – apparently leaving waitress, Little Dove and hat guy taped to the wall. I mean we can see them as the films ends.

A very roger Corman feeling film (which considering his brother produced this with a little help from roger) it features padding annoying comic relief (hat guy) and cheap looking monster.

Enjoy with Yukon Jack Cheese.