The Black Scorpion (1957)

Let's be realistic.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Volcanic activity in Mexico frees an enormous variety of scorpion from entombment in the Earth. The beasts proceed to terrorize the locals, and it's up to macho geologists Hank Scott (Richard Denning) and Arturo Ramos (Carlos Rivas) to help save the day. Naturally, Hank also has to spend whatever spare moment he's got romancing rancher Teresa Alvarez (Mara Corday).You're assured a reasonably good time with 1950s genre perennials Denning ("Creature from the Black Lagoon") and Corday ("Tarantula") as the stars, and with Willis O'Brien of "King Kong" fame doing the stop motion animation of the creatures. Now, granted, it's slow to start, tends to get dialogue heavy at times, and the romantic subplot also helps slow down the pace while the movie should be building to a peak. But "The Black Scorpion" hits its stride at the beginning of the middle third, once the creatures make their appearance. If you're anything like this viewer, you'll be laughing with appreciation every time they make an appearance. (Especially when they're shown in close-up. I, for one, wasn't aware that scorpions drooled this much.) The highlight has to be the big set piece when Hank and Arturo descend into the scorpions' lair and encounter not just the arachnids, but a tentacled worm that was originally intended for use in the "ravine bottom" sequence in "King Kong". Some of the special effects are dodgy, but that doesn't apply to O'Briens' work, which is impressive as always.Denning, Rivas, and Corday are engaging leads who receive capable support from supporting players Mario Navarro (as the annoying tag along kid Juanito), Carlos Muzquiz (as Dr. Velazco), Pedro Galvan as Father Delgado, and Arturo Martinez as Major Cosio. Navarro is appealing, but he's required to play a kid who only succeeds at putting himself in harms' way in his attempts to "help".Not among the best "giant creepy crawlie" features of the 1950s, but it's still pretty good fun, with an appropriately rousing finale.Seven out of 10.

Prehistoric giant scorpions are terrorizing the Mexican countryside. It's up to scientist Richard Denning to put a stop to them. An enjoyable 'giant bug' movie from a decade that specialized in them. It's not one of my favorites of this particular horror subgenre but it is fun. The highlights of the film are the stop-motion special effects created by Willis O'Brien and sexy Mara Corday as the rancher Richard Denning immediately falls for (who can blame him?). For his part, Denning does fine in another of those cardboard hero roles that were common in 1950s sci-fi and horror films. The supporting cast of mostly Mexican actors adds some flavor to things. The amazing stop-motion effects are what most people will love about this one. It's definitely worth a look if you're a fan of 1950s sci-fi and horror. A little slow-going early on but never dull.

The Black Scorpion could have been a good movie, but let me assure you IT IS NOT.The Black Scorpion is a rather stately and pricey-looking monster movie produced by Warner Bros. in 1957, it was filmed in widescreen black & white and shot on location in Mexico. It also unfortunately is, for the most part, extremely boring and imminently forgettable. And I really do wish I could say otherwise. The film stars the once lovely Mara Corday and that blonde-headed guy from "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" and a small army of identity-less actors that aren't worth mentioning. The only reason I give it two stars is because the stop-motion animation for the giant scorpions is terrific (for the most part), which is easily the movies best attribute - it's really it's only attribute. The acting is serviceable, but hardly stellar, the photography is quite all right - but what I think really kills this movie, is it's horrendous sense of pace. All to often this movie is painfully boring and VERY chatty, often you find yourself watching people doing utterly mundane and uninteresting things. The scientific conference scenes (which are completely static) are particularly challenging to sit through. And although this film is only 88 minutes in length, it seems much longer then that.........The plot goes something like this, recent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in rural Mexico have caused a rupture in the ground (out in the deserts of southern Mexico) and gigantic predatory scorpions are coming out of the rupture, from an immense cavern deep from within the bowels of the inner-earth. The giant scorpions are making nightly ventures to nearby villages, causing death and destruction where ever they go. And the superstitious local villager's don't know what the hell's going on and of course, have no answers, so it's up to a couple of biologists (the stars) to save the day. After a short while of roving around out in the Mexican desert they're perplexed by all the "giant scorpion damage" that they're seeing. They also notice from a distance, that the lovely Mara Corday (she's a wealthy Mexican lady, with the thinnest Mexican accent imaginable) has fallen from her horse and needs their immediate attention. Eventually they meet up with a some other scientists and the word that giant scorpions are prowling the desert, at night, ONLY at night and naturally since they're hostile as hell they need to be exterminated ASAP. Eventually our gallant duo of biologists are lowered down (by crane) into a huge cavern, which pretty much serves as the nest of the scorpions, this scene reveals "the mother of them all" a scorpion bigger and more ferocious than the rest of them. The queen scorpion perhaps? Barely making it out alive, BOOM! they dynamite the cave entrance, the end? Unfortunately not quite. It turns out that there's yet another entrance to the outer-world, that the giant nocturnal scorpions are escaping from and now their out for vengeance and their next stop is Mexico City! So after the movie bores it's viewers all but completely stiff for the first 75 minutes, the pace really begins to quicken. You get the standard "frantic mobs fleeing at street-level" scenes, with all the random yelling and then as soon as they get that cliché out of the way, they enact their plan. Their aim is to lure the big bad scorpion into a huge soccer arena (what the hell happened to the dozens of other giant killer scorpions, all of which where the size of buses???); their plan is to isolate it inside the arena and kill the beast with a specially-made electrified (600,000 volts) harpoon. This sequence is easily the most exciting of the movie, what you have here is a giant scorpion that's violently thrashing and writhing, attacking soldiers and army vehicles with it's giant tail and pincers; all while constantly being bombarded by tanks, bazookas and machine-gun fire (all of this does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, except create a constant series of small explosions all over the scorpion, just for fireworks really). Also they felt the need to add some helicopters to pointlessly hover around it, I suspect for no other reason then to make the scene more busy looking - "to complete the picture" in other words. Note* the beast eventually does pull one out of the sky. Then our hero's save the day and Mexico City, with the electrified-harpoon, they nail the scorpion in "it's vulnerable area" which is it's throat where it has no armor. TURN ON THE JUICE! Now this really -could have- been a great death scene and I was expecting to see lots of arcing electricity and fireworks. However..... nothing like that happens, not even any good (or even appropriate) sound effects are heard, nothing at all. Just a lame ending, to a lame failure of a movie. The strong-points of The Black Scorpion are first and foremost, as previously mentioned, the majority of the stop-motion effects are simply spectacular looking, scorpions usually take well to such animation and these just might be the best of their kind, might be. The highly melodic and often frantic musical score (by the great and highly under-rated composer Paul Sawtell) is often a compelling listen - though it does seem to wear a bit thin before everything's all said and done. There's the sultry beauty of Mara Corday, who was a nice piece of eye-candy in her day (just ask Hugh Hefner), though I think she looked hotter yet in "The Giant Claw" (an even worse movie) which was made immediately before or after this. And lastly, lot's of striking backgrounds are seen throughout, due in light to great location scouting and solid cinematography Really the main thing that destroys this movies is it's HORRENDOUS sense of pace. Which does not make for compelling viewing. It's an inescapable fact The Black Scorpion is a failure because of it's stodgy pacing.

If you have an interest in movie special effects, particularly those made during the 1950s, "The Black Scorpion" will probably be of interest to you. The main selling point of the movie is that the special effects were done by the legendary Willis O'Brien. Even by today's standards, the stop motion special effects look really good for the most part, especially since it's obvious that O'Brien wasn't working with a lavish budget. Indeed, towards the end of the movie, the money seemed to be running out, because we get footage reused as well as some really tacky superimposed scorpions that we can see through. The limited budget also often shows in the scenes that don't involve special effects, even though the movie was shot in Mexico to cut costs. Actually, the main problem with the movie is that outside of the scorpion scenes, it's sometimes dull and lacking considerable tension. To see how the drama should have been done between the special effects, the giant ant movie "Them!" well illustrates this. While "Them!" is a much better movie, if you really want to see this sort of thing again, "The Black Scorpion" will do if you are desperate.