Monte Hellman

(On Cable TV, July 2022) Relatively early Roger Corman production Beast from Haunted Cave is both a big piece of 1950s monster movie cheese and something slightly more interesting than expected. Coming from a very low budget production, it’s probably not a surprise to find out that most of the film is a series of discussions between a fractious group of criminals trying to escape after successfully robbing a gold vault—the anticipated beast only comes later, after their escape and involuntary sequestration in a mine following a snowstorm. The dollar-store beast eats a few people and leaves others alive, but that’s really at the end of a slow-moving picture meant to stretch a thin budget to feature-film length. Director Monte Hellman (in his first film) does what he can with what he’s got—the film’s production history is arguably more interesting than the film itself. At least the snowy environment makes for a welcome change of pace from countless other Los Angeles area monster films. Beast from Haunted Cave is no great art, but it has a flavour of its own: at best it’s a pure demonstration of what monster films meant in the late 1950s.