Melpomene and Thalia. You might not know them, but you sure have seen them. Many times, they have graced your presence. You might not recognize this pair right away, like you might with Cheech and Chong or Laurel and Hardy or Peanut Butter and Jelly (time, with a baseball bat), but every time you look in a mirror sad or at a phone with tears of joy, they are there. These two are the yin and yang of the drama faces, forever intertwined as they watch a dramatic film that launches a thousand ships with tears, as well as grinning from ear to ear for every hilarious attempt at the alchemy of gold in laughing gas! However, never have these two worked overtime with more facial muscles (or their brains) in trying to understand the opposite attraction to their nature, than making the Roger Corman sunken treasure of an early example of comedic horror, Creature from the Haunted Sea, a movie that begs us to take it seriously in its attempts to make us laugh (what a joke).
Cinema history loves to give directors a trilogy. From George Lucas to Sergio Leone to Paul Naschy, the coveted title of “trilogy” seems to be a giant X on a map of truly making it in Hollyweird! For Corman, his unofficial “Puerto Rico Trilogy,” a triple-dipped marathon of this alongside Last Woman on Earth and a movie he produced called Battle of Blood Island, was not even a trilogy to begin with. With some extra funds remaining from The Wild Ride (a little film he produced starring a little actor named Jack Nicholson), Corman thought he could make a quickie-flickie on leftover black and white film and possibly enjoy staying in paradise for just a little bit longer! However, instead of doing something dark and ominous, Corman wanted to perfectly place his pineapple colada-drenched tongue firmly in his sun-tanned cheeks. Calling his reliable (and super-fast) screenwriting partner Charles B. Griffith, who had recently written Corman’s hideously funny hits of The Little Shop of Horrors and A Bucket of Blood, Corman asked for a script in six days that was funny, had a monster, and starred every single actor he already had on the island, no more and no less (including Corman playing a role himself so he didn’t have to pay anyone extra money). Griffith expected the assignment, literally and figuratively, using the same script structure he used twice before (Naked Paradise and Beast from Haunted Cave), and there was one more request: this time, the monster (spoiler) wins! Lensed under five days (with a weekend for pick-ups and snorkeling), the beast was made cheaper than the movie, made up of super glued Brillo pads, tennis balls for the eyes, and pipe cleaners for the claws, with a little moss on top for garnishing, making it very difficult for the cast and crew not to break while trying to stop the creature they found (hilariously) scary. Released as a double feature with The Devil’s Partner, the film featured a soundtrack by composer Fred Katz, who had a funny secret of his own: the soundtrack he sold was the same soundtrack written for A Bucket of Blood and Corman apparently didn’t recognize or realize it was the same score, proving independent low-budget filmmaking directors who seem to have eight arms to do everything can be suckers!
Agent XK150 (maybe the film should have been called The Sea Creature Who Loved Me) has infiltrated a gang of Caribbean ruffians, led by gangster Capetto, alongside his girlfriend, his younger brother, and a dumb goon named Pete, whose sole talent is mimicking jungle animal noises (eat your heart out, Mel Blanc). At the height of the Cuban Revolution, Capetto helps a group of loyalists transport a loot of stolen money to use to stage a coup. However, hiding his heinous grin behind a sympathetic growl, Capetto and his gang pull a mutiny by killing the revolutionaries one by one, blaming the deaths on a made-up creature from the depths of the ocean! However, there is a small hole in his dingy of a plan – there is a real monster! Will Agent XK150 stop the gang before they can live out the rest of their lives with an upside-down frown, or will the monster take care of everybody while burping Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles” from the ocean floor?
Accenting your way at a depth of sixty minutes, the cast and crew assembled to shoot additional scenes for the network television debut a few years later, helmed by Monte Hellman (Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!), whose idea it was to add the title song by Betsy Jones-Moreland. Not caring at the time, the film lapsed into the dark reaches of the murky Public Domain lake, but over the years, there have been several special editions and even a terribly humorous colored version for later broadcasts. So, the next time you find yourself floating through early Corman classics, be sure to pack some extra life-preservers, as down below the waves lurks a ping-pong balled beast who frowns like Melpomene when it’s hangry and laughs like Thalia when it’s full (those aren’t fish breaths bubbling to the surface)!
