The Unknown Terror * (1957, John Howard, Mala Powers, Paul Richards, May Wynn) – Classic Movie Review 12,075

‘They dared enter the Cave of Death to explore the secrets of hell!

Director Charles Marquis Warren’s fairly dismal 1957 black and white widescreen American science fiction adventure film The Unknown Terror stars John Howard, Mala Powers, Paul Richards and May Wynn. It is written by Kenneth Higgins, is shot in Regalscope by Joseph F Biroc, and is produced by Robert Stabler.

It follows a group of explorers – Pete Morgan (Paul Richards), Gina Matthews (Mala Powers) and Dan Matthews (John Howard) – who search for a missing man, Jim Wheatley (Charles H Gray), and come across the Cave of the Dead, filled with soap suds-like parasitic fungi and inhabited by foamy, fungus-covered monster men, somewhere on the shores of the Caribbean.

This Fifties monster movie is amusingly laughable low-budget Z-grade material, with the cast and director sadly stuck in cheesy dreck and totally down on their luck, plus remarkably pathetic special effects.

It runs 77 minutes, ready as a support feature for one of 20th Century Fox’s better epics.

Mala Powers recalled that the fungus-covered monster-men’s makeup ‘was just cotton, put on with a liquid adhesive or spirit gum’. John Howard called the monsters ‘just nonsense’. ‘I thought that it looked like soap bubbles coming down the cave walls. I didn’t see how this would frighten anybody, but it sure frightened the hell out of my kids – they were scared to death!’

The Unknown Terror was released in the US on 12 August 1957 by 20th Century Fox in a double bill with Back from the Dead (1957), both made by Regal Films, and was released in the UK in October 1957 with an A-certificate. They were called ‘2 Supermonstrous Superhuman Supershockers!’

The cast are John Howard as Dan Matthews, Mala Powers as Gina Matthews, Paul Richards as Peter Morgan, May Wynn as Concha Ramsey, Gerald Milton as Dr. Ramsey, Charles H Gray as Jim Wheatley, Gerald Gilden as Raoul Koom, Martin Garralaga as Old Villager, Patrick O’Moore as Dr Willoughby, William Hamel as Mr Trainor, Duane Gray as Lino, Charles Postal as Higgs and The King of the Calypso, Sir Lancelot.

Sir Lancelot was signed up to take advantage of the calypso craze. He performs a song with cryptic lyrics. Music is credited to Raoul Kraushaar.

The films of Charles Marquis Warren: Little Big Horn (1951), Hellgate (1952), Arrowhead (1953), Flight to Tangier (1953), Seven Angry Men (1955), Tension at Table Rock (1956), The Black Whip (1956), Back from the Dead (1957), Trooper Hook (1957), Without Incident (TV) (1957), The Unknown Terror (1957), Copper Sky (1957), Ride a Violent Mile (1957), Blood Arrow (1958), Cattle Empire (1958), Desert Hell (1958) and Charro! (1969).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,075

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