Monster of the Day #319

Mother in laws! Am I right, gentlemen?

  • Gamera

    Yay! She has to be one of my favorite Harryhausen monsters! He talked on the DVD about how hard it was to synch the flickering torchlight with the movements of the medusa.

  • Flangepart

    The fact her mug could do a ‘stone-turn’ after decapitation makes her one of the serious baddies of myth.

  • Mr. Rational

    Archer? I don’t even know ‘er!

  • alex

    On TCM last Saturday. Still the standout sequence in an uneven film.

  • Rock Baker

    I can recall another stop motion medusa in one of the 80’s Hercules movies, only one who’s lower body was scorpion rather than snake! That still doesn’t make sense to me, but then, these were films that had Hercules fighting giant stop motion robots……..

    I’ll have to see Clash of the Titans again. I recall it being a visual feast, but a pretty empty affair. Meanwhile, I can recall nearly every frame of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts.

    By the way, hasn’t Ray’s gorgon already been Monster of the Day? (It’s getting kinda hard to remember now, with 300+ entries, but I have a feeling of retread here.)

  • The Rev.

    Yeah, definitely the highlight of a mediocre movie. Not to damn it with faint praise, because it’s damn great.

    Rock: Yes, it was the first of Lou Ferrigno’s two Herc movies. I haven’t seen the first one, but saw the second one recently. Luckily the credits featured some clips from the first one, and it showed the centaur-like beastie you’re mentioning.

    Having seen the second one, I HAVE to see the first, and also wonder why Ken hasn’t written them up. It was like Xanadu and a Steve Reeves movie got tossed in the Brundlefly machine, and then layered with extra suck. Maybe I should find them and do a write-up for the Reader Reviews on the old forum or something.

  • Rock Baker

    It was either the first one or the second one that featured a big climactic fight scene between Herc and the main baddie, and they turned into star creatures or something and fought against an outer space backdrop. And their fight scene was an animation rotoscope of the battle footage from King Kong! Talk about your wacky moments in Italian film!

  • The Rev.

    Yeah, that’s the second one, the one I saw. My jaw actually dropped at that point. I could not believe they’d done that.

  • Rock Baker

    Talk about cinematic guts! I’m still not sure if the idea was to pay homage to Kong in some way, or if it was just a wildly shameful steal.