Trog (1970) If nothing else, this sorry piece of throwaway dreck still stands as a tribute to the tenacity, career survival skills and iron will of Joan Crawford.
The Golden Age movie star evidently wanted to keep working in the worst way........and this movie, her last feature film credit, more than fulfilled that ambition.......
It kept her working in the worst way.......the only thing below the level of "Trog" would be dressing up as a clown to make balloon animals at children's birthday parties.
We did a brief, thumbnail look at this film way back in 2017 (as part of a post on that strange sub-genre featuring aging Hollywood divas in bottom-of-the-barrel horror flicks). But given our devoted mission to fully uncover bizarre cinema, we thought this one should enjoy our full attention.......
So here we have Joan as a scientist ensconced in the English countryside, which just so happens to harbor a primordial cave that three unlucky young explorers come across.
What they come across is a troglodyte "missing link", played by a short, stocky stuntman-actor. "Trog" as Crawford comes to nickname him, is outfitted like an ugga-ugga Neanderthal and wears an ape mask the producers swiped out of Stanley Kubrick's "2001" prop room.
But don't hold your breath waiting for Joan's little Troggy-woggy to throw a bone up in the air and have it turn into a spacecraft.
The local villagers, represented here by the imperious, sneering Michael Gough, fear and despise Trog. But that doesn't deter Mommie Fearest from attempting to domesticate and semi-civilize him. Or at the very least, render him housebroken.
Given that this is some sort of half-assed horror movie, things don't go well for Joan's new adoptee and before you know it, the Trogster goes on a slaughter spree in the town's shopping district. Even though he's prehistoric, the Trog-inator figures out how to kill some poor guy exactly like Leatherface in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".......(maybe he took in a movie first....)
If you're waiting for us to tell you that you could have a great time watching this as a guilty pleasure.....uh...no. It's as dumb, worthless and stupid as it sounds.
The one and only thing that kept us from slipping to a coma......a scene where Crawford does some kind of brain-memory probe on the Trog-meister's noggin. And wouldn't you know it, Trog-o-licious's fondest memory is footage of Ray Harryhausen and Willis O' Brian's dinosaurs from the Irwin Allen's 1957 nature documentary "The Animal World"
Other than that, a complete and total Zero star (0) waste of time.....and trust us, you won't find a single unintentional laugh in it. Crawford might have been better off with the party clown-balloon animal gig......
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