Harryhausen’s effects swansong and a rather sorry end for the noble tradition of stop motion monsterism, it must be said. The Medusa’s great, yes, but God the film’s dull. Long, ponderous, with none of the blissful brain-in-neutral wallowing of the Sinbad or Jason films and that bloody clockwork owl’s annoying in the extreme. Still, there are some good bits of business in there, to be sure, and alongside your Maggie Smiths and your Oliviers you’ve got the likes of Pat ‘Bomber’ Roach in a bed sheet. This really ought to be showing this at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning preceded by Digby and some Porky Pig cartoons, in a school end of term film show homage, because that’s how this film was meant to be seen, we feel.
Richard Davies
November 30, 2010 at 6:53 pm
This is one of those films that at one time seemed to get an outing at least once a year on a bank holiday.
Matty
September 22, 2011 at 10:31 pm
The bloke who played Neptune always looked ridiculous during his underwater scenes, like he was in a state of permanent surprise. I’m sure TV Cream also used to have a description of this in which they claimed they’d always thought the chap who played Calibos was Gareth Hunt which was funnily enough what I’d long thought as well. Poor Gareth.
For all its faults I still have a great affection for this film, though. It was probably proper expensive in 1981 but it looks quite quaint now and the monsters still look fantastic, especially Medusa.