Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37542 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-08-28
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 82 minutes

Amazon.com
You'd have to be pretty desperate to enjoy this cheesy Danish monster flick, imported by American International Pictures in 1962 to capitalize on Japan's barely-better Godzilla movies. The titular beastie begins as the frozen tail of a prehistoric reptile, discovered when a scientific drill hits a bloody mass of monster flesh buried deep in the Lapland tundra. The tail is accidentally thawed (echoes of The Thing) and regenerates into a massive demon-lizard that spits fluorescent green ooze and terrorizes Copenhagen! Padded with archival military footage and stampedes of panicking Danes, the movie's too earnest to be campy (save for some funny hamming by the science lab's handyman) and too cheap to qualify as a guilty pleasure, with special effects that make rubber-suit romps like Godzilla look masterful by comparison. By the time an unwitting army general says, "It's a good thing there are no more like him," you may find yourself wishing he was right. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Ed Wood, eat your HEART out!
Imagine what an Ed Wood movie would be like if he had a large budget and government support, including shutting down a major city and the used of the Armed Forces. Yes - THIS is what you'd get!

Sid Pink got his ticket punched when he made "Angry Red Planet", which single-handedly saved AIP's bacon. Sid travelled to Europe looking for distributors for "Angry Red Planet", and met Danish film wheeler-dealer Henrik Sandberg, who invited him to Copenhagen, and the rest is history. His AIP bosses gave him the go-ahead for a monster pic that would feature the "beauties of the Danish countryside". Pink also had permission to block off Copengahen's main square whenever he wanted, plus all the unpaid extras he could use. (In one scene, a local bicyle club rides their cycles off of a raising drawbridge for no other reason that it would look neat!) Even the Danish Army and Navy were at Pink's disposal: tanks, cannons, and a cutter throwing live depth charges.

Just to keep interest up, a Danish-language version was filmed at the same time as the English. Ann Smyner, a Danish actress, got top billing but SHE looks ridiculous in a jaw-dropping array of "country girl"-style dresses that make Mary Ann look like Ginger. Mimi Heinrich, another Danish ingenue, comes across MUCH better. Carl Ottosen, a Dane whose English was about as good as my Uzbek, plays the American general who takes over the Danish military (obviously HE got dubbed in). The entire cast seems to have learned their lines phonetically, giving them the aspect of having been recently thwacked in their collective heads by a two-by-four. But all this pales when the marionette "Reptilicus" comes into it's own. Only "The Giant Claw" can boast of a sillier-looking monster - this thing is downright pit-i-ful.

And yet - how can anyone resist this glorious mess? An entire scene devoted to a local singer belting out "Tivoli Nights" as the monster approaches the city, not as filler, but because Pink was so much in love with Copenhagen! A dirt-dumb janitor who decides to stick his arm in an aquarium just to see if that eel really *is* electric (and yup, it is....).

You can catch scenes of this astonishing movie in old episodes of "Beverly Hillbillies" and "The Monkees", among others. In it's way, it came to symbolize the entire zeitgeist of 60s drive-in/cheapo monster movies, but I assure you, it wasn't for lack of money or logistical support. This one must stand as perhaps the purest example of NO TALENT.

Riff away!

I saw it on the big screen when I was 10 . . .
The 3 stars is for sentimental reasons. It scared the daylights out of me when I was a kid. Yes, it was in the day when you could ride your bicycle on a 10 mile ride as a 10 year old with your mother not knowing about it, end up at the State theater in the middle of the city and see a matinee for four bits. When done with the 10 cent Dots, 25 cent soda and popcorn, you and your buds could speculate about the mysterious and terifying ending for hours on end. Even though it is a horrible movie by today's standards, it was on the big screen and as I recall the theater was full. It was a great way to spend a summer afternoon in air conditioned splender. Sure this would be a good candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3000, but it still is one of those Movies that reminds one about a purer and simpler time and famous freinds no longer seen. "EEEEH! REPTILICUS!"

Cheese Danish!
I didn't even know that Denmark had a film industry! If you like cheesy sci-fi films (and I do, especially when I am on summer vacation), this will be right up your alley. The fact that almost everyone in it looks Nordic and speaks with a heavy Danish accent and that you get a mini-travelogue of Copenhagen in the middle of the movie, only adds to its uniqueness. The Danish janitor does a scandinavian equivalent of stepin fetchit, complete with bug eyes. There are actually a few impressive scenes, such as thousands of Danes running throught the streets from the monster. As movies go, it stinks. As bad movies go, it is fun. Check it out.