CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER

Following the stylish Devil's Commandment (I Vampiri, 57), director Riccardo Freda made this item which, again, was completed by his cinematograper Mario Bava when he walked off set. While nowhere near as interesting as it's predecessor - either historically or in itself - this is still a pretty enjoyable slice of 1950's mayhem that could be mistaken as coming from the monster movie ouvre that was so popular at the time.

An archeological expedition discovers a large cavern in the land of the Mayan's, a strong culture who had mysteriously disappeared in the distant past. As well as finding a large amount of gold in it, they also come across a large blob which proceeds to dissolve a few people. Dr. John Fielding manages to destroy the creature by burning it with gasoline, but not before a bit of it has become attatched to the arm of the slightly sleazy - and German, therefore villainous - Max Gunther.

They soon manage to detatch it and proceed to investigate it so as to determine what it may be - as well as to find a way of curing the unfortunate Max, who not only is now missing an appendage but also going even more loopy. They discover that it is a kind of lethal amoeba that grows when exposed to radiation. Unfortunately, it just so happens that earth is about to pass through the tail of a comet which - while being apparently unharmful - will raise the level of radiation in the atmosphere enough to cause the object to expand incontrollably.

Hmmm. From the above synopsis it is not hard to see that Caltiki is an amalgamation of The Blob (1958), The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)and assorted other fifties paraphenalia. It is entertaining, reasonably paced and by no means any worse than it's influences. It is not, however, by any means 'Italianate'. By this I mean that it has - on the whole - dropped the stylistic flourishes and atmospherics that characterise the usual genre work that issues from it's country of origin.

In fact, if you were to catch this one Saturday morning on TV, you would probably assume that it was American. It looks American, it feels American and the script reads like it's American. In this, it is probably succesful. It would appear that Freda, wary that Devil's Commandment was a box office failure, determined to make a film that could mix in with the popular transatlantic produce of the time. Even the credits are robbed of their Italian identity as midwestern pseudonyms were assumed by virtually all involved.

There are some moments where this façade is allowed to drop. There's a nifty little underwater scene that makes one recall Bava's work on Argento's Inferno (1980). The cavern settings encourage comparison with Hercules in the Haunted World (Ercole al centro della terra, 1961) and Corbucci's Goliath and the Vampires (Maciste contro il vampiro, 1961). There are some memorably gruesome deaths - and remember, this was 1959. But overall, this is probably most comparable to some of the early Spaghetti westerns that came out in the first half of the 1960's (such as Bullets Don't Argue (Le Pistole non discutono, 64)) in that it remains too close to it's sources. The genre hadn't yet been supplied with the lead that would provide it with it's identity. Devil's Commandment had predicted the way things would go, but it would be Black Sunday (La Maschera del demonio, 60) that initiated the subsequent turn of course.

As such, Caltiki is of value mainly as a curiosity, as an oddity in the resumee's of two much respected filmmakers.

Then again, any film in which the monster is made out of a ton of offal dumped on top of some unfortunate crewmember has something endearing about it !

Matt Blake