The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1955)

Peculiar Dr. Ted Stevens (Kent Taylor) and bizarre government agent Bill Grant (Rodney Bell) discover a radiation burnt body on an unusual looking beach. Ted approaches oddball oceanographer Professor King (Michael Whalen) and his attractive daughter who’s the only one who seems human. Meanwhile King’s assistant follows king around and hides in bushes while his secretary shakes with paranoia. Oh, and there’s a really poorly designed rubber suit monster swimming around.

Normally a film this cheap, this poorly made, isn’t worth the time. By most objective standards, this is a terrible film. But The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues earns a point for being weird. Everything is a bit off. The acting isn’t bad in a normal way—it’s strange. Lines are delivered in a cadence that doesn’t quite match speech. And what do they say in that inhuman cadence?

You know, science is a devouring mistress. She devours all who seek to fathom her mysteries. And for every secret she reveals, she demands a price; a price that a scientist must be prepared to pay. Even at the cost of his life or the lives of others who stand in the way of his search.

And that’s just normal conversation.

I could never replicate the way Ted and Bill walk—so close to human, but not quite. And there’s a lot of that strange walking right off the bat as a third of the cast saunters along the beach in the middle of the night (or at least the film soon after informs me it is the middle of the night—there’s no way to tell from the lighting what time of day it ever is). As there’s only around ten people that exist, four acting like a scout troop at midnight is just another bit of oddness.

Everything is shot either in drab midrange or in overly tight close-up, the second of which allows for characters to suddenly appear next to each other when they should have been visible to each other for minutes. The nonsensical comings and goings of characters turns the film into a comedy. Maybe they can all teleport? Why not since Ted is an expert on atomic death rays. Yes, atomic death rays. Oh, and there is a hot Russian spy who sunbathes in the gray light while everyone else wears jackets.

If there was a big reveal at the end that everyone is really dead or aliens from the planet X, then the film would have made a kind of sense. But nope. The movie is just perplexing. But that goes with the title which is wrong in every way. A more accurate one would be The Humanoid, Mutated, Radiation Monster From 10 to 20 Feet Down, though that would imply the monster is relevant to the story. I’d go with Weird People Being Weird on a Weird Beach.

I rarely find films “so bad that they’re good,” but this is the exception. It doesn’t even need a MST3K track. It is hysterical and you’ll have no trouble inserting your own jokes.