EDITOR’S NOTE: Monster from the Ocean Floor was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 28, 1968 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, June 26, 1971 at 1:00 a.m.
The very first film produced by the king of grindhouse hustle himself, Roger Corman! Directed by Wyott Ordung and penned by Bill Danch, this little slice of 1950s creature-feature history is essential viewing for cult cinema completionists. Think of it as the granddaddy spiritual ancestor to modern schlock like Sharktopus and proof that Corman was going green decades before it was cool, reusing every dime, prop, and location until the celluloid bled.
American artist Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell, looking fetching while vacationing down in sunny Mexico) bumps heads with brooding marine biologist Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade). Steve laughs off local whispers of a terrifying sea monster until Julie hands him an actual tissue sample from a giant, eye-popping oceanic amoeba. Once the science kicks in, Steve decides the only logical course of action is to hop in his tiny submarine and wage full-scale war on a single-celled nightmare!
That mini-sub Steve navigates wasn’t a cheap studio prop—it was a 100% real prototype sub secured by Corman for the unbeatable price of zero dollars. That’s precisely why the bizarrely specific credit “Submarine built by Aerojet General” pops up on screen. There is a brain-melting moment mid-movie where the scientists offhandedly start chatting about pterodactyls. Steve casual-flexes that he found a real, intact dinosaur egg a while back. The movie completely glosses over this and immediately moves on. You’ll be sitting there screaming at your screen: Why on Earth are we spending 64 minutes hunting down a giant squishy amoeba when there are actual living dinosaurs wandering around?
You can watch this on Tubi.
