Creatures The World Forgot!

This 1971 Hammer effort is a very odd movie. Creatures the World Forgot is the last of Hammer's dinosaur and dame movies. Some count Prehistoric Women in the mix but that film's more like She than anything else. One Million B.C. and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth preceded this one and with each film the budget got a bit smaller. This movie has the same director as One Million B.C. and so we get a more serious feel than the somewhat sillier When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth but without a budget there was not much he could do. There are extensive scenes of an earthquake used from One Million B.C. and given the difference in the looks of the characters are very jarring. 

One of the biggest problems with this movie is that the main characters don't arrive until fully halfway through the flick. This movie shows us a few generations of primitive peoples and the core story is about two boys born to a leader of the tribe, one dark haired and resentful and clumsy, and the other blonde and competent and prudent. We only get to this story after watching the tribe trudge through the desert for forty minutes or thereabouts. The slow pacing and unclear narrative is hurt further by the decision to use no dialogue. Now both the previous movies had very little dialogue but this last feature doesn't even give us names to hang onto our characters who are further burdened by some of the worst wigs I've ever seen in a feature film. 

There are no dinosaurs in this movie either. Other than the attributes of Raquel Welch and Victoria Vetri the presence of dinosaurs was a major attraction for filmgoers. This movie has its own bombshell actress in Julie Ege, but she shows up at an even later part of the movie. And the movie doesn't really do any job at all of showcasing her talents. She won a search by Hammer to win the role. 

But that said the movie does have a minor hypnotic effect after you've watched it for an hour or so, you feel compelled to see it come to some sort of conclusion. I just wish that had made more sense along the way. 

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