Trog

A scientist (Joan Crawford) tries to unlock the mystery of a troglodyte, found in a local cave, much to the ire of a local developer (Michael Gough).

Trog starts out promisingly enough. A group of amateur spelunkers is exploring the local countryside, when they discover a new fissure. Intrigued, they enter the cave, only to discover a monster. Never mind that the monster, no joke, consists of a man wearing an ape mask left over from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Later, in the final twenty minutes, the monster runs rampant through the town and kidnaps a little girl in a sequence that faintly echoes Frankenstein.

In between there’s an hour’s worth of… nothing. This movie breaks the one cardinal rule of schlock cinema: never be boring. Crawford tries to rise above the material, but there’s simply nothing for her to do. Do we really need to see her rolling a ball back and forth with a man wearing an ape mask? Sure, it’s campy but it’s still boring. Equally wasted is Michael Gough, whose one-note performance gets old after the first five minutes.

Perhaps worst of all is that, since this movie is so boring, you’re left with lots of time to think about the plot. The whole concept is ridiculous, from the idea that a single developer could jeopardize a scientific find of this magnitude, to the idea that a simple surgery would allow the troglodyte to talk, the gaping plot holes are practically infinite.

Trog’s only distinction is that it was, unfortunately, Joan Crawford’s final film. While her previous film, Berserk was no great piece of cinema, it’s positively Oscar worthy next to Trog.