Eegah! (1962)

Nice effects though.

Awesome Movie

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

EEGAH is a widely celebrated B-movie, shot for fifteen thousand dollars in Palm Springs, California. It's so bad that it feels like ROBOT MONSTER, although not quite as kooky or entertaining as that movie. The storyline involves a family who come into contact with a random caveman (complete with club!) living in the mountain, and who are subsequently terrorised by him.This is bargain basement stuff throughout, with very poor production values and dubbed-in sound which sounds, well, fake. The film was written and directed by former western actor Arch Hall Sr. for his son, singing sensation Arch Hall Jr., who annoys the eardrums of the viewers with his repertoire.The caveman duties are handled by the towering Richard Kiel, later to find fame as the much-loved Jaws in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. Kiel wasn't much of an actor, especially in this film, but the other wooden stars are even worse. The story is so slim that it stalls halfway through with long, drawn-out scenes of characters sitting around, before picking up for the unintentionally funny climax complete with sonorous, KING KONG-style voice-over narration. It's a dud, but a fun dud, I suppose, if you're in a charitable mood.

Eegah! One of Le Bad Cinema's most notoriously terrible productions, was directed by Arch Hall Sr. and released on June 8th, 1962. Featuring a small cast of schlock actors and actresses including: Richard Kiel, Marilyn Manning, and Arch Hall Jr., the film has obtained "Fifty Worst Films of All Time" status as stated by Michael Medved. Although the film in itself is rather boring and especially cheesy, watching the film with commentary from the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is truly hilarious. The overall plot of Eegah is particularly unbelievable and based on absolutely no scientific basis. However, numerous films have followed the same format and are still moderately enjoyable such as Demolition Man. So, what exactly makes Eegah different? Besides its ungodly explanation for how Eegah survived for the past several hundred years, the acting isn't top notch either. Basically, the storyline follows a teenage girl as her and her boyfriend go on a scavenging hunt through the desert for a genuine caveman she ran into a few nights ago. Her father, played by Arch Hall Sr., actually went out looking for the giant also after listening to his daughter's claims of nearly hitting one with her car. Somewhere along the way, Roxy is kidnapped by Eegah and dragged away to his cavernous encampment where he is also holding her father. Once within Eegah's home, her father, Robert explains how he has begun to unsophisticatedly communicate with the Neanderthal. Eegah then presents his mummified relatives to Robert and Roxy, receives a shave, gives them a glass of sulfur water, and even attempts to sexually harass his new female companion. All the while, Arch Hall Jr., has been reluctantly scouring the desert-side in his dune buggy looking for his comrades. Upon discovering their location, Roxy and Robert break free of Eegah's clutches and hop in the dune buggy. For the next subsequent fifteen minutes, Eegah chases them around the entire hillside until they finally lose him. The film ends when Eegah finds his way into a party being hosted by Roxy and picks a fight with two cops each carrying a .357 Magnum. Although the ending was a rip-off of King Kong and The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari, in total, Eegah was a good yet terrible film. Its main strong point was its affinity for making me laugh due to the sheer level of nonsense filled within its scenes. However, as a warning, if I hadn't seen it with commentary from Mystery Science Theater 3000, I might not have appreciated it as much.

The film I chose to review for Le bad cinema is Eegah which stars Arch Hall Jr., Arch Hall Sr., Marilyn Manning, and Richard Kiel. This movie is the story of a couple of teenagers that stumble upon a giant caveman in the desert and have various encounters with him throughout the film. At the beginning, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is driving down the road in the desert and almost crashes into Eegah (Richard Kiel). She gets away and tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson (Arch Hall, Jr.), and her father Robert Miller (Arch Hall, Sr.) about her crazy encounter with the cave man. Her father gets the bright idea to venture off into the desert alone to try and get a photo of Eegah. He then arranges to have a helicopter drop him off in the desert then come back to get him at a certain time.Tom and Roxy begin to worry because Mr. Miller has not yet returned so they take Tom's dune buggy out to look for him. Eegah kidnaps Roxy and takes her to his cave. This is where we see the traditional "monster carrying the girl" scene. Once inside the cave Roxy finds her father alive but with a hurt arm. It becomes apparent that Eegah is attracted to Roxy and her father pretty much just tells her to keep him distracted and to give him what he wants so that he doesn't kill the both of them. I found this part of the film actually quite priceless. Eegah leaves the cave for a short while but blocks the door so that Roxy nor her father can escape. Roxy then decides to give her father a shave to help him feel better. When Eegah comes back he notices Roxy shaving her father and decides he wants one too. Tom finally makes it to the cave and helps his girlfriend and her father escape the mighty Eegah with his trusty dune buggy.It takes them a while to finally get out of the desert because they keep getting turned around as Eegah continues to chase after them in hopes of getting Roxy back. Eegah follows them all the way back to civilization. He ends up on a small rampage at the party where Roxy and Tom are. The cops are called and when they arrive they unload their pistols on Eegah and shoot him to death causing his body to fall into the swimming pool. At this same moment Mr. Miller quotes some sort of bible verse that just wasn't even necessary to be in the film.This film was made very low budget and even though it wasn't that great I enjoyed the story line and got a few laughs out of how badly made the film actually was. During the cave scene it's quite obvious that the insides of the cave walls are made out of some sort of cloth resembling thick sheets. Overall I would recommend this film for other people to watch if they've got nothing better to do. It's literally so bad it's funny. Watching this film on the episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 made it even funnier.

Even though this film is one of the worst movies of all time and has terrible acting, a bad plot, and awful dialog, I love it. I have been watching Eegah since I was a very young kid after we got it as a joke present from my uncle. It is so bad it is very fun to watch and I must have seen it at least 50 times over the course of my life! There is a certain sweetness about the film and the characters that makes it interesting, and by the end of the film you really will grow to to like the giant, Eegah, who despite his menacing appearance, is a nice guy. I have such great memories of this movie and while it is terrible, Eegah remains a very special film for me and all of my family.