By CONNOR KEATING
Tiger Media Network
The first review I ever wrote for Tiger Media Network was a review of “The Relic” and was the first in a series of four monster movie reviews for the month of October. Since that’s where it all began, I felt it would be natural to bring it back this year. So for October of 2024, I will be reviewing four terrifying monster movies, each one more horrifying than the last. First up, “The Black Scorpion”.
“The Black Scorpion” is a 1957 monster movie about a series of volcanic eruptions in Mexico that are causing trouble for the locals. A pair of geologists take the opportunity to try studying the volcano’s effects, but end up discovering a series of mysterious attacks and learn that the locals believe a demon bull has cursed the land. While searching for answers, they come across a woman who owns a large cattle ranch that has been mysteriously losing cattle, so the geologists use her place as a little base of operations where they learn that the volcano has opened a massive cavern filled with giant insects and arachnids, and the largest of them is a giant black scorpion. The creatures are on the loose, and it’s up to our heroes to put a stop to the giant scorpions before they tear Mexico to shreds.
Since this is a 50s monster movie, it has a pretty basic plot. A geological or man-made event causes some sort of strange creature to be awoken, and a series of mysterious attacks occur, our main characters try to figure out what caused them, and when they do figure it out, they try to stop the monster. This is the plot for almost every 50s monster movie, even many of the great ones like “Gojira” follow this formula. However, “The Black Scorpion” feels especially similar to another film that follows this plot structure, “THEM!” a film that John and I recently reviewed for “It Came From The DVD Collection.”
There’s even a scene where the characters descend into the nest of the giant scorpions and the sound effects for the creatures sound an awful lot like the ones used for the ants in “THEM!.” The major difference between the two, (other than there being scorpions instead of ants) is that here the monsters are presumably prehistoric, awakened by the volcanic activity. So, there are no themes of atomic testing or anything like that here. You could try reading into the film more, grasping at straws, but as far as I can read, there really isn’t any symbolism for the scorpions like you might find in other monster movies.
The characters here are also pretty much what you’d expect. There’s the all-American hero main character, a love interest for him, though for once she’s not one of the scientists, surprisingly, despite the film already having scientists for the main characters, they still have the older scientist character archetype that’s there to exposition to everyone. The place where the film mixes things up the most is by giving our main man, Dr. Scott a partner to bounce off of in the form of Dr. Ramos. I wouldn’t say they’re good characters, but I do kind of enjoy the two of them together. The same can’t be said for Dr. Scott’s romance subplot with Ms. Alvarez, which feels pretty forced. There’s also a little kid character who is constantly getting into trouble which can be pretty annoying.
So unfortunately, the plot and characters of the film are pretty lackluster. The story is the same thing we’ve all seen a thousand times and the same thing can be said about the characters, and they don’t bring anything distinct or memorable to the table, but there is one area where “The Black Scorpion” really shines…
If you’re here just for the monster stuff, well, “The Black Scorpion” has you covered. It does take a bit to get to the action, as is the case with most 50s monster movies, but once the scorpions show up, the action rarely ever slows down. Most of the creature effects were done by Willis O’Brien, the stop motion animator best known for his work on the original “King Kong,” and here he brings his absolute A-game. The animation is beautifully smooth, the creatures feel alive, and their designs are effectively creepy.
However, some of the effects aren’t so good. They built a giant scorpion head for the film that they frequently cut to that rarely ever looks good and next to the stop motion is pretty laughable. There are also a number of odd moments of reused footage. For example, there’s a shot where we see the big scorpion use its stinger on one of the other scorpions inside of their cave. For that scene, it works, but later on, they used that same shot of him stabbing the others outside… with the cave background still very visible. There’s also a shot where they either forgot or purposefully didn’t put anything over the blue screen, but since it’s black and white, you don’t notice it that much and it just looks like a flat cave wall… a VERY flat cave wall.
Despite these errors and the goofy giant scorpion head, everything else is absolutely fantastic. By far the best part of the movie is the descent and exploration of the cavern that the scorpions come from. The cave is filled with not just the scorpions, but other giant creepy crawlies as well. The models used in this scene are rumored to be the same ones used in the lost spider pit scene from the original “King Kong,” but I’ve also heard some claim that this is false. Either way, the sequence feels very much like this film’s version of Skull Island. The giant cavern feels like a highly hostile alien world which our characters probably shouldn’t be in, and is filled with a plethora of creepy crawlies like a giant worm with huge claws and a trapdoor spider with a terrifying laugh.
Of course, the scorpions can’t stay in the cave forever, and when they do escape, it’s surprisingly scary for a 50s movie. It’s not gonna keep you up at night, but watching the scorpions all gang up on a train, picking people out of it to devour, and then killing each other for the scraps, is great stuff. Of course, the film ends with a battle between the military and the biggest of the scorpions in an epic final showdown. I also like that they establish a weak point for the scorpions earlier in the film and that fact comes into play later. It’s a small element, but certainly more interesting than shooting the monster until it’s dead.
While “The Black Scorpion” may have a pretty lackluster cast going through a run-of-the-mill plot, the monster stuff here is some of the best of the era. The stop motion is some of the best, the action scenes are well done, and in some areas, the film can be quite startling. This is one of those 50s monster movies that I believe would be very cool to see a remake of. I give this film six “oh that’s an actual rotting donkey corpse” out of ten!
Connor Keating is a senior at Fort Hays State University, studying Natural Resources. Connor is an old-school movie fan, particularly Japanese monster movies, and is an avid DVD collector.
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