DVD Review: The Lost Continent (1968)
Hammer in name, but this isn't your typical 1960s Hammer production - The Lost Continent is a slightly odd adventure flick.
Based on a Dennis Wheatley's Uncharted Seas (you can see one of the cast reading it in the opening minutes), The Lost Continent focuses on an old steam boat, one on its way to South America with a crew of rogues, passengers who aren't much better (that's why they're on a dodgy boat) and a cargo of highly explosive (and illegal) material that will explode if it gets wet. Not the best cargo to send by sea, but hey, the captain needs the cash.
Halfway to their destination, things start to go wrong. The boat gets a hole in it and starts to let in water, there's also a hurricane heading the boat's way and the captain, desperate to keep a low profile, isn't for taking evasive action. So the crew mutiny and head off in one of the life boats. The captain and passengers do much the same when they realise things are bleak, heading off to safety in the other life boat.
But as luck would have it, they find the boat again (but not before one of the passengers has been scoffed by a shark) - and it's still afloat, although it happens to be trapped in some suspicious-looking seaweed. So back on the boat they go, dragged to an eerie land of 'dead' ships, fog and killer plants.
That's not all either. There's also some shockingly bad monsters (giant crabs, big scorpion, an octopus naturally), along with the descendents of a Spanish crew, which happens to think the Spanish Inquisition is still on. Not friendly either, so as soon as the new ship lands, they attack it - before the new crew and their new-fangled weapons hit back and by chance, finding a way of escaping the deadly seaweed.
Ok, as you might have guessed, this isn't high brow, but it's certainly entertaining. After all, who can resist killer sharks, giant crabs with glowing eyes and religious maniacs wearing large balloons? Not me, that's for sure.
But it's far from perfect. The plot has more holes than a fishing net for a start, the back stories of the passengers aren't fully explained, we don't know what happens to the crew who departed earlier, not enough oversized monsters and the descendents of the Spanish crew still being around 200 years later is very hard to swallow.
Not that any of that bothers me particularly. This is top notch Sunday afternoon entertainment with a slightly deranged twist, throwing in plenty of unexpected turns along the way. Tasty musical score too from Gerald Schurmann and a mixed bag of a cast including Eric Porter, German songstress Hildegard Knef, Tony Beckley (of The Fiend fame), Dana Gillespie and Norman Eshley. No classic, but certainly worth catching.
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