The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

A very strange film indeed. A meteorite crashes into a lake awakening some kind of Lock Ness like monster (with some decent stop-motion animation) and begins to eat people. So far so good. However the film is made so badly with random sub-plots and weird characters. We have a couple of rednecks Arnie (Glenn Roberts) and Mitch (Mark Siegel) who hire out boats on the lake and seem pretty oblivious to everything that is going on around them. Their attempts at humour are as painful as being eaten by a monster...

Half way through the film we suddenly see a rather botched shoot out in a liquor store, what has this got to do with the rest of the film (apart from the fact the gunman eventually ends up another snack of the monster)? Why was this character added so late into proceedings? Like much of this film it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

The Sheriff (Richard Cardella) is a hoot, early on the film he seems the laziest cop in the world but in the end is willing to take on the monster on his own with a bulldozer and a handgun.

Not a good film at all, the acting is poor, the plot and pacing all over the place and continuity mostly missing. It is good fun though, camp nonsense. The monster special effects are not bad, especially for their day.