The Crater Lake Monster is a 1970's monster themed b-movie but alas not one of the better ones.It tells the story of a meteor that awakens something ancient beneath a lake which proceeds to chomp on the locals.I was drawn to the movie because of the cover art but shortly into the film you'll realise that it's not being entirely honest with you.The movie itself looks and sounds great, in fact I was stunned to discover that it's as old as 77 so for that it gets a remarkable thumbs up. The SFX however leave a lot to be desired even for it's time. The "Monster" looks like it's straight out of Jason & The Argonauts movie (The original ones) and for that reason it's very hard to take seriously.One stand out part of this film is a couple of comedy characters who actually make the film somewhat watchable to a degree. I actually laughed but was frustrated that even the dreadful finale had to screw that up.With more plot holes than you can shake a stick at this should have been better but poor writing and laughable sfx ruined it.The Good:Some oddly good comedyLooks ahead of its timeThe Bad:SFX are unintentionally funnyCover is deceptiveWeak finaleThings I Learnt From This Movie:Bray Wyatt has come a long wayStars are easier to see during the dayDying underwater will cause your blood to teleport onto your boat

A giant plesiosaur, akin to the Loch Ness Monster, appears in Crater Lake in Northern California, near Susanville (not to be confused with the much more famous Crater Lake in Oregon). As people are attacked by the monster, the Sheriff (Richard Cardella) investigates along with a group of scientists in order to stop the creature.What we have here is awesome stop-motion, a terrible script and a very low budget. I know that some who were involved in this have blamed the producers and the editor and everyone else that can be blamed. And that is fair... but really, this is a story about a dinosaur using stop-motion. What did you expect? While not as terrible as you might think, it probably is not much better than you might think. In fact, it falls into the category of cult b-movie cheese.

We have a lake. We have an animated meteor crashing. We have a killer stop-motion dinosaur with flippers. Okay, so let's call this movie THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER. What else can we add? Hmm, two idiots called Arnie & Mitch to define the ultimate definition of "comic relief". We also got to have a sheriff who doesn't really do a damn thing in this film and whom nobody listens to. Aw crap, we're over halfway through the movie and we forgot to insert a bad guy! No worries, let's introduce some guy with a moustache, have him rob a store to indicate he's a bad guy, then have him pop up somewhere near the lake, have him chased through the woods and all this for the sole purpose of him ending up as dinosaur snack food. That should work.A complete, clumsy mess, this film. Its logic will twist your mind to force laughter out of you. The first film to feature Dave Allen as a "stop motion supervisor". After this one, he joined forces with Charles Band for several years until the the mid-nineties, when Band ran out of money to pay him, I guess. The dinosaur effects are charming and the whole film is pretty damn unintentionally funny. Unfortunately, that's about the only good thing that can be said for it.Good Badness? Yes. The mind-bending logic in the narrative should be enough reason for that. If not, Arnie & Mitch will do the trick. 3/10 and 8/10

...and it is this film. I imagine that if indeed there is a negative afterlife, damned souls are tied to a rather uncomfortable couch and forced to watch this movie on a continuous loop for all eternity. Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it is probably the worst film I have ever seen next to "Manos, the Hands of Fate"... and I have seen a lot of bad movies, believe you me. This is just a crummy B movie, bad film-making at it's finest(or is it worst?) The thing I really didn't like about this movie is the moronic duo they threw in for comedy relief. Now, a little comedy relief is a good thing, but most of the movie is focused on the adventures of these two morons, rather than on the "heroes" of this film, who are actually in it for less time than them! To be fair, Crown International really destroyed the movie by adding bad music and doing a poor job editing. But honestly, this was probably a bad film to begin with, so Crown really couldn't have done that much to hurt it. This really needs to be in the bottom 100 list. I wouldn't wish this one on my worst enemy. Actually, it's my kind of campy B movie. It was bad, but I still liked it, despite my one star rating.