Rock Dean (John Bromfield) travels to the Amazon jungles to see why plantation workers are running away from their jobs. On this same dangerous trip is the pretty Dr. Andrea Romar (Beverly Garland); she is in search of medicinal herbs used in the process of shrinking heads. The doctor thinks those same herbs may contain an ingredient that could treat terminal cancers. Their guide, Tupanico (Tom Payne), warns the two that they are wanting to travel way too far up the river where no white man has shown his face before. Plus it is said to be the home of the frightening monster Curucu that has been terrorizing the plantation workers.This feature is directed and written by Curt Siodmak and uses tons of stock footage of jungle creatures. Other players: Harvey Chalk, Wilson Viana, Sergio de Oliveira and dancer Larri Thomas.

Hoping to quell the fears of superstitious natives, a rancher and a doctor head into the Amazon jungle to find a supposedly awakened demon but learn of a dangerous native tribe lurking in the area and must stop it from spreading.Overall this was a pretty disappointing and thoroughly disappointing effort. What really tends to hold this one down is the fact that there's not a whole lot of time here spent among the confines of the genre, tending to focus far more frequently on the Adventure drama aspects of the story. The majority of the film is simply watching the two and their guide trek through the jungle and commenting on the different animals present in the area which is then shown in stock-footage inserts of the specific species told they're observing only to then be treated to widely different levels of film-stock quality to showcase that. The piranha attack is the most egregious, showing badly-framed underwater footage in black-and-white no less despite the rest of the film being in color from an angle that has nothing to do with what they pointed to but is just clumsily thrown in since it's a piranha attack footage, while shots of the animals brawling and fighting each other tends to dominate the main parts of the film that it's entirely possible to forget there's a creature at the center of the film. That aspect doesn't help the film any further as there's only two attacks by the creature in the entire film and is then twisted around into another storyline thread which is dropped off the film quite easily and early which is quite troubling and again makes it hard to believe this was supposed to be a horror effort all along. These here make this one quite hard to get into as a horror film, despite having a fairly decent amount of stuff about it. Despite only being seen twice, each of the attacks aren't all that bad and manage to get some mild suspense from them as the creature stalking them in the jungle before jumping out to launch the surprise attack makes for a few decent times here. Likewise, the film also manages to get some decent mileage out of the fantastic brawl at the end as the two rival Indian tribes get into action and begin fighting each other in a fairly large-scale scene, from the fire-laced huts and the hand-to-hand brawling and the long-range battles with the spears and arrows coming into play to make a fine action scene that's quite exciting. Even still, that also plays more into it's Adventure setting that it tends to wash away the positives here and aligns this more as a flaw here.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

I have not seen this film for quite some years, but remember -- the 1940-50's HORROR/SCI-FI films were mostly targeted for the juvenile audience and were intended as FUN and "Saturday Matinee" ESCAPISM. I actually have quite a fond rememberance of this film and it was not really a bad film at all. Produced by UNIVERSAL [in my opinion, one of the studio "leaders" of classic "B-Films" from that period [Adventure, Horror, Westerns] and starring the wonderful "1950'S scream-queen" BEVERLY GARLAND and strong, veteran B-stock actor JOHN BROMFIELD [the workable squre-chinned, buff hero]. WARNING - SPOILER: This film's "Monster" was the typical "red-herring" [only ever seen briefly throughout] and was not revealed until the finale. The beast was actually quite intriguing - attacking through the foliage with a large visible slashing claw, and offering an occasional glimpse of it's savage partially seen face [with strange feather-like features protruding from its head]. It was an elaborate hoax staged by an Amazonian local as a territorial offensive maneuver. Lots of great CINE-COLOR with lush, jungle scenery, a piranah attack, and the film plays more like a "DIME-MYSTERY PULP" adventure than a true actual HORROR film. Overall, I enjoyed it - pure, clean, non-offensive FUN!

"Like nothing you have ever seen" states the tagline for this film, and it is accurate beyond belief. This film is beyond description in many ways. The story details how a plantation owner and a doctor go up the Amazon in search of a Head-shrinking tribe and a mythical beast. The beast looks incredibly inept and totally silly, as is the plot for this film. The leads are horrible, particularly Beverly Garland as the sassy doctor out to always prove herself. Her expressions, not to mention her screams, are enough reason to see the film. I cannot remember laughing so hard at a film. Although the settings are genuine, the folksy South American tune in the background throughout most of the film only serves to belittle any real tension the film might have provided. The direction is poor and the camerawork even poorer. One sequence in particular, when Garland and male lead "Rock" run up a tree to avoid being trampled by a herd of water buffaloes is a real hoot! The scenes were laid on top of each other and just look so idiotic. A great film to ridicule with friends or just for private laughs!