Billed as a horror/comedy, this movie was filmed over the course of five days. FIVE DAYS. That explains a lot. It was actually meant to be a parody of spy, gangster, and monster movies, which I guess accounts for the clichéd dialogue and cheesy monster.
The creature was described thusly by Beach Dickerson (one of the actors): the Creature was made from a wetsuit, some moss, lots of Brillo pads. [...] Tennis balls for the eyes, Ping-Pong balls for the pupils, and pipecleaners for the claws. Then we cover him with black oilcloth to make him slimy.
As the hubby says, you can’t go wrong with a cheesy monster!
Okay. So it stars with a spy named XK150 getting what I’m sure is his sneakers shined. The shoe shine guy slips a folded note into the spy’s sock, and as he leaves the shoe shine guy is shot. Naturally the spy runs and the shooters give chase. He finally loses them and after taking a moment to read the note, he puts on dark sunglasses and the phoniest looking moustache in creation. Oh, yeah, and he eats the note.
Entering the bar the note directed him to, he exchanges a really lame code about wine with a deadpan woman playing chess with herself, and we learn she’s his contact. Then we finally see the opening credits - cartoon opening credits with this really goofy looking, scaly monster, kind of like a wingless dragon.
The actual plot of the movie, such as it is, concerns a mobster named Renzo Capetto who meets with Cuban President Tostada who wishes to hire him to transport himself, a few of his men, and a chest full of gold to parts unknown. The loot is going to be used to finance a counterrevolution.
Once everyone is on board the mobster’s “yacht” (kind of small for a yacht if you ask me), the narrator introduces all the key players. These include the mobster, who’s also the captain and appears to be a Humphrey Bogart wannabe, his girlfriend, a former gun moll named Mary-Belle, her younger brother (Happy Jack), bumbling fool (Pete) who’s more comfortable making animal noises than actually talking, and our spy (who seems to be the sole deck hand, not really part of the gang) who’s under cover name is Sparks Moran.
The captain calls a meeting of his gang and the spy listens at the door. Surprise, surprise, the captain is trying to come up with a plan to ditch the Cubans and keep the gold for themselves. He comes up with the idea of creating a “Creature from the Haunted Sea” to dispose of them.
The gun moll seems to be making a lot of friends. First the Cuban general is hitting on her, although when she’s pretty adamant about telling him to get lost, the interpreter does not accurately translate. She no sooner gets rid of the general and his minion and the spy starts hitting on her. He tells her she’s too good for this life - he’ll save her, or die!
So the bad guys make it look like a monster came on board and killed an innocent Cuban using a plunger over his face, and then use it to leave tracks all over. But wait! there really is a monster! And he kills another Cuban!
The next day, the captain explains to the general that one of his men was killed by a strange creature from the deep. The interpreter outright laughs at him, but the general actually believes him. After they leave the captain scolds his men for getting carried away and killing two Cubans and his minions are just dumb enough to think they must have killed two by mistake.
The plan is to run the boat aground on a reef and Pete will take the chest of gold in a skiff and sink it in shallow water for them to pick up at a later date. So the yacht ends up smashing into the reef and taking on water and everybody abandons ship. The boat the Cubans are in sinks and the creature gets at least a couple of them. Hubby observes that it looks like the Cookie Monster, only with fins.
Eventually they all end up on shore (well, except for the Cubans that got caught by the monster). The Cubans get busy building a hut and the captain wants to dive for the chest and hide it in the reef.
Our friendly neighbourhood spy wanders off down the beach and finds payphone. Say what?? He has the operator put him in touch with Cuba and has to have it charged to his home phone because he has no money.
OMG! Some random guy with a patently fake grin lines up to use the phone. He just stands there with this smarrmy grin on his face. The spy finishes his call and heads back, and passes a guy in a suit with a cane who carefully steps in every puddle along the way. What the hell???
Meanwhile, Pete is off making animal noises and hears answering noises - OMG, it’s a woman named Porcina and it’s love at first sight. They gather a pile of fruit to take back to everyone.
Uh, oh. There’s a hitch in the captains plans - the Cubans are all certified divers and the general is chomping at the bit to have them start diving for the gold. All the men except the general jump into the water to look for the gold. The bad guys kill another Cuban and since they had so much fun, the kill another one. When the general learns that he’s missing two men, the decides from now on they’ll dive with spear guns.
Meanwhile, Happy Jack was sent off somewhere and brings back a girl named Carmelita along with a bunch of diving equipment. He declares love for her but she starts swooning over the spy, who tells her in no uncertain terms that his heart belongs to Mary-Belle. She doesn’t seem to care.
Pete takes Jack off into the jungle and he’s introduced to Porcina’s daughter Mango. Once again we have love at first sight, at least on his part. The four of them just want to live happily ever after and decide they’ll have to kill the others to make it happen. That appears to be okay with them.
The creature starts randomly picking off people. Mango is the first to go missing and Jack is heart-broken. The divers with the spear guns find the gold but the creature is watching. Back on the boat, the captain and Mary-Belle get into a fight and somehow the spy and Mary-Belle end up in the water. The monster attacks! He’s even cheesier out of the water than he was in it.
The Cubans are all dead and one by one the gang members are killed off too. The only ones who escape are the spy and Carmelita, who’s still in love with him. So the spy gets the girl, but the monster gets the gold.
Not the worst movie we’ve seen lately, but certainly not the best.
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