THE LOST CONTINENT

 

Publicity poster for The Lost Continent (© Michael Carreras/Hammer Films/Seven Arts Productions/Warner-Pathé/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After missing this film when it was shown on the British retro-movies TV channel Talking Pictures several weeks earlier, I made sure not to do so again when it was reshown on 7 January 2021 on this same channel.

Directed, produced, and written by Michael Carreras, and released in 1968, The Lost Continent is a decidedly weird science fiction/fantasy movie produced by Britain's famous horror flicks studio Hammer Films in conjunction with Seven Arts. It is based upon the Dennis Wheatley novel Uncharted Seas (1938), which, memorably, one of the characters in this movie is briefly seen reading, but also which, unmemorably (in every sense!), Wheatley allegedly had completely forgotten that he'd even written!

The principal star of The Lost Continent is Eric Porter, as Captain Lansen, supported by a number of readily-recognizable British character actors such as Michael Ripper (a Hammer Films stalwart), Victor Maddern, and Nigel Stock, as well as Dana Gillespie who is equally well known as a singer/songwriter. As for its storyline, this is singularly bizarre from the offset, although the offset itself is lightened by the movie's theme song, a jaunty typically-1960s ballad sung by a British jazz/soul trio named The Peddlers – click here to listen to it.

Suffice it to say that The Lost Continent features a lost ship at sea, captained tyrannically by Lansen, whose passengers (most of whom have shady pasts) and crew (many of whom have ulterior motives) are gravely imperiled by encountering the likes of an unending floating mass of carnivorous seaweed (yes, you read that correctly!), a giant green-eyed octopus, and a no less gargantuan hermit crab and scorpion, not to mention dealing with a doomed mutiny. Nor should we forget their confrontation with a second ship harbouring an equally marooned but exceedingly belligerent and fanatical, centuries-old community of Spanish conquistador descendants ruled nominally by a boy king, El Supremo, but in practice by his evil grand inquisitor.

Add an illegal cargo of unstable explosives that threaten to blow up everything and everyone if they should so much as come into contact with a single drop of water...on a leaky flooding ship, at sea, in a hurricane! – and you can be sure that there's never a dull moment in this film!

Don't expect Ray Harryhausen-quality standards for the monsters, but they are nonetheless entertaining in their quaintly substandard way. Moreover, The Lost Continent was actually one of several movies in the 'Lost World' subgenre populated by prehistoric/giant monsters that Hammer Films produced.

If you'd like a pay a brief visit to The Lost Continent, be sure to click here in order to view a somewhat lurid yet official trailer for it on YouTube.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!