Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

The Beast of Hollow Mountain Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 4, 2014

Note: This film is currently available only in the double feature The Beast of Hollow Mountain / The Neanderthal Man.

Let’s face it: cineastes haven’t had much to complain about as the Blu-ray format has blossomed into its maturity. Many (if not quite all) of the “all time classics” in the annals of film have already been released in high definition (some more than once), titles as iconic as Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, and Citizen Kane. Foreign classics like La Grande Illusion and 8½ are well represented, as are silent legends like Intolerance and Nosferatu . Even more greats in virtually all genres are on tap for this year, which brings us to the not exactly stellar pairing of The Beast of Hollow Mountain and The Neanderthal Man. It’s either a good sign or a bad one that movies (it hardly seems fair to call them films) like this are being released on Blu-ray. The positive response is engendered by a feeling that the market can support frankly Grade Z material like this. The negative response is perhaps a result of film lovers asking why product like this is coming out when there are still at least a few (and maybe more than a few) more deserving titles that have yet to see the Blu-ray light of day.

Willis O’Brien may be a name that is not that familiar anymore, especially to younger filmgoers who probably default to Ray Harryhausen when the term “stop motion animation” is mentioned. But Harryhausen himself learned his craft (at least in part) from watching O’Brien, the special effects wizard who helped bring such iconic beasts as King Kong to life. (One of my earliest childhood memories is being regaled with stories by one of O’Brien’s assistants, a friend of my father’s who rather incredibly ended up selling insurance in Salt Lake City late in life, relating the almost infinitely small movements they had to achieve with the articulated Kong puppet to get even the semblance of “normal” looking motion.) O’Brien still looms large as one of the most titanic pioneers of special effects in cinema, but as a concept purveyor, he might not be in quite the same league. As early as the 1940s, O’Brien was peddling the idea of cowboys who encounter a dinosaur in a supposed “lost valley”. O’Brien revisited that idea in the 1950s, setting it in Mexico, but neither formulation attracted much studio interest. The little remembered producing team of Edward and William Nassour finally optioned the story (such as it was) and thus The Beast of Hollow Mountain was born (or perhaps more appropriately, hatched) in 1956.

There are a number of problems with The Beast of Hollow Mountain, including a kind of amateurish quality to both the screenplay and many of the performances and some fairly pedestrian directing, but the biggest issue here is the titular monster. Any good monster movie needs to build up the requisite suspense and then deliver once the beast is revealed. The Beast of Hollow Mountain takes almost an hour of its already relatively brief running time before we get a good look at the errant dinosaur rampaging through the pampas, and when we do, the first shot is of latex legs and feet which are obviously being worn by a human kind of like mutant waders. It’s patently ridiculous and actually laugh out loud funny, completing depleting any sense of dread or terror.

The film features an attractive cast of B-listers, including Guy Madison as American cowboy Jimmy Ryan and Patricia Medina as his Mexican love interest Sarita. The very cute Mario Navarro is also on hand as Panchito, a boy whose father owns ranchland near where the monster wreaks its havoc. The less said about the monster’s performance, the better.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beast of Hollow Mountain is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.33:1. This was a CinemaScope production which was also filmed in the Nassours' Regiscope process of combining stop motion with live action footage. The elements here are in decent if not pristine shape, with occasional pretty bad vertical scratches running through the frame (see screenshot 5). Color is actually fairly lush and well saturated, with blues especially well rendered. That said, there are recurrent density issues here that create a pulsing flicker throughout the presentation. The overall look is often on the soft side, with the process photography being even softer than the bulk of the film.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beast of Hollow Mountain lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix suffices fairly well in presenting the film's often stilted dialogue along with occasional dinosaur roar. There's a boxy quality to the soundtrack which tends to slightly clip the upper registers and which confines the lower and midranges to a fairly narrow sound.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This movie probably could have worked with a more experienced production team, but waiting almost an hour to reveal the beast, which is pretty laughable when it does show up, is a fatal mistake, especially when the drama leading up to it is so turgid. Stick with the Ray Harryhausen version of the same source material, Valley of the Gwangi, instead.