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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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5
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Yet
another cheesy 'ape-monster on a rampage' flick, the kind cranked
out in abundance during the 1940s and '50s. Trog,
however, was released in 1970 — making it almost as much of
a throwback as the titular caveman.
Three
college lads on an amateur spelunking expedition in the English
countryside stumble upon the entrance to a heretofore uncharted
cavern. Keen to be the first to explore it, the trio descends
below and discovers an underground stream. Two of the party
allow enthusiasm to trump good sense, stripping off and jumping
in to follow the stream as far as physically possible; the third,
Malcolm Travers (David Griffin), possesses a cooler head, electing
to stay behind. "It's your funeral," he chides only
half-jokingly... which for one of them it literally is. The
stream leads to a hidden chamber where the men are attacked
by a savage creature with the body of a human and the head of
a prehistoric ape. One of the explorers is killed. The other
emerges traumatized, in total shock. Travers didn't see the
monster himself but in an amazingly prescient move takes his
wounded, delirious friend to the nearby Brockton Research Centre,
an institute dedicated to anthropological studies.
Based on the injured
man's vague description of his attacker, the institute's director,
Dr. Brockton (screen legend Joan Crawford), decides she must
see for herself before the police are involved. Escorted by
Travers, she enters the cave —
without having to do any of the crawling the guys did, apparently
—
and is able to snap a photograph of the creature. This evidence,
along with Brockton's prestige in the scientific community,
convinces the authorities to attempt capturing the ape-man rather
than killing him outright. The creature is flushed from his
cave up to the surface and eventually subdued, albeit not without
incurring a few casualties. (Policemen amusingly stand by as
a couple of TV technicians are pummeled by the monster.) Amid
a media frenzy and much public controversy the captive is transported
to a holding cage at Dr. Brockton's institute, where the scientist
nicknames her astounding discovery "Trog", short for
troglodyte.
An enthusiastic Brockton
immediately sets to work studying Trog, determining that the
ape-man possesses the rudimentary intelligence of a "retarded"
child. (He's apparently an NPR fan as well, as evidenced by
a violent reaction when his classical music is switched with
rock.) Brockton theorizes that he is, in fact, the long-sought
Missing Link, a previously unknown life form that bridged the
gap between prehistoric apes and Neanderthal man. Frozen in
his cave for millions of years, Trog must have survived in suspended
animation until recently thawing out. Hoping to learn as much
as possible from him about the evolutionary process, she calls
in a group of internationally renowned scientists to help. Among
these is a famous American surgeon (The
Slime People's Robert Hutton) who, by implanting an electronic
device in Trog's body, hopes to give him the power of speech!
Unimpressed by the vast potential for knowledge that Trog represents,
local land developer Sam Murdock (Michael Gough) tries to turn
the community against Brockton and her institute. He fervently
believes that the presence of a dangerous "ugly demon"
in the area will negatively impact commerce. Unable to make
headway with the media or the courts, Murdock resorts to crime
—
he sneaks into the research lab and opens Trog's cage. With
the monster at large and on the loose (as he vehemently warned
could happen), perhaps people will start listening to him...
Produced by Herman
Cohen, the Yank responsible for such made-in-Britain genre flicks
as Horrors
of the Black Museum and Konga,
Trog would just be a sad waste
of talent if it weren't for the semi-steady stream of unintended
laughs. The production looks cheap and the trite, clichéd
dialog is sub-comic book level material (when not outright ludicrous).
Like virtually every other killer ape-man pic I can think of
at the moment, it is the actors that make or break its entertainment
value —
alas, Bela Lugosi couldn't be in all of them. (Being
dead was something of an impediment, I suppose.) Oscar winner
Joan Crawford, whose career was pretty much over after What
Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), tries to give a sincere
performance in this thing despite its inherent silliness (and
her off-camera drinking), which does add to the fun. The go-to
guy for Cohen whenever a despicable, scenery-chewing villain
was required, the delightfully over-the-top Michael Gough easily
walks away with the movie even though his scenes are relatively
brief. (This being his fifth Cohen film, he knows the drill
well and serves up the ham as thickly as possible.) I was taken
aback to learn that Trog was helmed
—
without little to no enthusiasm, obviously —
by the great cinematographer Freddie Francis. Based on some
of his other forays into directing (The
Evil of Frankenstein, Dracula
Has Risen from the Grave, The
Doctor and the Devils), this one was purely for a very quick
paycheck. Surprisingly, he didn't use an alias.
But what of Trog himself?
Whether playing with dolls, hurling rubber boulders or tipping
over cars (which instantly burst into flame and explode), he's
simply laughable as a monster. The body count is low and his
rampage, with the exception of an out-of-nowhere meat hook kill,
strictly a G-rated one. The animatronic monkey mask is actually
quite good for 1970 —
Trog's lips move and curl, something the celebrated makeup artists
on the original Planet
of the Apes weren't able to achieve just two years earlier
—
but sticking it atop a hairless, normal human body doesn't only
smack of cheapness but stupidity as well.
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| Trog
has been released as part of Warner's Cult Camp Collection,
Vol. 2: Women In Peril triple-disc box set — Caged
(1950) and The Big Cube (1969) are
the other included films — but is also sold individually. The
DVD offers a terrific 1.85:1 widescreen transfer (16x9 enhanced)
which, apart from some mild image shimmering during the opening
credits, looks fantastic. Visuals are complimented by a strong,
distortion/hiss-free mono audio track. The only extra on hand
is the theatrical trailer, which goes amusingly overboard with
the ballyhoo. 7/16/07 |
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