Synopsis
All-Devouring Carnivorous Trees That Move On Their Own Roots!
US Navy battles monsters unearthed from the frozen arctic.
The Navy vs. the Night Monsters
1966 Directed by Michael A. Hoey
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An anachronism even when released in 1966, this is a movie which seems to have been made in the 1950s.
Based on a novel, The Monster from Earth's End (1959), it has The Thing (1951 film) and John Wyndam's 1951 Day of the Triffids novel as obvious inspirations. No wonder it seems so quaint. Sadly, it fails to live up to its muses and delivers a film that is best used as fodder to drift off to sleep in the wee hours.
Director Michael Hoey claimed that the producers tampered and added over ten minutes of padding so the film could make money in syndication. Even with this interference ruining Hoey's pacing, the writing and production values would still sink the ship.
Mamie Van Doren gives it some cult appeal but it remains a mildly interesting monster movie misfire.
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Dim your expectations to low and you might just enjoy The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, as I did. I seem to be of the minority as a result.
There's more than a little of The Thing in this one, though apparently originated from a different literary source.
From the Antarctic ice, military scientists extract long-frozen plant life. And from above the ice, penguins.
The vegetation thaws into acid-dripping omnivorous monster trees that have to be doused with napalm in the end.
Sorry...spoiler.
And Mamie Van Doren, who really wasn't a bad actress, if you ask me.
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A Navy R4D transport plane crashes on an island with a military base, it's got stowaway monsters. Time to fight them with 45 automatics and M1 carbines in this loose knockoff of The Thing.
Mamie Van Doran is probably the biggest name in the cast in this unremarkable film that could have been made in 1954, not 1965. The romance subplot is forced and lame.
There's monsters that look like they were slapped together in 20 minutes, the whole production is cheap and ugly.
The crash scene shows what looks like a C46 Commando doing a wheels up landing instead of an R4D, the Navy version of the reliable DC-3.
Film #702 of 2020.
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Fun shonky b movie with wonderful acid tree monsters that people keep running into and dying for some reason, plenty of stock footage some weird forced humour which is a bit painful. Otherwise a good bad movie.
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What it says on the lid.
Stock footage, Mimi Van Doren with a insane hairstyle
Wobbly acid tree monsters what’s not to like
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60s sci-fi that felt a little late to the party as if it should have been made in black and white in the 50s. Standard fare that draws on all the elements of a 50s drive-in mystery mutant monster movie. These are the sorts of movies that scared me more than gore and other sorts of movies where a lot of people don't make it. Nothing really more unsettling to me than a movie where victims are eaten alive, and when it comes to the Night Monsters, it's one of the least-savory ways to go.
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Mamie Van Doren and some sailors fight killer bugs and some stupid looking killer trees that stumble around on an island = Fun, but quite awful.
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With a title like this, you are not expecting much and you don't get much. On the other hand since Mamie Van Doren gets top billing you expect a little sizzle and a fair amount of screen time. You get neither. Seemingly, she owed Roger Corman another film and this is what she got. She had nothing good to say about it afterwards. Not that many of her 1960's films have anything good to say about them, This is for example a whole lot better than 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt but then so is a punch in the eye. Mamie stays well secured and bundled up from beginning to the end. And on an island with a…
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Could be the classic masterpiece of the truly awful monster movie that takes over 40 minutes to have any plot movement, has inane lame comedy moments set to cheesy "this is funny" music for the first 15 minutes, a 2 minute soliloquy on sandwiches, cardboard sets of indoor and outdoor locations with plastic vegetarian, a plethora of cringe worthy sexual harassment moments, overweight and overaged military men romancing younger woman, and a monster only shot in darkness that looks like a standing hat rack with black feather dusters attached to it.
It's so stupid.
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A weird cross between The Thing from Another World and Day of the Triffids, Navy Vs The Night Monsters has rightfully been heralded as laughable camp but taken into consideration the troubled shoot that it endured, the end product isn’t as outright terrible as it should have been. Co-writer and director Michael A. Hoey got into disagreements with the producer during filming and extra scenes were shot and added by other directors as a result, leading to a jarring juxtaposition of tones and themes. In some instances, Navy Vs The Night Monsters plays the laughs for all it can with some ill-thought out comic relief. At other times, the film tries to be deadly serious with its gory content. You…