User Reviews

I got this movie a long time ago on VHS from Incredibly Strange Filmworks who deals with rare Sci-Fi, Horror Classics & more. I got it for Christmas one year I believe. I saw it it was pretty good I was disappointed by the Stop-Motion Animation I was used to seeing good smooth animation from Willis O'Brien & Pete Peterson also Ray Harryhausen & David Allen. Jim Danforth is also one of the best won 2 Oscars. I didn't know of him at the time though. Anyway it is a Sci-Fi / Western / Thriller about a Dinosaur hiding out in Hollow Mountain & the swamps & only coming out during times of drought to feed on the local Cattle. Good script by O'Brien. Edward Nassour who Directed also did The Stop-Motion Work which is too jerky not very good animation. Willis O'Brien & Pete Peterson should of did the animation I heard that the budget was too low so O'Brien turned it down. I guess that makes sense to do good smooth animation u need a lot of time. Nassour didn't have that time & Budget. The next year's The Black Scorpion (1957) was done by O'Brien & Peterson excellent Animation up their with the best Stop-Motion Work. Obviously with Scorpion they had the time & the budget to make good effective animation. When it comes to Stop-Motion to make it good u need time & a lot of money in those days. Nassour obviously didn't have it. The Allosaurus looks really nice & detailed I am sure nice armature & the rest was great & very detailed. Just Nassour didn't know what he was doing with the Stop-Motion Work. It is an Allosaurus too not a T-Rex I am sick of reading these other comments saying it's a T-Rex if u know dinosaurs like me count the fingers a Rex has 2 Fingers an Allosaurus has 3 fingers. In the film it has three so it's an Allosaurus. Same with "The Valley Of Gwangi" (1969) which was 100 times better of a Sci-Fi / Western / Thriller with more dinosaurs & brilliant Stop-Motion Work from the master Ray Harryhausen. Gwangi was also an Allosaurus. Anyway Hollow Mountain is alright it isn't the greatest animation but it is decent I guess. With the budget & time that's all that could be done so. Any O'Brien & Peterson, Harryhausen, Allen, or Danforth Film is far better cause they are among the Stop-Motion Masters. Nassour was a Director & isn't known for animation he just did it cause he couldn't get anyone else Harryhausen would of probably turned it down as well. Anyway "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers" (1956) came out & he was already probably working on "20 Million Miles To Earth" which came out the previous year 1957. It is still a good combination & story it isn't the worst Dinosaur Movie I have seen worse. It just isn't as good as u would expect especially for Dino & Stop-Motion Fans. I have this film on DVD+R Pan & Scan Version from Flix Movie Channel it is on their often so if u wanna check it on it's on their a lot. I also have a VHS Transfer on DVD+R of The 2.35:1 Letter-Box Version. Anyway 5 out of 10 for this. Thought I would mention I just recently got on a website like eBay called ioffer a far surperior Laserdisc Transfer of the film on DVD-R in LBOX 2.35:1 also includes a nice menu with chapter stops & Trailer. It was only 10 bucks too in all with shipping beat that! Plus I got 2 other Sci-Fi Films with it for free "The Cosmic Monsters" (1958) & "Fire Maidens From Outer Space" (1956) Cosmic I really like but Fire Maidens was alright they also have the trailers along with nice menus.

The 50's is one of my favorite eras for horror and sci-fi as most of my fond memories as a kid come from watching Harryhausen flicks and Universal Horror movies of that time frame (thanks to my father introducing me to them of course, Im not that old). Along the way there was some really good ones and then there were others like the film here Im reviewing TBFHM.

The story has a basic premise, a Mexican village has a legend that when the waters lower a creature comes out of an unexplored mountain and looks for food anywhere it can get it. Like a lot of the 50's monster films this would be enough to satisfy and entertain. Top that off with stop motion effects and your thinking pure 50's fun right,wrong. The movie also has another story of an angry cattle herder feuding with another herder to gain a monopoly on the cattle business in the area. This part of the story is focused on for nearly the first 60 minutes only briefly bringing up the monster that the title describes.

As a western, which the movie predominately is, it really isn't that good. As a monster movie it is not good either. The monster which finally shows up in the last 20 minutes is more or less to be a T-Rex. It is a very unconvincing stop motion sub par on every level and the way the monster is finally defeated is so stupid you have to see it to believe it. The funny thing about the T-Rex is he has a tongue that Gene Simmons would be envious of and at times they us a guy in rubber monster legs and feet to show it walking, another effect that added a level of badness to the movie.

In the end there is not much here to see. several of the cast would go on to star in the better stop motion monster gone amok film, The Black Scorpion. This seemed like a warm up to that film. If you want to see the best cowboy monster movie out there see "The Valley of Gwangi" which is light years ahead of this dreck. A lot of talking with very little action and the action, when there, being of the very lame variety I have no choice but to give TBFHM: 3/10: Bad, one of the worst 50's stop motion monster films. despite a respectable cast the story and pacing were dreadful along with the special effects.

With a taste for running cattle, the slow moving T-Rex (a victim of poor slow motion animation) is more capable of causing a stampede which kills more people than the medium sized dinosaur does in this slow-moving Western sci-fi. In general, science fiction fans probably don't go to see as many westerns as Western fans would go to see science fiction films, and this mid-1950's combination of both genres is a silly entry in the monster movie craze of this period of time. The Mexican town is surrounded by Hollow Mountain, which as it sounds, has caves that the locals can't get to because it is surrounded by a deep swamp that when the water runs down releases this creature.

The main plot actually concerns American Guy Madison who is involved in a fight over land and has a romance with a wealthy Mexican lady who lives nearby. Best plot cakes about three-quarters of the film, and the monster doesn't make its appearance until the last 20 minutes. The special effects are poor and the creature's movements are shaky at best. This has the advantage of being in color, but that makes the weak affects all the more obvious. To make matters worse, the creatures noises actually sounds more like snoring than growling, and that adds to the silliness of the film. The ridiculously long tongue on the T-Rex istruly silly. It is very apparent that Steven Spielberg was not influenced by this when he began to create "Jurassic Park". "The Valley of Gwangi", released over a decade later, is a much better dino western.

Cowboys being the archetypal movie hero for many previous movie generations, it's surprising that no one even seemed to try to combine a "real" Western with a monster movie and done it "straight" before this. And no, I'm not counting tripe such as "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" - gimmicky novelty movies wearing Western trappings." "Beast" plays fair with the audience of its day - it is a Western through and through and really is built around all the standard Western trappings of its time. And when the monster comes out to play in the final 20 minutes, it's a genuine surprise and gives the movie a badly needed jolt of energy.

It's just too bad that the use of Western screenplay staples is so clichéd - except for the actual monster plot elements ("who is stealing or eating the cattle?"), nothing that any character says or does will surprise you in any way. And someone needed to throttle the soundtrack guy down a bit - it's simultaneously overbearing and overdone.

And the special effects aren't all that great, although I can respect the amount of back breaking work that must have gone into using "replacement" animation for some of the dinosaur sequences(as opposed to the more well known stop motion techniques mastered by Harryhausen.) "Replacement animation" involves creating a new wax figure for each and every frame of the stop motion sequences (as opposed to just changing limb placement, expressions etc on several models) and it must have made such demands on the production budget that they could only use a very limited amount...and it still doesn't look very good to eyes accustomed to Harryhausen.

A devoted fan of the Western genre (and Mexican movies) will probably like this movie more than I did...but I give it credit for trying something interesting and playing it straight instead for exploitation value. (All the exploitation is in the title, nowhere else in the film).

The Beast of Hollow Mountain tells the extraordinary tale of an American cowboy named Jimmy Ryan (Guy Madison) & his Mexican partner Felipe Sanchez (Carlos Rivas) who own a piece of land in the back country of Mexico where they breed cattle, it's a cushy little number & the scenery is nice but lately they have been having problems. Some of their cattle, that's right THEIR cattle, have disappeared & they ain't happy about it. Now it's personal, could it be the local villain Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) who owns a rival ranch? Could it just be bad luck? Or could it have something to do with the terrifying legends of monsters that surround Hollow Mountain where the cattle disappeared? I ain't telling you so if you want to know how this gripping story unfolds you'll have to watch it yourself!

This Mexican American co-production was directed by Edward Nassour & Ismeal Rodriguez & is pretty monstrous in all senses of the word. The script by Robert Hill is a horrible mixture of a western & a dinosaur on the loose monster flick & neither compliment the other that well. For a start I wanted to see more of the 'Beast', it doesn't make an appearance until after the 40 minute mark & even then it's just it's shadow & it's not until after the hour mark until we finally see the 'Beast' in all it's jerky stop-motion glory. So basically all us die hard monster fans have to sit through over an hour of what is best described as a horrendous western about a feud between two cattle ranches as nobody knows about the existence of the 'Beast' so it isn't even mentioned. There's an awful comedy relief fat geezer & his annoying son, there's the love interest &, well, not much else as it plods along. By the time the 'Beast' does show itself it felt like I'd been sat there watching it for hours! The dialogue is corny, the character's are clichéd & this really is quite hard to sit through, the dinosaur scenes save it a bit at the end but they look so poor & it does so little they have minimal impact.

Directors Nassour & Rodrigeuz do alright, I suppose it's due to when it was made but the cast of cowboys in their brightly coloured shirts, sombrero's & cowboy hats look utterly gay & camp. There's no realism here at all. The dinosaur was animated using 'replacement animation' where lots of models of the same character were made in a slightly different pose & when filmed one at a time an illusion of motion is achieved, as far as I'm concerned it looks terrible. I'm sorry but it looks just like ordinary stop-motion animation only worse, it's far more jerky & less convincing. What's with having the dinosaur waggle it's tongue all the time? There is also an hilarious shot of it walking along, there's a close up of it's feet & legs which is obviously an actor walking along in terrible looking rubber monster legs & they even forgot to give him a tail! There's no blood or violence & only one person is shown to be killed by the dinosaur. You know I have to say I felt a bit sorry for the dinosaur, I mean it's not his fault he exists is it? He was just finding food to stay alive wasn't he? Why did all those gay looking cowboys have to murder it? They wiped out the last remaining one of it's species, it's now extinct. I hope those multi coloured cowboys are happy now.

Technically the film is alright, awful dinosaur effects apart it's well filmed with some nice bright widescreen cinematography which uses the locations quite well. The acting is, well, lets say stiff. They probably couldn't get over what they were made to wear.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain is an unsuccessful mix of western & monster film, there's nowhere near enough 'Beast' in it to make it a worthwhile viewing experience. More or less remade as Valley of the Gwangi (1969) as cowboys once again take on prehistoric dinosaurs!

Here's a strange hybrid of a fifties sci-fi movie with a story by old-timer Willis O'Brien who fashions a plot like something out of a Roy Rogers programmer. Only he throws a dinosaur into the mix! I actually wondered after the first half hour or so, as to the possibility that I had DVR'ed the wrong movie, since this didn't conform to any of the horror/sci-fi conventions. It totally plays as a straight-up Western for at least the first hour, except for maybe a few seconds of mysterious background music. Both an American director and a Mexican director worked on the movie, and share the directing credit, which I thought interesting and pretty unusual.

Set in Mexico and shot in glorious color, The Beast of Hollow Mountain looks fantastic, but fails to deliver much in the way of frights. The handsome hero Guy Madison only wants to run his ranch with his Mexican partner Carlos Rivas, but soon becomes entangled in a love triangle with a local woman and her powerful fiancée. And who knew that a tyrannosaurus rex lurked in the hills? And why did it wait till the last twenty minutes to make itself known? Stereotypical characters and some uninteresting dialog somewhat dampen the proceedings, but some nifty action sequences including a cattle stampede add enough excitement to make it enjoyable. And Patricia Medina as the local Mexican beauty seems a tad too mature to play such an innocent and virginal character. Today she'd be cast as the girl's mother, although she certainly is age-appropriate to be in a relationship with Madison.

The climax delivers some real fun, and the athletic Madison gets to show off some gymnastics in the final encounter with the title character. The FX are in line with O'Brien's work on King Kong and there's lots to recommend here, but the film doesn't quite rise to the level of a classic.

** out of *****

I was perusing my Tivo recommendations and this description jumped out at me:

"A Mexican cattleman's beef with a rancher is settled by a tyrannosaur from the local swamp."

How could I pass up a gem like this? The "special effects" are MST3K worthy, particularly a scene where the drunk father is dragged by a horse, rather, where a dummy that's supposed to be the drunk father is dragged by a horse. Awesome! When they showed a close-up of the "feet" of the dinosaur I howled! I know it was the fifties, but still! The acting was better than I was expecting, though I could have done without the kid, just annoying.

Certainly no classic, but I was entertained from start to finish.

I was just getting into the story and out of nowhere the dinosaur shows up and kills the only comedic character. I swear it's funny and stupid to the point no one know what they're doing here. If you need a laughably bad movie to laugh l, this is it.

One of two 'cowboys vs. dinosaurs' movies penned by Willis O'Brien, the other being the far more successful VALLEY OF GWANGI made in 1968. THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN is something of an obscure film despite its mainstream status as an average '50s B-movie monster flick. For the most part, the film is flawed in numerous ways and fails to deliver on the entertainment stakes until the last twenty minutes. The film was made in Mexico on the cheap and it shows, with an entirely Hispanic cast aside from imported lead Guy Madison (AVENGER OF THE SEVEN SEAS). Perhaps these are the reasons for its lack of popularity. Another reason is that this film is far more of a routine oater than a monster movie; due to the budget (or lack thereof) we don't actually get to see the monster until the final twenty minutes of the movie.

Up to then, THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN follows all the usual clichés of the western genre, filling the screen with a bunch of predictable characters: the noble, kindly newcomer; the damsel in distress; the jealous Mexican bad guy; the drunk; the annoying little kid who screams and cries a lot. There's a hell of a lot of smalltalk going on and far too much filler, especially during a never-ending street party in the latter half of the movie. At least its short and you can just about get by watching it without dozing off. There are one or two notable action sequences to enliven things, including a nicely-choreographed fist fight on the street and a cattle stampede from hell. There are a fair amount of real stunts involving horses which appear to be pretty dangerous and likewise a scene where villagers let off fireworks IN THEIR HANDS shows that in Mexico there are no health and safety measures to worry about.

Cast-wise there are few surprises to be had. Everybody fulfils their own role without really standing out from the crowd. Ten minutes after the film ended I couldn't really remember a face or character which may tell you something. Guy Madison does his best with the material and goes through his familiar motions, carrying off some great athletic work there too (the bit where he runs and jumps on a horse is very impressive). This was just before Madison set sail for Italy and pursued his career as a villain in an assortment of swashbucklers and peplum epics for the next ten years.

As for the Beast itself, it turns out to be a mouldy old dinosaur inexplicably living in the mountain for thousands of years without dying of old age. The stop motion effects used to animate the beast are usually poor; O'Brien should have been allowed to handle the effects himself instead of some amateur doing the job. At least the stop motion is better than the terrible rubber dinosaur feet used in the close-up shots. The last twenty minutes of the film is one long-running action scene with the dinosaur figuring heavily in the action stakes; although it may not look the best it is pretty well animated, especially when we see it running after a horse. The trap our hero sets for the Beast is the cleverest thing in the movie.

As a kid I was fortunate enough to catch this one on television and I loved it totally. Seeing it as an adult I am well aware of the flaws and faults but I still view it with a sentimental eye. Although the monster looks cheap, at least it gets to eat a few cows and kill a couple guys, and the ending will impress all but the most spoilt kids. Hardly a classic movie but a winner on the nostalgia front. They don't make 'em like this anymore, that's for sure.

While I have to agree with most of the reviewers about the amateurish stop-motion animation, the monster is not really all that bad, it seems that way compared to the movie magic that modern CGI (Jurassic Park) is capable of now. The acting is quite good, with Guy Madison proving that he had more than the ability to ride a horse with the best of them...he had genuine talent as an actor too. Patricia Medina is more than lovely...she is a dream in color. The plot is surprisingly well thought out, and the script is pure 1950's fun from start to finish. Once the action gets going, it is worth the wait...a tough fist fight, a couple of fast draws, and some horsemanship that is very impressive. Some people complained about how the monster meets its end, but I thought that it was quite a change from the usual manner in which the hero brings it down...actually something that might work if such a monster was to show up for real. In short, this is NOT Valley of Gwangi, or Jurassic Park, but it is just good clean fun for everyone in the family! Sit down with a big bowl of popcorn, a mug of Pepsi, a pack of smokes, turn out the lights, and enjoy an hour & a half of pure fun. Don't criticize it, just enjoy it.