Reviews

As a unit of World War II American soldiers makes a daylight landing on the beach of a Pacific island, they are quickly over matched by Japanese troops. They are all killed, except for a pair of survivors, Moe Malamen and Ken. The pair has been left for dead. Moe has faked his death while Ken has been critically wounded, a mortar fragment in his back. Ken is now moaning in the shallow water. Moe puts him over his shoulders and heads into the jungle where they stumble upon a cave in which to hide.

In the cave the pair gets acquainted and contemplates their circumstances. Moe then sets out to find food and water and finds the Japanese encampment. Upon Moe's return, he examines Ken's wound and both men realize that Ken's situation is dire. That night Moe goes to the Japanese camp to steal the things necessary to help Ken but is discovered, and must knockout a guard before he can escape with the supplies. But before he leaves, he heads to another tent in the camp and takes a photo from the wall. Back at the tent, Moe operates on Ken with crude tools with the hope that it will work. The following morning, Ken appears to be in better shape and is very thankful for Moe's efforts and guts. Moe counters by saying "Some guts? What kind of guts does it take to stay alive?" Later Moe says "Everything I do for you I do for selfish reasons."

A day or two later the men head to the far side of the island to swim and fish in a lagoon but are interrupted by a Japanese guard. The guard discovers one of the GI's shirts, a fight ensues and Moe kills the guard and responds with remorse. Moe buries the body and the pair heads back to the cave where Moe gets drunk to sarcastically "celebrate" his first kill. As the two contemplate the act of killing, Ken attempts to rationalize Moe's killing but Moe will hear none of it. Moe wonders who the Japanese soldier was, what his life was like, and gets drunk.

The following morning the two are almost spotted by a Japanese patrol at the front of the cave but remain undiscovered. Moe later heads out to get some fish but is tailed by a Japanese soldier. As Moe approaches the cave Ken sees the Japanese soldier and kills him by throwing his bayonet into the soldier. Moe then heads out to bury the body but is discovered by two more Japanese soldiers and is pinned down with rifle fire. Moe picks up the Japanese soldier's rifle to return fire and kills one of the two soldiers. After running out of bullets, Moe surprises the remaining Japanese soldier and kills the him with a shovel. Upon returning to the cave, Ken continues to console Moe with a line from Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life", "Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret." Feeling brave, Ken suggests a dawn raid on the Japanese camp and Moe agrees to a Sunday morning attack.

To there surprise, all the Japanese soldiers are lined up with their leader shouting at them. Then to their astonishment, all the Japanese soldiers shoot themselves. Ken and Moe wonder if the war has come to an end. Sometime later while Moe is burying the squad of dead Japanese soldiers, Ken is attacked by yet another unexpected Japanese soldier and strangles him to death. Moe and Ken move to the camp.

After seven months of waiting and bickering, the stress begins to wear on Moe and Ken. A toucan named Uncle Morris becomes a distraction but they wonder if they will ever be found. Indignant at Ken's continued paraplegic condition, they begin to argue more intensely, and the threats and insults begin. Ken grows weary of his existence, his burden. Influenced by Moe's insults, Ken tries to commit suicide but fails. Both men are in utter despair, missing the lives at home in America.

Finally on a bright, sunny day, Moe spots a group of three ships off the coast. Moe wonders if they are Allied ships or Japanese. In a moment of uncertainty, he decides they are enemy ships and heads back to Ken. In a moment of irony, Moe tells Ken that there are planes and ships on the other side of the island but Ken doesn't believe it. That night Ken hears something outside their hut. Moe heads outside to see a goat at the edge of the camp. Back in the hut, they wonder where the goat came from and conclude that the goat is a gift from God, from heaven. As they go for a walk, they encounter a herd of goats at the beach and still wonder where they came from. Moe tells a story of war and how the people left over turned over the world to the children who abolished war and turned the whole world into a circus, the Pacific a zoo, an asylum for goats. As Ken consoles Moe, they understand that the goats can't hurt them. The following morning they awake on the beach to find American soldiers tending to the goats and are saved, just in time before the island is used as a nuclear test sight.

In a remote desert outpost called Yucca Flats, a noted scientist, Mr. Javorsky, has just escaped via airplane from behind The Iron Curtain with a suitcase containing secrets. As his plane lands he makes a desperate escape from assassins sent by the Kremlin to retrieve the stolen secrets. As they are closing in on Mr. Javorsky a nuclear weapon detonates in the distance and its affects are terrible.

In another part of Yucca Flats, apparently unaffected by the massive blast and nuclear fallout, a young couple stops by the roadside, only to be strangled by some hulk of a man, Mr. Javorsky, who has undergone a sinister metamorphosis due to the nuclear radiation. The death is reported to the sheriff, who finds the body of the murdered husband, an abandoned purse, and footprints that wander off into the desert. The sheriff picks up his deputy to search for the missing woman.

Meanwhile Mr. Javorsky, a beast, a deprived creature since the nuclear explosion, is hold up in a cave and seems to have a carnal interest in his captured woman. As the beast roams the desert, the two law men miraculously stumble upon the missing woman, they take her lifeless body back to town.

At a gas station, also unaffected by the nuclear blast, a vacationing family stops for gas, while the two law men resume their search for the killer of the young couple. As the beast avoids capture, the law men employ an airplane to parachute onto an un-climbable Mesa in hopes of finding the killer and ending his rampage. Meanwhile a flat tire has stopped the vacationing family and the couple's two young boys have wandered off, alone in the desert. The parents search haplessly in and around a government missile range for their boys as the airplane closes in and the beast looks for his next kill.

In a sudden turn of events and without any evidence, the deputy mistakenly believes the father is the beast and shoots the father from the airplane. The father survives but the deputy, an ex Vietnam paratrooper now on the ground, begins to stalk his prey. The father arrives at his car ahead of the deputy but crazily.tells his wife to stay behind in case their boys show up, even though he's nearly been killed by the advancing deputy. Luckily for the wife, the sheriff intercepts the deputy and they head off in another direction. Meanwhile the two lost boys and their abandoned mother plug along as night closes in, as the beast closes in.

After a near death run in with the beast, the boys find a cave to hide in which just happens to be the cave of the beast, who then settles in for the night. The boys manage to slip out past the beast but he awakens and chases them. Suddenly the law men appear and quickly shoot the beast. But as the beast stirs from the shooting, he makes a last attempt to kill. In the ensuring fight, the sheriff finds his revolver and apparently kills the beast. But as the movie ends, the beast rolls onto his stomach, then grasps at a young rabbit, releases it, and then remains motionless...but ready for a sequel.

A giant caveman inexplicably appears out of the desert and encounters a teenage girl named Roxy in whom he is immediately curious. Roxy's devoted Rock-n-Roll boyfriend Tom stumbles along and unwittingly scares away the giant. Later, after her escape, her father Mr. Miller is skeptical of her story but appeases her by going out the next day, along with Tom, to search for the enormous man. Much to their surprise, the two men discover the giant's footprints, which they believe are headed toward Shadow Mountain. Roxy's father heads out with camera in hand to try to photograph the giant and is dropped off near Shadow Mountain via helicopter.

Unbeknownst to Roxy and Tom, Roxy's dad has been locked away behind a large stone in the giant's cave dwelling. Having failed to return from the desert, Roxy and Tom search for Mr. Miller while enjoying an oddly cheerful, Rock-n-Roll spin through the desert. After a close midnight encounter with the giant, Roxy is ultimately taken captive and reunited with her father in the giant's primitive cave. Roxy soon discovers much about the giant, who has more charisma and humanity than expected. While Mr. Miller and Roxy are sympathetic to the giant—Eegah they now call him—they begin an awkward cat and mouse game with Eegah to distract him as he takes an obvious interest in Roxy's perfume and womanly charms. As Eegah's advances become more aggressive, Roxy finally convinces Eegah to go out with her. But as Eegah starts to molest Roxy and attacks her father for trying to escape, Tom conveniently appears with his rifle and wounds Eegah. While Eegah is a menace without malice, Tom also feels sympathy for Eegah and can't kill him. As the three make a clumsy escape, Roxy looks back at Eegah in sadness, bewilderment and concern.

Back at the cave, Eegah decides he can't live without Roxy and tracks her back to town. As Eegah makes his way to the loud Rock-n-Roll party where Roxy and the teens in town have gathered, calamity ensues and the police are called to investigate. Back at the party a sullen Roxy confesses to her father that she has a funny feeling that something has happened to him, to Eegah. Her father empathizes and tries to console her. And Tom tries to lift Roxy's spirits by dancing with her. But an upstart rival boy tries to cut in. As a fight breaks out between the boys, Eegah appears over the fence and the fight turns on Eegah, adding to Roxy's dismay, fear and concern for Eegah. Eegah grabs Roxy and attempts to flee with her in classic Hollywood style, but the police appear, draw their guns, Eegah tries to beat back the police but Eegah is shot repeatedly and falls dead into the pool. As the teenagers ask if he was real, Mr. Miller gives Eegah his rite of passage, "It says so in the book of Genesis, 'There were giants in the earth in those days.'"