Edward Faulkner Film Review: The Navy VS The Night Monsters ne time as a kid I stayed up till 2 or 3 in the morning to watch Navy vs. The Night Monsters (NVTNM) on UHF Channel WFLD-32, Chicago. I fell asleep and never got to see the monsters. 35 years later, I’m cruising through the pages on Amazon.com, and I see the “DVD suggestion for Barry” –packaged in brilliant original poster art regalia exclaiming “DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS MEETS THE NAVY” and “ALL-DEVOURING CARNIVOROUS TREES THAT MOVE ON THEIR OWN ROOTS”. At last, the long lost Navy vs. Night Monsters was 1-Click away from my home-viewing pleasure. I purchased that sucker and waited several weeks for it to arrive. The DVD sat for a month on the floor next to a pile of Charlie Chan movies. One of my Facebook friends noted that the DVD print sucked and the pressing was a chintzy DVD-R. I Hand Braked the film and finally got around to watching it on my iPad. NVTNM has all the earmarks for being a B-movie gem. The film was co-produced by Roger Corman and the director of photography was Stanley Cortez (Night of the Hunter, The Naked Kiss, The Magnificent Ambersons). The film stars voluptuous Mamie Van Doren (Sex Kittens Go to College), wow, and bud from “Father Knows Best” (Billy Gray – who was blasting tunes at one-in-the-morning at last year’s “Monster Bash”). And how can you go wrong with man-eating prehistoric trees thawing out from south pole ice? Anytime a beast thaws from the ice — The Thing from Another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Deadly Mantis, Ice Man, Godzilla -in Godzilla versus King Kong, Gamera, and so forth, get out the popcorn because all hell is breaking loose. However, the resulting film is rather dull, but has a few good moments. The plot goes something like this – Antarctic expedition Operation Deep Freeze unearths (un-ices?) various plant and animal fossils, including desiccated, contorted shrubbery that look like a cross between baobab trees and hurricane-ravaged sago palms (“under-nourished cactuses”). The expedition also captures some penguins. Through the miracle of stock footage, the fossil cache, penguins, and scientists are loaded into a transport plane, which crash-lands at a Naval fueling and meteorological base on an American pacific island. There, naval scientists and officers find the crew missing, except for one comatose dude – who has no significant influence on the story, a few penguins, and the mummified intact fossil trees. The prehistoric trees thaw, eat the penguins, secrete acid, drop mobile fibrous seed pods, re-seed, get re-planted by dumb naval scientists, tear the arm off radar operator Billy Gray, get Molotov cocktailed, and move on down the air strip where (they sure look like prickly-pear cactus to me) they are exposed in the open to Grumman F9F Phantom jets spewing napalm.
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cinamagic dec 2013 - jan 2014
Film poster for “The Navy VS The Night Monsters.”
Woven between infrequent monster scenes is a silly romantic triangle, featuring Mamie Van Doren (MVD) sporting one remarkably flexible form-fitting sweater. We also view a lot of military ilk, and far too many poorly-executed comedic moments. NVTNM is often compared to the superior “Day of the Triffids” (1962), and there are some similarities (big carnivorous plants), but the design of the night monster is so poor the outcome is laughable. I think the Triffids look terrific – they’re mechanical and methodic, and look menacing With their spiny orchid heads (they make a cameo appearance in Joe Dante’s “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” from 2003, with new Triffid design by Frank Dietz. I love the popping sound the harmonious Triffids make. The night monsters don’t do anything. They just sit there. Trees usually aren’t especially scary. The only creepy stationary trees in filmdom I can think of are: 1) the tree that Yoda makes Luke crawl into in The ESB, 2) that tree with the giant toad in “Pan’s Labyrinth”, and 3) the tree in Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” (the apple trees in “The Wizard of Oz” don’t count as they can throw fruit). The night monsters remind a bit of the Ju Ju Tree in the British-made “The Woman Eater” (1958) – another film starring a well-endowed blonde (Vera Day) packed into a tight sweater, although the Ju Ju tree design, with tentacles and mitten-like grabbers, is still more inspired than the sessile night monsters. NVTNM sports ridiculous dialogue, but I love a few lines. Base biologist old guy: “I’d like to dissect a limb from those trees and use a microtome on it…”. Base doctor old guy: “That’s the heart beat of a man in mortal terror.” This flick is really a lot of fun.