Trog |
  • UK • 1970 • 93m •   • Directed by: Freddie Francis. • Starring: Joan Crawford, Michael Gough, Bernard Kay, Kim Braden, David Griffin, John Hamill, Thorley Walters, Jack May, Geoffrey Case, Robert Hutton, Simon Lack, David Warbeck, Chloe Franks. • Music by: John Scott.      Anthropologist Dr. Brockton unearths a troglodyte (an Ice Age 'missing link" half-caveman, half-ape) and manages to domesticate him - until he's let loose by an irate land developer to go on a rampage and kidnap a little girl
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Review:
The film begins with three freelance geology students exploring a new cave in the English countryside. One of them is killed by an unknown creature and another is in shock and heavily wounded. Joan Crawford's Dr. Brockton and the third student go down to the cave and find the troglodyte that is hiding there. They eventually lure him out with the press watching, and Brockton captures him with the hope to civilize him like a normal human being.
Let me start off by saying that Crawford is quite bad here. Most of the time she's on screen, she almost looks like she is going to explode in a fit of hilarious anger, even when she has a pleasant expression on her face. One can just tell from looking at her on the screen that as an actress, she's washed up at this point. Even though she would make another appearance as a TV actress later, this was her last movie. What a depressing way to go out. Michael Gough also costars as a vague businessman who hates Trog for no other reason than he thinks that his presence would interfere with his business dealings, whatever they are. To set off the film's final rampage, he angers Trog and sets him free, stupidly not expecting Trog to go after him once he's set free. Gough is just half-hearted here, struggling especially to make his disgusted speech towards Trog believable.
Aside from the hilariously bad performances, the film is really boring. Most of it is devoted to Crawford playing with Trog like a pet and treating him like a kid with disabilities, which is sort of what she compares him to. The film wants me to care about all of this, but I don't, mainly because her plans should have already been rendered moot with the fact that he has killed four people by the time he ends up in her lab. Does she not care about human life, despite her position? The Trog costume is so poor, that only actor Joe Cornelius's eyes allow for any kind of expression from the creature. This is especially unacceptable considering that John Chambers' Academy Award-winning make up for Planet of the Apes (1968) allowed more expression from the actors and were quite revolutionary.
There are even little inaccuracies related to science and religion. When Brockton defends not killing Trog, she refers to what she thinks is the Second Amendment, "Thou shalt not kill." First off, it's a Commandment, and second, it's the sixth one. Also, when she talks about her profession, she lists gorillas and apes as related to humans. Doctor, gorillas are apes too. There is a big operation that involves putting a control grid inside of Trog's chest that will allow him to talk for some reason. It's not explained how. Part of the experiment also leads to Trog remembering dinosaur fights, which is actually footage from Irwin Allen's The Animal World (1956), and with the fights done via stop-motion by Ray Harryhausen. Sadly, it's one of his weaker efforts. After the experiment, Trog talks. I don't get it. It's incredibly obvious that the science was outdated even when the film was released. Trog is supposed to be a "missing link" according to Dr. Brockton, but Australopithecines had already been discovered at this point, and they are considered more of a missing link. Also, a troglodyte is defined as nothing more than a person living in a cave. It does not refer to a half-ape, half-human creature.
Trog is probably the worst low grade monster movie from the 1970s that I've seen. Yes, even worse than Night of the Lepus, Frogs, The Swarm, or Dracula A.D. 1972. It's an embarrassing film that should never have been made, and, given how the Hollywood atmosphere was changing, can't even qualify as 70s entertainment.
Review by connorbbalboa from the Internet Movie Database.
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