So, there’s this hypnotist, right? And he has this woman that he keeps around because he loves her even though she hates him and he puts on shows by putting her into past-life regression. And so he’s making a big splash on the high society scene. But get this: when he puts her into past-life regression, he is able to also cause the physical form that she had in her past life to actually materialize and then transfer her soul into that original body. So, when it comes to the title creature, he materializes the body this woman’s soul inhabited millions and millions of years ago, which is a kind of pre-historic lobster monster which he is then able to put her soul into and force to go on murderous rampages. And, look, I don’t have a degree in marketing or anything, but if this guy really wants to be rich I feel like the fact that he is able to make the body of any person or animal or creature throughout history actually materialize in physical form is kind of a bigger deal than that he can hypnotize people. I mean, he should really ditch these books about past-life regression and start materializing woolly mammoths and charging people to see them.
It’s also kind of unclear why he even wants this she-creature to go on murderous rampages anyway. At one point, he sends the creature to kill a guy that was just kind of rude to him earlier that day and I’m like, again, I feel like you’re not really utilizing this ability you have to its fullest. Anyway, of course, there’s a wise-cracking cop investigating the killings and a square-jawed scientist out to discredit the hypnotist and an offensive stereotype for comic relief. Anyway, this is the kind of b-movie that you hope is going to achieve “so bad it’s good” levels and occasionally it does. Did I mention that the lobster monster has breasts and long, flowing blonde hair? Yeah, like that. But this film only achieves those levels sporadically and mostly it’s just dull and it feels quite a bit longer than its eighty minute running time. There are a couple of kind of surprising moments when you almost feel like there’s someone competent working somewhere on the production, like a moment near the end of the film when the movie takes the time to focus on a couple of supporting characters and give them a happy ending to their plot instead of just ignoring them. But this is pretty unremarkable if you’re into b-movies of the period. 1 star.
tl;dr – occasionally rises to “so bad it’s good,” but this rather dumb tale of a hypnotist who can also raise the dead (?) is mostly uninspired in even a bad way. 1 star.