Caltiki – The Immortal Monster

‘Terror amok! Hungry for the flesh of the world!’

Caltiki – The Immortal Monster – original title: Caltiki – il mostro immortale – is a 1959 Italian science fiction horror film directed by Riccardo Freda and [uncredited] Mario Bava from a screenplay by Filippo Sanjust. It was distributed in the US by Allied Artists.

Plot teaser:

A team of archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins come across a blob-like monster. They manage to destroy it with fire while keeping a sample of the monster but not without loss of life.

Meanwhile, a comet is due to pass close to Earth, the same comet which passed near the Earth at the time the Mayan civilisation mysteriously collapsed…

Reviews:

‘Directors Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava performed a perfunctory job on this Quatermass rip-off, although it’s mildly interesting as an indicator for some future key elements of Italian genre filmmaking: there’s found footage and idle racism (both a mainstay of mondo movies), overt greed, lust and a focus on gruesomeness.

Otherwise, as a late 1950s sci-fi horror film, it lacks narrative drive. Lead John Merivale is particularly poor. Thankfully, once the Blob-like monster appears things perk up. But then the film descends into dreary military defences scenes with dialogue as bad as any serial from the 1940s.’ Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

‘The film’s in black and white, so don’t expect the kind of hallucinatory color riot that became Bava’s calling card in the 60’s, but Caltiki is far away indeed from the simplistic point-and-shoot sensibility of most contemporary Hollywood monster movies. Not even Bava can make a soggy canvas bag look scary, but it’s obvious that he tried his damnedest.’ 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting