SOUND OF HORROR (1964)
(a.k.a. EL SONIDO PREHISTORICO)
Article #1285 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-20-2004
Posting Date: 2-17-2005
Directed by Jose Antonio Nieves Conde
Featuring James Philbrook, Arturo Fernandez, Soledad Miranda

In the quest for treasures from ancient Greece, fortune seekers accidentally revive an invisible prehistoric creature.

I feel somewhat ambivalent about this movie. I admire that it works as well as it does, given what appears to have been a very small budget indeed. It does manage to raise a chill from time to time, the ‘sound of horror’ made by the monster is scary enough, and I actually find the characters somewhat likable. Unfortunately, the script is very uneven; once the monster manifests itself, there are way too many conversations about the treasure, an aspect of the movie that only really serves as a McGuffin; in fact, a whole conversation about the nature of the treasure should have gone at the beginning of the movie rather than half-way through. Also, the movie constantly reminds me of FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, and it suffers by comparison; both movies feature people trapped in a house threatened by an invisible monster (or monsters), but in that movie, when the monsters appeared, they were even more grotesque than expected (here the monster merely looks cheap), and the sound they made was much scarier than the sound of this monster. Still, I think it’s better to compare this one to another low-budget movie; namely, THE KILLER SHREWS, because, like that one, I think this movie manages to be quite scary despite the obvious flaws. And I don’t doubt that the presence of Ingrid Pitt also serves as a plus in the movie’s favor.