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If you can forgive that "The Black Scorpion" has a low budget (which means not only is it in black and white, but there's stock footage used and limited use of Willis O'Brien's special effects), it's an enjoyable B-Movie. It's a monster movie made very much in the style of the decade about a giant scorpion that terrorizes unsuspecting humans. There are some scenes of genuine tension and horror, which is always a bonus, but odds are you’re coming to this movie because the monster right? How do the Willis O’Brien effects look? As you might have suspected, the star of the film is easily the stop-motion effects, so if you're a fan of the medium it's an enjoyable flick and the special features on the Dvd are excellent.
On the things I really enjoy about the film is that once you've seen it, you notice clips and screen caps of it everywhere. If you've ever seen "Teeth", that movie about the girl with razor-sharp fangs in her […], there's a point in the film where the lead girl happens upon a clip of "The Black Scorpion". The scene she watches, a close-up of the film's monster with its wide mouth full of teeth and its pincers gnashing gives makes her eyes go wide and in a very clever way gives you a pretty good mental image of what her mutation probably looks like.
There is a nice variety in the monsters and a good battle scene towards the end where the titular creature attacks a train and then faces off against the army. Basically, the movie is fun whenever there are giant creatures on the screen, but when it comes to the story, it's pretty generic. The film is just average monster mayhem with uneven quality in story and pacing and I give it a mild recommendation, higher if you're a fan of Willis O'Brien or his most famous pupil, Ray Harryhausen. (Dvd, May 17th, 2012)
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