The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966)
Directed by Michael A. Hoey, with Jon Hall & Arthur C. Pierce (both uncredited)
Starring Mamie Van Doren, Anthony Eisley, Billy Gray, Bobby Van, Pamela Mason, Walter Sande, Edward Faulkner, Phillip Terry

What a title, huh? That would surely draw the attention of any young monster fan. And I’m sure it did, especially if you were cruising through the TV guide and saw this listed some Saturday afternoon. Which is exactly where most younger fans saw it. Now I’m not saying this is a terrible film by any means, but it is definitely a Turkey. Recently released on Blu-ray from Leomark Studios, in about as bare-bones edition as you can get. I had a copy of this movie on DVD from Cheezy Flicks or some other low budget place, and this Blu-ray is just slightly a step up from that. Barely. The movie just starts when you start the disc. No menus and definitely no extras. In fact, the cover art shows a guy with a beard staring at some sort of alien creature, face to face. Neither of these characters are in this movie, which is about killer plants. In fact, I’m trying to remember if there was even a guy with a beard!?!? But nonetheless, since it looks like they spent about $1 on the packaging, let’s get to the actual movie.

The movie starts with the typical narration, letting us know about how the U.S. is exploring Antarctic, to discover all its secrets! And after finding some strange plant life in an apparently warm spot down there, they load it on a plane to take it to the states. But on their way to Gow Island to refuel, they run into issues as they try to land. Low budget icon Anthony Eisley stars as Lt. Charles Brown (I kid you not) who is now in command of a Navy base located there, since his commanding officer left the night before, and now he must step up and take charge.

While looking over the plane crash, they find the strange plants they were transporting, as well as some type of corrosive type of acid or something. But before we know it, these plants are now growing into man-size trunks that seems to be able to uproot themselves and move around. Since the plane is still on the runway, it’s blocking any other planes from landing or taking off, as well as the island has lost contact with the outside world, so they are all on their own. Between the fighting these plant monsters as well as amongst themselves, it’s a race to see who will survive. You wouldn’t think it would be too hard to avoid these killer trees, but it doesn’t help when the victims tend to either back up into them without looking or just run right at them. Hell, they’ll even rip your arm off!

The film was written and directed by Michael A. Hoey, who based the screenplay on a book called The Monster from Earth’s End by Murray Leinster, and shot under the title Nightcrawlers. But producer Jack Broder, doing what producers of low budget films tend to do, decided to change the title to the Navy vs. the Night Monsters title, which did not make Hoey too happy. Even more so when Broder wanted at least a 90-minute running time so he could sell it to TV but only got a 78-minute cut when Hoey was done. So, Broder brought in Arthur C. Pierce, who was working on Women of the Prehistoric Planet for Broder, to add some (unintentional) incredibly bad dialogue, as well as not-funny sequences. Broder even brought in actor Jon Hall, who was working on some of the “tree stump monsters” to direct some parts as well. Back in the ’40s, Hall had starred in Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man Returns (1944).

Anthony Eisley was an actor with over a 100 screen credits, in both TV and film. But unfortunately for him, most of those were in the bottom tier level, appearing in such wonderful titles as The Might Gorga, The Witchmaker, and The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals, all in 1969, not to mention my personal favorite of his work, in Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971). Needless to say, we’ve seen a lot of Eisley during our Turkey Day marathons over the years.

Another notable name in the crew was assistant director Wyott Ordung, a writer/director/actor but best known for writing the sci-fi epic Robot Monster (1953).

For what it is, and as silly as it is, the film is pretty entertaining, better than it has any right to be. But for a Turkey Day marathon, or if you are one that just loves these types of cheesy flicks then you definitely could do much, much worse. The acting is fun, the monsters are ridiculously entertaining, and it is a pretty original story. Thanks to AV Entertainment for this review copy, which you can order your own by going to http://www.moviezyng.com.