Trog (1970)

Bottom of the barrel sci-fi, and an embarrassment for director Freddie Francis and actress Joan Crawford, about a troglodyte (half man, and half ape) found in a cave, having supposedly thawed from ice after living during the prehistoric times with the dinosaurs. Crawford is a scientist living in the nearest town, hoping she can civilize and domesticate the trog so that she and her fellow scientists around the world can study it and learn from it, believing the creature is the missing link in evolution. The trog is essentially an actor walking around with an ape mask on (furnished from the scraps of Kubrick's 2001) and some fur attached to the chin. This could be called Dog, because Francis' film is indeed that...a real woofer. There's just no way to finesse the truth: this film was an ugly hag bookending a phenomenal career for Crawford. Francis has directed some fun B-movies(The Creeping Flesh, Tales from the Crypt, and Girly are examples), but being tied to this and They Came from Outer Space does his legacy no favors. Seeing the Trog playing catch the ball with Crawford or playing with a doll she winds up for him or reacting warmly to soft music Crawford plays (or Crawford shouting a few times, "Trog!!!"), this film deposits cringe-inducing moments that had me pitying an actress with a magnificent resume behind her ending it all in such wretched fashion. Michael Gough's character: isn't he a peach. What a maleficent, insidious waste of human skin he is. He immediately hates the trog and sets out to make sure it is put to death supposedly because it poses a threat to his beloved town, a besmirch to the reputation and name of all who live there. Had he just left well enough alone, the trog and scientists associated with attempting to research and understand it, maybe the ending with all the violence never would have happened. Of course, the film has to end with the damned thing shot by a company of soldiers, landing on a sharp rock formation in its cave. When the trog is set free by Gough who was bound and determined to see it dead, and he gets what's coming to him (he carelessly goes to his car without taking precautions for his own safety), it goes on a killing spree, tossing a fruit stand owner through his store window, hangs a meat market store owner on a meat hook, and turns over a car of a motorist causing the poor fellow to die inside its burning wreckage! And then it captures a girl from a playground slide as the other children and teachers run for their lives in hysteria. Robert Hutton (the square American hero in They Came from Outer Space) is one of the scientists who believes Crawford's work is important. Bernard Kay is the town inspector always at odds with Crawford over the trog and his township's safety, while she appeals to him in the name of science. The best thing about this are the scenes from a whole different movie: The Animal World with work from Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. There's no getting around it: this is a sad state of affairs for Crawford. I can only imagine the stink of this steaming pile never left Crawford for the remaining time she was alive on this earth. This had to have been humbling.

This 1970 British flick mingles elements of "Planet of the Apes," "Frankenstein" and various Sasquatch tales. The scenes where Joan studies Trog are like an inversion of the scenes in "Planet of the Apes" where the female doctor chimp (Zira) analyzes Charlton Heston. "Frankenstein" comes to mind because of the fairly sympathetic portrayal of the half-man/half-ape and his gentle treatment of a little girl. Being a low-budget English film directed by Freddie Francis it has a decidedly Hammer-esque look and vibe. Some have mocked the film as "campy" but this simply isn't true; the story is played completely straight. Nothing about it is consciously artificial, exaggerated or self-parodying, like, say, Alan Rickman's performance in 1991's "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." THAT's campy.The ape make-up is similar to that of "Planet of the Apes," albeit with a more protruding maw. In fact, it looks like someone dug the ape mask out of the trash from the set of 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (which they probably did!) This was Joan Crawford's final film and has been heavily panned. I don't understand this because it's not really THAT bad. As a matter of fact, the material is taken serious by all involved as the story tackles the question: What would it be like if the so-called missing link was actually discovered ALIVE? Of course, you have to take into account that the perspective of the movie is 1969, when it was shot. Given the period and the low budget, the movie has its limitations, which can be witnessed in two glaring ways: (1.) The overlong dinosaur sequence of stock stop-motion footage that I assume are images from Trog's memory; and (2.) the appearance of Trog himself. In regards to the latter, the head and facial features of the ape-man look quite good for 1969, it's the rest that leaves much to be desired. Basically, Trog is just a small-ish white dude walking around in a loin cloth and fur "tennis shoes" with what looks like a short fur cape. This is the extent of the Trog costume and it looks lame, which is probably why people mock the film -- the "monster" is more laughable than fearsome. What makes "Trog" an essential purchase, besides being Crawford's last film, is the stunning Kim Braden, who plays Joan's daughter/assistant, Anne. Kim is fully clothed at all times, usually wearing cute short-skirt/dress outfits, proving that attractiveness is more than a matter of showing skin. What a cutie! Interestingly, Kim went on to play Captain Picard's wife in the Nexus in the outstanding 1994 film "Star Trek: Generations."The film runs 93 minutes and was shot in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, England.GRADE: C+

Trog, for those who don't know, is short for troglodyte. Trog is also a guy wearing a monkey mask who eats rubber lizards and dreams about dinosaur stock footage. Notorious for being Joan Crawford's final film, as well as for being one of the all-time great "so bad it's good" movies. Every scene with Trog will have you in stitches.Joan takes her role seriously, which must have been hard. For all of her character's talk about how Trog is more human than animal, she treats him like a dog ("Good boy, Trog"). Michael Gough plays to the rafters as the guy with a hard-on for killing poor Trog. It's an obsession with him. When we first meet him, he's yelling Trog is a hoax. When Trog's existence is proved, he immediately starts yelling to kill it. I can't remember the last time I saw such a cardboard antagonist as this. He exists solely to be a thorn in the side of Crawford and Trog. Surprisingly, this was directed by Freddie Francis, a director who made a lot of movies for Hammer and Amicus. Most of them pretty good. He also won two Oscars as a cinematographer.It's a bad movie on technical and artistic levels, to be sure. But it is also entertaining, which should be the ultimate goal of any movie of this type. I've seen far, far worse movies than this. If you enjoy cheesy Z-grade flicks you'll get a kick out of Trog.

Joan Crawford, in her last appearance on film, is at her craziest in this legendary turkey where she fosters a "Troglodite" – half man, half ape – that was found in an undiscovered cave in the English Moors. The film is fast paced at first (with a few virulent Trog-attacks during the opening fifteen minutes) and quite dull later on (when Crawford teaches him dog tricks), but 100% senseless throughout! As soon as the beast is captured, "Trog" inexplicably turns into a Walt Disney produced family movie with Joan and her assistant training the prehistoric caveman into a cute and huggable pet. He learns how to wind up toy dolls, respond to classic music and play catch in the garden. I swear, at a certain point during the film Joan Crawford even dresses her hairy pet up with a pink neck tie, which makes the supposed missing link in Darwin's evolution theory appear quite gay. The tumultuous Sam Murdock and the local police inspector are trying to have the creature killed, but obviously nobody can tell Joan Crawford what to do, and thus she cheerfully continues to study the beast. You would expect – or at least hope – that at some point the creature breaks loose and goes on a relentless killing spree that fills up the rest of the film, but no … Instead, Trog has really overlong and pointless visions/flashback revolving on the end of the dinosaur era, with giant animals battling to the death and volcanic lava destroying the landscape. How these sequences are in any way relevant to the plot goes beyond my comprehension, but I guess the producers probably had some unused stock-footage with stop motion effects lying around. If you do wait long enough, and I assure this movie is quite difficult to sit through at times, you eventually will become rewarded with Trog's long- awaited murderous rampage. Believe it or not but the whole thing even almost turns into a nasty exploitation flick near the end, with a few nasty killings (one poor guy is impaled on a meat hook) and a hectic climax. The ending, though, is a lame re-enactment of "King Kong". "Trog" holds the reputation of being one of the biggest turkeys ever made – it even features in the documentary "The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made" – but I must admit my mates and I had a blast watching this. Sure it's pretty bad, but I have too much respect for some of the people involved to just simply condemn the whole film. Director Freddie Francis made some of the finest British horror films ever and Joan Crawford will always remain an unhinged cult siren. Besides, her other contemporary horror effort "Circus of Terror" isn't exactly a masterpiece neither. "Trog" also stars the still heavily underrated Michael Gough as the town's bastard.