It is becoming increasingly apparent that the older I get, the more I’m revisiting the classic monster movies of my youth but now with an adult’s perspective. It is also apparent that the vast majority of these movies that made an impact on me were photographed in black & white. No one was better at B&W photography than Mario Bava. who co-directed this film with Ricardo Freda right before his first solo effort BLACK SUNDAY. That movie got him internationally known but most of his future movies were in color. They are great in their own way but one only has to see the countless Italian B&W imitations that followed to see how good Bava’s B&W efforts were.
Back to CALTIKI. I first saw it in the early 1960s on a local TV station. The program was called SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE and it featured most of the atomic radiation creature features from the 1950s like THE DEADLY MANTIS and THE BLACK SCORPION (which gave me nightmares).. I now realize that much of CALTIKI was influenced by 3 earlier Hammer sci-fi films…THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, QUATERMASS 2, and X THE UNKNOWN. It was the latter film rather than THE BLOB which made the greater impact. Both have radioactive blob creatures that cause people to melt in what are still startling special effects today.
CALTIKI is a remarkable hodgepodge of styles. The closest I can come to describe it is Italian Gothic Horror Sci-Fi. The actors come from international. backgrounds. The hero is Canadian, the villain is German, and the female leads are English and Italian. There are some remarkable special effects from a visual standpoint but the miniature work is very obvious. It doesn’t matter as that’s the sort of thing one expects from a low budget film. The monster is made up of, believe or not, lots and lots of beef tripe. Now that’s a first. It does give the monster a real sense of verisimilitude.
As has been mentioned in several other reviews, This Arrow DVD/Blu Ray package is absolutely loaded with extras from various commentaries to both the Italian and English dubbed soundtracks. Since there are no well known stars involved with this project, I recommend going with the Italian w/subtitles. It defines the story better and doesn’t sound as ludicrous. The English dub has its own set of subtitles and it’s interesting to compare the differences. The picture quality is amazing. A true blast from the past that was worth revisiting.
The Capsule Critic 