We have another of the Giant Spider reviews from Hawkzino. This time, it isn’t a spider, but a giant scorpion movie.
Originally I heard of it through the Horror Greats series on Shudder. It was a movie I hadn’t even heard of, let alone seen.
I passed the details on to Hawkzino, who had done the following review for us.
The Black Scorpion (1957)
We interrupt our regular programme of giant spider movie reviews to bring you a movie about giant scorpions instead.
They’re still arachnids, they’ve still got eight legs, but are arguably cooler and less freaky looking. Think of this as a palette cleanser.
If possessing eight legs has become my main criteria for reviewing movies, I have a pretty good giant squid movie that I might review next (tentacles are legs, right?).
The biggest surprise about The Black Scorpion is that it isn’t an African American superhero from DC or Marvel. There is a superhero called Black Spider, which I only found out about today, but The Black Scorpion is an actual scorpion.
It doesn’t look black to me, but the characters insist that it is, and the movie is in black and white, so I’ll just have to go along with it. I don’t see race.
We start with a volcanic eruption in Mexico. Geologists Dr Hank Scott and Dr Arturo Ramos (guess which one is American and which one is Mexican) are sent to investigate. On their way to the town of San Lorenzo, they stop at a farmhouse and find a destroyed house and police car.
We hear the scorpions at this point (yes, there is more than one) but don’t see them for over half an hour. They sound like every other monster or UFO from the 1950s – a constant whirring, whistling, cicada-like sound, interspersed with a dinosaur-like roar.
The police car’s radio is still working. Hank lets Arturo do the talking because they’re in his country, but he just speaks in English with a vague Mexican accent. I’m sure Hank could have done that.
The radio operator has a magnificent voice who sounds like the voiceover guy from the Spatula City commercial. I looked it up and the voice actor is Bob Johnson, who did the Mission Impossible tape recorder voice, so he’s legit.
The Demon Bull
The doctors find a dead patrolman and rescue a baby from the farmhouse and take it to San Lorenzo. They learn from the local priest that something is killing livestock and some people are missing.
They don’t think giant scorpions are responsible, of course. That would be silly. They blame it on a demon bull instead. It’s as good an explanation as any. Plus, I wouldn’t mind seeing that movie. Make it happen, Hollywood.
Hank and Arturo journey to the volcano and see a woman riding a horse. Hank instantly forgets about geology and spies on her through his binoculars instead. The horse throws her off, which gives Hank an excuse to slide on over and help her to her feet.
Spider Cinematic Universe Multiverse
In the spirit of DC, Marvel and every other bandwagon-jumping intellectual property, I have created my own Spider Cinematic Universe Multiverse (SCUM) in my head.
It’s a hobby of mine to find links between giant arachnid movies, the more tenuous the better, and tie them into one giant Universe Multiverse. The Black Scorpion has an obvious connection to the Universe Multiverse in the lady who falls off the horse – Mara Corday.
You may recall that she played ‘Steve’ in Tarantula (1955), even though I’m pretty sure she’s a woman. Here she plays Teresa Alvarez, a Mexican cattle rancher, which is totally believable. She’s exactly what I picture in my head when I imagine a Mexican cattle rancher.
In my headcanon, ‘Steve’ headed south to Mexico from Arizona after Clint Eastwood napalmed the tarantula. Her burgeoning relationship with Dr Hastings fizzled out when she found out about his very specific fetish that I won’t go into. Let’s just say it was relatively benign but weird enough to explain why he was still single in his mid-thirties despite being a handsome, successful doctor who owned his own airplane.
She changed her name and took up cattle ranching. Fresh start, and all that. But even though she was finished with giant arachnids, the giant arachnids weren’t finished with her…
Back To The Movie
After rescuing Teresa, the Doctors are called into the laboratory of another doctor, Dr de la Cruz, who has discovered a poison in the body of the dead patrolman.
He sends the samples to ANOTHER doctor in Mexico City, Dr Velazco (there are a lot of doctors in this movie) to verify its origin. The script could have been tightened up a bit here. How many scientists and laboratories do you need?
Hank and Arturo travel to Teresa’s palatial hacienda for dinner. They break open an obsidian rock they found, and a live scorpion emerges. The plot thickens, but the movie is still moving quite slowly. They’re pouring after-dinner brandies, for God’s sake.
The movie then goes from nought to sixty when Teresa receives a phone call from the phone company repairmen, informing her that the lines are working again (they’ve been down since the earthquake). A giant scorpion arrives and kills the repair crew while Teresa listens.
More scorpions attack San Lorenzo and Teresa’s ranch in glorious stop motion. It’s a shame that they keep cutting to a stiff-looking close-up of the scorpion’s stupid puppet face that kills the momentum and doesn’t match the action.
Dr Velazco arrives the next day to inform them that the poison sample is from a scorpion. Um…thanks? They travel to the fissure that the scorpions are emerging from. Hank and Arturo descend into the cave in a cradle suspended from a crane to try to kill them with gas.
Juanito And The Cave
I forgot to mention Juanito, a servant kid who works at the hacienda. They tell him to stay at the hacienda, but he stows away with their equipment.
When they arrive at the fissure and discover him, they tell him to stay again but he stows away AGAIN in the cradle when they descend into the cave. I was hoping he’d get killed, to be honest. It would serve him right.
Teresa wants to help as well, so they give her a job as a secretary, keeping a log of the descent. She doesn’t do much in this movie, outside of the half-baked love story with Hank. I wasn’t feeling the chemistry between them, but I’m glad her character exists. She brightens up the place.
The cave sequence is solid, with some excellent stop motion effects once again. We see giant worms as well as scorpions, and even a giant trapdoor spider that attacks Juanito.
It’s only a cameo, but a clear nod to the Spider Cinematic Universe Multiverse (trapdoor spiders will make their triumphant return 45 years later in Eight Legged Freaks). The spider dies quickly, sadly – shot by Hank and Arturo – but the scorpions seem impervious to bullets.
They don’t get a chance to set off the gas because they’re too busy taking pictures and rescuing the annoying kid. But they gather two key pieces of information that may be relevant later: the scorpions have a weak spot in their throats and a penchant for killing each other.
The scorpions wreck the cradle, so they ascend by holding the wire. They blow up the fissure and just assume the scorpion threat is over, but I knew differently, mainly because there were thirty minutes of the movie remaining.
Mission To Mexico City
Not long after, Hank and Arturo are lured to Mexico City by Dr Velazco. Teresa tags along for the ride. Dr Velazco pretends they are required to complete an official report, but really they’ve discovered that the scorpions are back, and possibly heading for Mexico City via a network of underground tunnels. This is explained in a four-and-a-half-minute exposition scene that badly needs the red pen treatment. I just explained it in one paragraph.
It isn’t long before the scorpions emerge and catch a train.
They wreck the train in an orgy of stop-motion destruction, killing hundreds of people offscreen before turning on each other. Scorpion-on-scorpion violence is a real issue that is not talked about enough, in my opinion. Like spiders, they are territorial and cannibalistic, so their behaviour is credible, but stupid in this case. It’s not like they’re fighting over scarce resources. There are millions of people in Mexico City. Plenty for everyone.
Instead, we get this debacle:
The Black Scorpion, which is the biggest scorpion of them all, kills literally all the other scorpions so our heroes only have one to deal with. It’s another example of the ‘we’ve got to wrap this up somehow’ trope that I mentioned in my ‘The Giant Spider Invasion’ review. Hank and Co must be playing the game on an easy level. The Black Scorpion has done more than them at this point to eliminate the scorpion threat, and he’s one of them!
The news of the scorpions attacking the train travels fast. Events are narrated over the radio and loudspeakers by the Spatula City/Mission Impossible guy again. He causes mass panic in Mexico City as people attempt to flee. His voice is awesome. You would believe him, too.
The Black Scorpion: Endgame
The doctors lure the scorpion to a sports stadium with a truckload of beef. Not a bad idea, that. With a bit more foresight they could have sold tickets. Teresa watches from the stands. The plan is to shoot the scorpion in its weak point (the throat) with an electrified harpoon and fry it. It’s a solid finale, with the scorpion pressing helicopters overhead and smashing tanks.
Hank and Arturo man the harpoon gun along with a Mexican soldier. It’s not clear why they are still involved, to be honest. At this point it is a military operation. No need for academics who look at rocks all day.
The funniest part is when the Mexican soldier retrieves the harpoon and electrocutes himself because they forgot to shut off the juice. Hank makes the fateful shot that takes out the scorpion.
Overall
Overall, all the elements required for greatness are there, but it falls short in the execution. There are good action scenes but way too much talking. The romance falls flat, and aside from the leads, the acting is pretty ropy. It’s the kind of 1950s movie that could benefit from a remake, if done correctly. But it won’t be, so let’s just leave it.
Rating: 3 scorpion legs out of 8.