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Film: Eegah

Eegah! (also known as Eegah: The Name Written In Blood) is a 1962 horror film starring Arch Hall Jr., Arch Hall Sr., Marilyn Manning and Richard Kiel in the titular role.

One night after shopping, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is driving home through the California desert when she nearly runs her car into Eegah (Richard Kiel), a giant cave man. She tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson (Arch Hall Jr.), and her father, Robert Miller (Arch Hall Sr.), about the giant. Her father, a writer of adventure books, decides to go into the desert to look for the creature and possibly take a photograph of it. When he fails to show up at his designated pickup time, Tom and Roxy go into the desert looking for him. Roxy is soon kidnapped by Eegah and taken back to his cave while Tom searches for her. In Eegah's cave, Roxy is reunited with her father, who tells her that he has begun to communicate with the caveman and has developed a theory as to the creature's astounding longevity. When a frisky Eegah expresses what seems to be romantic interest in Roxy, her father, fearful that the creature may kill them both if he is rebuffed, suggests she put up with as much of it as she can bear. Eegah never tries anything too explicit, though, and Roxy even ends up giving him a shave before the pair is able to escape. Crushed, Eegah follows them back to civilization, and a final confrontation ensues.

After the financial success of his first venture into the drive-in/juvenile delinquency genre, The Choppers, Arch Hall Sr. was able to fund Eegah!, a starring vehicle for his son, Arch Hall Jr., who had some success with songwriter Alan O'Day on the rock and roll/blues scene in Los Angeles. Seeing Arch Hall, Jr. as a potential Elvis Presley superstar in the making, he made the movie a combination of schlock-horror and youth comedy, with a little bit of beach party film in the mix and plenty of songs for his prodigy to belt out.

Eegah! never made any real impact on cinema until it was included in the Michael Medved book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, written in 1978. This earned it a cult film status for its sheer awfulness, which continues to this day. A clip from the movie appears in the opening montage on Something Weird DVD releases, and it was mocked by Elvira in a 2010 episode of her Movie Macabre show. The film's greatest claim to "fame" was being the feature of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, ensuring that it would be remembered for generations to come for all the wrong reasons. A scene of Arch Hall Sr. uttering "Watch out for snakes!" from offscreen in what was obviously dubbed in after filming became a minor pop-culture meme. Not only did it become a Running Gag on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in episodes after the film aired on that show, it was also referenced on The Office and used as the closing line of The Rick Emerson Show.

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.

This film contains examples of:

Cool Car: Tom has an awesome ride.
Damsel in Distress: Roxy, repeatedly. If Eegah is anywhere near, expect her to pass out and get hauled around so someone can save her.
Development Hell: Oh, boy. For starters, the sound technician accidentally pressed Play instead of Record at one point, forcing Hall, Sr. to re-dub and foley a bunch of scenes himself. This led to him doing all of Eegah's lines in the film.
Hey, It's That Guy!: Richard Kiel is best known as "Jaws" (no relation), the Bond villain from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. He also appeared in The Human Duplicators, worked with Jackie Chan in Cannonball Run 2, and played the aliens in one of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man."
- Ray Dennis Steckler, as described in the main article.
- Arch Hall Jr., who also starred in The Sadist as the villain.
Incestuous Casting: Writer/director Arch Hall Sr. cast himself as the father of his son's love interest.
Instant Waking Skills: Roxy is able to snap out of unconsciousness pretty fast after being deposited in Eegah's cave. She also has a knack for Monster Fainting as well...
Looping Lines: The infamously poorly dubbed line "Watch out for snakes."
- Arch Hall, Sr. did all of Eegah's lines, including the grunting.
Mars Needs Women: Eegah's infatuation with Roxy.
- Justified: The poor guy hasn't seen a woman in centuries.
Old Shame: Averted. Arch Hall, Sr. loved talking about the troubled production and the difficulties he encountered. Hall, Jr. admits he was never meant to be an actor, but did become not only a successful pilot but an author of a thriller, Aspara Jet, with the protagonist being an airline pilot - and the book was very well received.
Real-Life Relative: Hall, Sr. and Hall, Jr., of course. Marilyn Manning was Hall Sr.'s secretary.
Screaming Woman: Mostly averted with Roxy, she dosen't scream... she just faints at the slightest scare.
Styrofoam Rocks: The "rocks" on the set. Not to mention the "rocks" that are actually just canvas hanging off of walls.
Too Dumb to Live: So you're hanging out at a party, talking to a girl, when suddenly a 7 foot tall muscular man dressed as a caveman and holding a club as big as you are lightly bumps into you. Why not try picking a fight with the giant?
Totally Radical: Subverted. Tom uses normal language, even for the 1960's, but Robert acts like he's talking like a hepcat.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: No one looks twice at the 7-plus foot tall caveman until he pushes a guy into the pool.
You Fail Religious Studies Forever: The dad misattributes a Bible verse (Genesis 6:4) as Genesis 4:32, which is nonexistent.