Something's amok with Crater Lake...
The Crater Lake Monster is a 1977 horror film that follows a plesiosaur who has hatched from its egg after millions of years and is now wreaking havoc in Crater Lake in Northern California, near the town of Susanville.
Tropes in this film:
- The Alcoholic: Befitting the half-wit hillbilly trope, Arnie is pretty much drinking 24/7 and encourages Mitch to do so too. There is a small subplot in the middle of the movie where they both get drunk and get lost in the woods, but it doesn't really go anywhere and is intended for comic relief.
- Alternate DVD Commentary: The film was done by Rifftrax in 2011.
- Angst Coma: Subversion. The couple that get chased by the lake monster are both in a state of catatonia when Arnie and Mitch eventually take a boat out and find them on the bank of the lake. They're both so far into shock that they can only sit in one spot, silently crying, especially the wife.
- Antagonist Title: The movie's named after the lake monster, which is kinda sorta a plesiosaurid and not a T-Rex type dinosaur like the one on the misleading movie poster.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The film opens with some scientists discovering cave paintings of people fighting off a Plesiosaurus, claiming it's proof that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
- Artistic License – Physics: One of the first victims rented a boat from Arnie and Mitch and when the lake monster gets him, he clearly is thrown from the boat and eaten while in the water. However, when the boat eventually floats back to harbor, Arnie and Mitch find it full of blood. It makes zero sense, as the man is clearly seen falling overboard and is then devoured by the monster in the lake. There was no way for a bucketload of blood to be in the bottom of the boat when he was eaten in the water and the boat doesn't overturn at any point.
- Bittersweet Ending: The creature is dead and the scientists can now study its anatomy safely. But Arnie and several other locals are dead too, so it's not exactly a victory.
- Bring It Back Alive: The two scientists passionately argue with the cop about bringing it in alive. They suggest luring it into the cove, which has a sheer cliff it can't climb and then pinning it inside with a boat or a structure so it can't leave and then they can examine it. Unfortunately, after it kills Arnie, the cop is forced to kill it (albeit in a confusing, clumsy edit job) with a bulldozer.
- Covers Always Lie: The poster for the film portrays the title character as a gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex-like creature rising from the lake. It's pretty cool, but it looks nothing like the plesiosaurid monster in the actual movie.
- Dumb Dinos: The film features an amphibious plesiosaur who crawls onto land to hunt humans, continuing to attack even when seriously hurt and facing severe resistance.
- Eaten Alive: More than a few of the monster's victims are devoured alive by it.
- Flaming Meteor: The plot is kicked off by one, as a super-heated meteor crashes in Crater Lake, significantly warming it and causing a plesiosaurus egg in the lake to hatch. Months later, it's still warm enough that the lake has risen to ninety degrees.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Played with, then averted. We don't see the creature eat the guy, but his severed head turns up later when Arnie and Mitch are having a squabble on the lakeshore and it does actually show the head itself.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: Arnie and Mitch, the "comic relief" characters, both barely have a single brain cell between them. They're mostly harmless, though.
- Kill It with Fire: Ross Conway and his wife Paula don't kill the monster with fire, but after they beach their motorboat and the creature follows them onto land, they scare it away from them by setting their motorboat on fire.
- Living Dinosaurs: The title character is a Plesiosaurus that's recently hatched from an egg that apparently sat at the bottom of the lake, undisturbed and unhatched, for sixty-five million years.
- Metaphorgotten: Arnie utters a rather strange one. After enough people turn up mysteriously dead or missing after going on the lake, the cop tells Arnie and Mitch not to rent boats to anyone else until he finds out what's in it that's killing them. They forget to mention they rented a boat to the couple from earlier, and Arnie insists they shouldn't tell the sheriff or he'll lock them up and (paraphrasing) "he'll throw us so far back in the slam that they have to shoot our breakfast to us with a cannon!"
- Mood Whiplash: A lot of it. The film constantly slides between goofy comedy with Arnie and Mitch and serious drama with the creature killing people. There is also a long, unnecessarily dark subplot about a drunk who shoots up a liquor store, then when he sees the sheriff the next morning, he hops in his car and runs away, even though the sheriff had only expressed mild interest in his car after the shooting. If he'd stayed in the diner until the sheriff left, then he likely wouldn't have gotten caught and he wouldn't have tried escaping on the lake and gotten himself eaten.
- Neck Snap: How the creature finally dies, courtesy of Sheriff Hanson repeatedly slamming a bulldozer into the monster's neck until it dies.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The couple that decides to rent a boat for a romantic getaway has a gentleman whose accent is...let's say a bit unconvincing.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Arnie and Mitch are stunned when they discover the severed head of Jack Fuller floating in the lake.
- Plucky Comic Relief: The film attempts it with Arnie and Mitch, who are two dunderhead rednecks that rent boats out on the lake, but the results are, uh, rather
subjective, to say the least. - Prehistoric Monster: The creature, a plesiosaurus that hatched from a dormant egg in Crater Lake and has begun attacking people.
- Quirky Doctor: Richard "Doc" Calkins is a friend of the sheriff's along with the two scientists, but does not have a personal stake in the discovery of the living dinosaur. He does offer advice about if they should try to catch it alive or not, but aside from that, he's a total spectator to the plot itself. He seems to just be a quirky doctor tagging along for the ride.
- The Sheriff: The arguable main lead of the movie is a sheriff of the small lake down where the monster eventually wakes up and starts killing people who swim or boat out on the lake. He is the typical down-home, small town sheriff and is good friends with Doc and the two scientists. He is also the voice of reason once the killings start and believes there is no point trying to take a creature that deadly and that size alive.
- Stealthy Colossus: One of the outright strangest examples. When the guy who shot up the liquor store flees from the sheriff, they exit the cars at the lake's shore and start firing back and forth. When the sheriff reloads, the guy runs for the lake and is somehow snatched up by the creature in the ten seconds it took the sheriff to reload and run to where he entered the water. The only thing left is bloody water, no body, but it's utterly confusing due to the editing how it managed to be anywhere near the guy and the sheriff didn't hear it eat him or just drag him off into the water in literally just ten seconds.
- Stop Motion: When the film finally has to show the monster in full from head to toe, it is done in stop motion as this was the 70s and the effects were limited by the time period. It looks rather cheap and is full of Narm, but it's still better than the very clearly plastic head or limbs that are shown whenever the monster attacks someone.
- Those Two Guys: Arnie and Mitch are inseparable. Matter of fact, there may not even be a scene where one is without the other.
- Too Dumb to Live: Arnie stupidly hops onto the bulldozer as if he intends to shoot the creature with a shotgun or at least stop the cop from destroying it, but all that happens is he chickens out, falls off the bulldozer, and just lays there as the creature approaches and then kills him, spitting him out without even eating him. He never even reaches for the fully loaded shotgun he took with him for that very purpose. However, his death enrages the cop, who then puts an end to the creature for good.
- Worst Aid: Ironically, you'd think Doc was featured in the movie to eventually save someone's life, but he instead displays some of the worst First Aid since Miami Connection. An older man stumbles inside the diner where the townsfolk are arguing about what to do about the dinosaur and he's been attacked by the creature and is bleeding everywhere. Does Doc start trying to stop the bleeding or examine him as he tells them about the attack? No! He puts the guy's head in his lap and gently caresses his hair while he talks. Thanks, Doc!
