Curucu, Beast of the Amazon

Poster tagline: “Like nothing your eyes have ever seen before!” It's endearingly clumsy in many moments, especially during the frequent animal fights, but otherwise I'm surprised that for a vintage 1950s monster B-movie, it has the parameters of a cinematic behemoth, rather than something that usually stuck to the mainstream as a second-run movie in those days. That’s mainly thanks to the unusually beautiful Brazilian locations, some of the shots of the Amazon and the beautiful waterfalls looked very nice on the restored Blu-ray and the filmmakers seemed to know it, so they didn't spare them especially in the second half. Even the story about the mysterious monster tries to have a surprising ending and I can feel Siodmak's effort to make a good film. Of course, we're still within the boundaries of B-movie filmmaking, so viewer indulgence is required. PS: The posters are beautiful! (05/15/2023)