Search - Lost Continent (Ws) on DVD

The Love Boat It Ain't!

Kimi | Wyalusing | 03/31/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Often referred to as, *The Love Boat On Acid*, this film is definitely a trip! It would be just my luck to book passage on a ship like this....Passengers that are on the run from various illegal acts, a crew that would rather take it's chances in a lifeboat, a Captain that oozes sarcasm and a trip straight to a lost continent; complete with man-eating seaweed, mutated crustaceans and the Spanish Inquisition! This film is *B* entertainment, pure and simple. This is easily one of my favortie Hammer films, I love the look and feel of this film, the sea monsters, the wild array of passengers and the opening theme to this film will definitely have you singing along for days. If you've watched your way through Hammer's Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy series of films, then why not sit back and enjoy this sci-fi/fantasy/horror film? I guarantee you, this will be a film you'll never forget and if you think I'm kidding, just listen to that opening theme....*You have discovered the Lost Con-tin-ent!*."

Weird Gem

Kimi | 11/10/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Buy this video. Don't watch it at first, stay up for five days straight first then, at about 3 or 4 am, when everyone else is asleep, drink about a gallon of sugar water and spin around in a chair for ten minutes, then pop it in. Pretend you're 8 years old again and you've stayed up all night just to watch it. By the time you get to the part where the conquistadors with the balloon shoes walk across the ocean you should be just about ready to lose your mind. What the hell is this thing! Who made it and why? These and other questions will go unanswered. This is one weird movie."

Fake monsters but compelling characters -- the best Hammer a

Charles J. Garard Jr. PhD | Liaocheng University, China | 08/11/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So I give up already. Where is the lost continent?

Is it somewhere hidden in the Sargasso Sea under all that man-eating seaweed? Does it have to do with that floating Spanish galleon where characters still dress as if they have been lost in time for centuries, ruled by a spoiled little child -- the El Supremo, as one character calls him?

That said, I have to admit that this little film from Hammer is one of my guilty pleasures. It is undeniably my favorite adventure from the vaults of Hammer, starring a cast that succeeds in making us forget the unreal monsters and the fact that the shark fin sailing through the water is less than believable. What makes this film work are the stalwart efforts of the aforementioned cast, headed by pock-faced Eric Porter as a convincing captain of a tramp freighter lost not near a lost continent but caught in seaweed and facing a crew of throwbacks to the pirate area. Also making the plot almost acceptable are Suzanna Leigh, who has a bone or two to pick with her father, Hildegard Knef, who still looks pretty good considering it has been a few years since she played opposite Gregory Peck in THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO, and Tony Beckley, who reforms from a useless drunk into a guilt-ridden hero. Also on hand is one of the greatest supporting actors ever to grace a Hammer production -- Michael Ripper.

Others worth mentioning are Benito Carruthers as the agent chasing after Hildegard Knef who made off with negotiable bonds from a dictator but who is not above accepting sexual favors from her as a bribe. Also a person not to be ignored in the film is Dana Gillespie, who plays two noteworthy roles in the film -- that is, if one counts her considerable frontal attributes as characters. As a runaway from the El Supremo dictator who must travel across the threatening seaweed held up by two balloons -- no, it's not what you are thinking -- I mean real balloons-- and ends up being romanced by the Tony Beckley character. Lucky Tony. He spurns the beautiful Suzanna Leigh, who prefers him as a drunk, only to fall into the arms -- I said "arms" -- of the statuesque Ms. Gillespie. I understand that she was being groomed to be a rock singer -- not that anyone who sees this film is going to care. For those Russ Meyer types who are curious, she also appears in MAHLER and THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT.

Even Porter, after making some acidic comments about her relationship with her son, ends up with Ms. Neff. As I said, she still looks pretty good, even in shorts, so he is hardly a loser in the film. After THE FORSYTHE SAGA on TV, he deserves some compensation as a good guy with ulterior motives for carrying a dangerous cargo and even more dangerous passengers on his rust bucket of a freighter. He later shows up in the Hammer horror film called HANDS OF THE RIPPER, but somehow his role in that film fails to match his performance in this adventure.

Neil McCallum as his second-in-command looks weird with blond hair. Why did he decide to look like a bleached towhead for this role? Does it serve some aesthetic purpose that is lost on me? As it turns out, he is drop-kicked out of the story early, preferring to abandon ship with some of the unruly crew who fear the Phosbo-B cargo and, therefore, missing out on the opportunity to meet the time-lost
characters in the Sargasso Sea as well as the visible charms of Ms. Gillespie.

Sargasso Sea. Okay. That brings me back to my original question. Why is this adventure with strong characters called THE LOST CONTINENT? It is nothing like the original Cesar Romero film of the early fifties with the same title, a film resembling not a little Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic THE LOST WORLD. The basis for this film is the Dennis Wheatley novel UNCHARTED SEAS. That title makes more sense, but maybe it is not a compelling one. Why not THE LOST SARGASSO SEA? Why THE LOST CONTINENT?

By the way, the title song with its organ-music lead-in is really quite good. Too bad it wasn't used more throughout the film. We hear quiet strains of the theme occasionally, but the vocal is not repeated.

Another question: what do the prehistoric creatures -- apparently machine-driven paper-mache types -- have to do with the ship-load of throwbacks? Why do they still exist in the Sargasso Sea? I like monsters as much as the next over-grown kid, and I would prefer these unreal things to CGI or the blown-up iguanas used in the 1960 THE LOST WORLD, but how are they to be explained? Maybe we shouldn't care.

When I first saw this film in a drive-in in the last sixties, it was paired with the big-budgeted sequel to PLANET OF THE APES titled BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. I went to see this double-bill twice, and it sure wasn't to see BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES a second time. Okay. You got me.

It was to see Dana Gillespie again.

Rent or buy this DVD if you have the chance. Unless you are a stickler for CGI monsters as found in the JURASSIC PARK series, you won't be disappointed."