On the heels of "The Blob" comes Caltiki, the vindictive mass of an ancient Mayan god who literally swallows and disintegrated its victims, many of whom it had driven crazy beforehand. Unlike the American blob, this one is in black and white and thus not as gory. However, the attacks are certainly quite frightening.Italian made but badly dubbed, this is a mixed bag of horror and mythology. The voice of the litter girl sounds like something you'd hear on Rocky and Bullwinkle, and other voices don't match, either. Still interesting and quite graphic, there are a few moments where you might turn your head away.The special effects are by Mario Brava, who would find immortality with directing "Black Sunday". One ugly moment has one of the psychotic characters being shown inside Caltiki. practically dissolving into a skeleton before your eyes. A survivor of Caltiki literally has their arm chewed off. This isn't going to be for everybody. But I can see why it has a cult following.

Italian blob horror science fiction. Unfortunately I had a bad full screen copy, but it was great nevertheless. Based on a Mexican legend, Caltiki is a Mayan goddess who has sex with a creature from the sky. Here it's nicely put in the sf, where Caltiki is a twenty million years old giant one cell organism, and the creature in the sky is a meteor whose radiation is making it grow. It has everything, sexy dances of hot Mexican girls, gory scenes of faces and hands barred to the bone by acid, underwater scenes with skeletons and Indian treasure, explosions, 50s computers which calculate age of anything. Furthermore, our hero, played pretty good by British theater actor John Merivale, while hurrying home to save his wife and child from the ever growing blob gets arrested for speeding and has to escape from jail. At the end it's flamethrower armed tanks vs. the blob. All that in 70 minutes, so it's not your average slow 50s American science fiction horror, it's fast paced and never boring. But it's nicely shot also, and that's no wonder since the main photographer, and allegedly de facto director, is Mario Bava. Daniela Rocca is extra hot. Really fun, fast paced, smart camera.

I saw this when I was 8 years old, and it scared me so much I had to momentarily leave my seat. I ran back to the men's restroom and hid inside for a minute or so, then slowly came back out and stood in back by the usher and watched for another minute or two more, and finally returned to my seat for the rest of the movie. This never happened to me in any other movie, and as an adult, I was very curious to know just what it was in this otherwise standard black and white B-Movie Monster fare that could cause such a reaction. I just watched it again, for the first time since 1959, and I believe it was a combination of having my wits scared out of me when I identified with the little girl and her mother trapped in the bedroom with Catiki swelling up against the door, and stomach churning revulsion at the nasty looking mess that was left after Caltiki started digesting its victims. Unlike Steve McQueen's Blob which looked almost like an edible piece of cherry Jello, Caltiki sometimes took on the appearance of a soiled cloth rag completely saturated with thick dark mud (or some unmentionable organic substance), and the mess that was left after it digested its victims was indescribably disgusting for the era. The plot is corny and hackneyed, with the obligatory hysteria over the evils of radiation, and knuckle-headed careless scientists. But it is campy and scary, and worth watching. I ended up springing for a DVD, since I never see this shown on television anymore, apart from once seeing it offered by Showtime many years ago. Why do movies like this just vanish?

Yes, this is the movie we ran out of ... my younger sister crying and the rest of us equally scared out of our pants. For years on end we have remembered this movie but never been able to find it. Finally I got a copy on DVD and enjoyed watching the rest of the movie... a great 50s Blob movie and one that brings back memories of that day when me and my brothers and sisters went to the Saturday matinée and were scared out of our wits... having to leave soon after the greedy scientist loses his hand to the Blob after he goes back for the bag of gold jewels. This review has to be longer so without giving away the ending I will just say that the only disappointing part of the movie is that the Blob is kinda slow... and needs radioactivity to grow and move. I would have like for him to cause more death and destruction before the end of the movie. There are some cool graphic death scenes and plenty of comic relief from the dated but entertaining acting and even a tribal belly dance. Plenty of greedy evil crazed scientists too.