"Curucu, Beast of the Amazon" is pretty much what you expect from a movie by this title! Yes, it's cheap, cheesy and pretty silly stuff...and is best for folks who like seeing terrible films.The story begins with one of the silliest looking monsters in film history killing some woman in the Amazonian region. Soon, a burly he-man (John Bromfield) is recruited to find and destroy the monster...and he ends up getting paired up with a head-strong doctor...you know, the feminist sort in the 1950s that talks a good talk but ends up falling for the lunk-head leading man! Along the way, there are a few nice jungle scenes...and some total crap scenes as well where it's obvious they are using old and badly made stock footage. The buffalo charge, in particular, is terrible...and what you'd expect from an ultra-cheapo film like this. The only real surprise is the monster itself....when you learn more about it, it turns out to be a bit of a shocker! But even this isn't enough to make me recommend the film to anyone but masochists like myself who occasionally enjoy a laughably bad movie. By the way, despite what you see in the picture, tarantulas are NOT deadly nor are they particularly poisonous.

Only suave ladies man and eternal B-movie actor John Bromfield could get away with this role, that of plantation owner Rock Dean, who is investigating a series of attacks on workers along the Amazon River. Rock Dean isn't one to believe in legends (and with that name, you wouldn't either!), but it is said that a strange bird-like creature named Curucu lives near the river where no white man has ever tread. Along for the journey is a shapely female doctor in search of a drug that might be effective in shrinking cancerous tissue (it is currently in use by the resident headhunters, who need it to shrink something else!). Low-budget co-feature has some jungle adventure and humor, though it was misleadingly advertised by Universal as a horror movie. The credit "filmed entirely in Brazil" is also misleading, as a good portion of the running time is padded with wildlife and travelogue footage from stock. Fans of Bromfield and scream queen Beverly Garland might give this a pass. *1/2 from ****

Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956) ** (out of 4) John Bromfield and Beverly Garland travel up the Amazon to kill the title character, a large parrot like creature. Many older horror fans call this one of the most disappointing monster films of the decade due to a couple twists in the plot. I picked up on those twists pretty early and they were stupid but the real interesting thing is that this really seemed like an early version of the infamous Cannibal Holocaust. The best thing about the film is that it was shot in the Amazon, which means we get all sorts of shots with various animals ranging from pythons to huge spiders. With this comes several animal death scenes that won't make PETA members too happy.

"Like nothing you have ever seen" states the tagline for this film, and it is accurate beyond belief. This film is beyond description in many ways. The story details how a plantation owner and a doctor go up the Amazon in search of a Head-shrinking tribe and a mythical beast. The beast looks incredibly inept and totally silly, as is the plot for this film. The leads are horrible, particularly Beverly Garland as the sassy doctor out to always prove herself. Her expressions, not to mention her screams, are enough reason to see the film. I cannot remember laughing so hard at a film. Although the settings are genuine, the folksy South American tune in the background throughout most of the film only serves to belittle any real tension the film might have provided. The direction is poor and the camerawork even poorer. One sequence in particular, when Garland and male lead "Rock" run up a tree to avoid being trampled by a herd of water buffaloes is a real hoot! The scenes were laid on top of each other and just look so idiotic. A great film to ridicule with friends or just for private laughs!