I guess I'm not a complete fan of Hammer films like some. I found this movie somewhat engrossing but disturbing. All the usual Hammer gore. The monsters were hokey enough to be entertaining, and the plot kept you wondering what was next. However, it was too intense for me to watch it again. Just my opinion, of course, but not recommended for those who are at all faint of heart or disturbed by lots of red stuff.

A Hammer adventure yarn mixing plodding characterisation with rousing action in a half-successful combination. This is best seen as a precursor to the later Amicus movies like THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, and shares many common similarities with those movies, from the diverse group of people on a vessel discovering an unknown world to the giant fake-looking monsters that inevitably dominate said world. The main fault is with the slow pacing and the fact that most of the action is consigned to the last thirty minutes instead of being evenly distributed throughout the film. It takes the ship a full hour to reach the uncharted seas and there's too much talk and not enough excitement before then, but this is only a minor flaw.Based on a story by Dennis Wheatley called Uncharted Seas, this is an unashamed B-movie lifted only by an above-average cast. The monsters are terrible and of a cheap-looking DR WHO standard but for me, this can only be a highlight (I have a soft spot for poor special effects, no matter how bad they may be!). Bizarrely, the film bypasses the child audience by including some graphic violence of a man getting strangled and his neck broken, plus people bleeding profusely when being attacked by the various dangers on their voyage. The crooning music which pops up occasionally merely complements the utterly bizarre and unpredictable atmosphere that this movie possesses! Eric Porter is the initially unlikable Captain Lansen who comes through in the end; it's a wonder what this high-class actor was doing in a movie of this calibre at this time! Ageing Hildegard Knef lends some foreign glamour, while the ample charms of Dana Gillespie are on show for the last twenty minutes. Suzanne Leigh (LUST FOR A VAMPIRE) is the irritating screaming heroine who sleeps with any man she can find, and Nigel Stock (famous for his role as Watson to Cushing's Holmes in the BBC series) her father who gets eaten by a cardboard shark! Many familiar British character actors fill out supporting roles, many of them having appeared in previous British horror like Neil McCallum and Victor Maddern. Norman Eshley, Michael Ripper (sporting a hideous scar), Donald Sumptor, Tony Beckley, and Jimmy Hanley round out the main cast. The budget was actually one of the biggest that Hammer had for a film, and it shows in the ship set and the convincing-looking backgrounds; especially impressive is the "ship's graveyard", a mournful scene that the opening credits play over.The action, when it comes, is actually very good and exciting. There's a battle between modern sailors and armoured Spanish soldiers (whose swords are still no match for guns!), a violent tropical storm, a mutiny, an attack by the sentient seaweed (which makes the same noise as a dozen movie monsters of the 1950s) which leaves the victims bleeding and scarred, a hilarious attack by a giant octopus with a glowing green eye (my personal favourite), a battle between a green-eyed giant crab and a giant scorpion (here the movie turns into surreal GODZILLA-like monster action, except not even as convincing - the giant crab has to be one of the worst and most unintentionally funny creatures that I've ever seen!) plus the expected (but impressive) explosive finale.A member of the Spanish Inquisition (complete with Ku Klux Klan hat!) is included in the interests of completeness, along with an obnoxious boy king and a blubbery monster in a pit that was ripped off in RETURN OF THE JEDI. The sheer wealth of funny monsters and well-staged action keeps THE LOST CONTINENT from becoming boring; in the end it comes off as a hugely entertaining and tacky B-movie romp to be seen by those who do not judge their films too harshly and take merit in the simple pleasures of the movies.

Okay, let's get one thing straight first. This is far from the best horror/science fiction movie ever made. It starts off pretty well but then degenerates into melodrama...and pretty awful melodrama at that. The cast of this film is pretty good though and deserves to be in a much better movie than this. The first half of the movie is far better than the last half and a lot more believable. Once the remaining passengers and crew board the life raft and it drifts into neverneverland, you almost wish the acidy seaweed would eat right through the raft and eat everybody. Unfortunately, it doesn't. But then that would shorten the movie before we get to see the very very buxom Dana Gillespie, who singlehandedly makes this movie bearable enough to sit through. She hardly has any speaking lines at all but then she doesn't need them. She just has to stand there and look just the way she looks. She is a standout in more ways than one. But then this part of the movie with the remnants of the Spanish Inquisition is totally and completely silly. This section is like an unfunny drawn out Monty Python segment. The direction is workmanlike but in the end all for naught. This movie doesn't have an end where you know what is going to happen to the surviving characters; the movie just ends, period. One of the few things that would have made this movie better was Dana Gillespie having a lot more screen time.

You know what a typical Hammer production looks like, and "The Lost Continent" definitely doesn't fit that picture. It doesn't feature any old Gothic castles or torture dungeons, any cloaked vampires or mad Barons and it doesn't even star Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing. Surely Hammer also produced other mythologist films and stories revolving on time warps, but "The Lost Continent" is an entire league on its own and the complete opposite to what you expect. Right after watching this movie, you can't even properly determine for yourself whether it's good or bad … just plain weird. "The Lost Continent" is an outrageously plotted but awkwardly coherent film with two entirely different main story lines rolled into one. The titular continent (although it's merely just a small island) actually doesn't get reached until the twenty last minutes and, before that, it is just a suspenseful thriller set on a boat. The ambiance on the ancient and leaky cargo ship is rather tense and sinister. The captain ignores safety warnings and advice from his personnel and the passengers prefer facing a terrible sea storm rather than to return to the coast, even though they have been informed about the potentially explosive cargo. Suffice to say these aren't normal tourists, but people with dark secrets or even fugitive criminals. There are a lot of intrigues going on-board, but the sea is mightier. The captain and his passengers have to abandon ship, but they recover another one slowly drift towards uncharted regions. There they encounter ravenous seaweed and a lot of other things that don't make the least bit of sense, like gigantic crab-creatures, a native tribe under the impression that the Spanish Inquisition isn't finished yet and a local girl with the most gorgeous pair of breasts in the universe. In order to set food on land, they have to put watery pillows on their feet and attach balloons on their shoulders, which forms another very ludicrous sight to behold. "The Lost Continent" is an incredibly silly film, but all cast members perform their roles with a poker straight face, like as if they were starring in the greatest & most budgeted epic adventure in the history of cinema. The effects and monsters designs are extremely dodgy and laughable, but also somewhat charming. The film hasn't got a real ending, but (fortunately?) Hammer never bothered to make a sequel. Crazy little Brit-film, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to open-minded fans of cult cinema.