The Giant Gila Monster (1959) | Attack of the Drive-In!
"What did you hit him with? My brand new, 100% completed hot rod."
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Laughings important, isn't it Chase?
RATING: 4 hot rodded lizards out of 5
Hot Rod Gojira
Certainly not the first movie starring a giant lizard. Certainly the most famous came five years earlier, out of Japan — Ishirō Honda dropping Godzilla on the world like a scaly atom bomb came in 1954.
But what happens when you give a giant lizard a taste for hot rods, a production budget fueled by a drive-in magnate, and a shooting location deep in the heart of Texas?
Ladies, gentlemen, and other creatures of the night — I give you The Giant Gila Monster.
A monstersploitation flick with all the scientific accuracy of RFK, Jr. after the attack of the brain worms.
The Lizard’s the Word
Have you heard the reports of a "giant lizard"?
This is the peak of a certain time in American cinema that was fascinated with "big things that shouldn't be big.”
A movie that warns of the dangers of hot rods corrupting the youth — and becoming a snack for an overgrown desert lizard.
Let’s hop in our time-traveling hot rod, and head back to 1959. A time smack in the middle of America's obsession with atomic mutations, when teenagers were flocking to sock hops, and Hollywood was cranking out monster movies faster than a giant rat skedaddling up a drain pipe.
The film in question: "The Giant Gila Monster."
Here, small-town Americana faces the greatest existential threat it’s ever known: a regular lizard filmed crawling around miniature sets at an painstakingly slow pace while it sticks its tongue out.
Ok, ok, being honest? The practical effects really aren’t awful. I’ll always take a lizard playing with Hot Wheels over CGI effects layered over CGI like a last-minute Sunday potluck trifle.
Not the most groundbreaking special effects — it’s mostly lizard-eye-view camera angles and a non-union lizard who clearly didn’t have an agent handling its contract. But it has a unique midcentury so-awful-it’s-wild charm that holds up well.
“Special” effects, indeed.
Big Gila Energy
Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast. Only God could destroy it!
So here we have a perfectly normal desert reptile — ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille (or Mr. Ray Kellogg, in this case) — terrorizes a small Texas town by... wiggling slightly to the left and giving the place the stink eye.
Local hot-rodder and amateur mechanic Chase Winstead finds himself leading the charge against our scaly friend when the sheriff is too busy being useless. Chase's mastery of reptile elimination is on full display as he transforms from grease monkey to monster hunter faster than you can say "questionable lizard wrangling techniques."
It’s a film that seems to have all the budget of a PB&J. Which is surprising, considering it was produced by Ken Curtis. If that sounds vaguely familiar, and you like vintage westerns — it should. He played Festus on Gunsmoke.
One Gordon Barton McLendon was brought on as co-producer, and handled distribution. Which totally wasn’t a conflict of interest, considering that McLendon, at the time, an owner of a Dallas drive-in theater chain owner — who wanted co-features for his main attractions. Also a fellow native of Paris, Texas, and I can sympathize. We produce a…distinct kind of people.
But back to the movie and away from the world’s third-largest Eiffel Tower.
Our plucky hero blasts around in his souped-up hot rod, croons a toe-tapping tune called "Laugh, Children, Laugh" (I wish I were making this up), and cares for his disabled sister with all the tenderness of a tabloid-ready 50s heartthrob. That's the good news. The bad news is that this small town is about to become —
Dun dun DUN —
The lizard's personal Golden Corral. An all-you-can-eat buffet of wanton destruction.
Minor spoiler/truth in advertising alert: the titular herp isn’t actually a Gila monster. It’s a Mexican beaded lizard — a cousin of the Gila.
Hot Rod Gila
"What did you hit him with? My brand new, 100% completed hot rod."
And so it was, in those days, that our favorite hot-rod teen idol decides the best game plan is to drive a car utterly loaded down with nitroglycerin directly into the titular Gila monster, at which point we learn that giant reptiles are surprisingly easy to defeat if you have access to high explosives.
Meanwhile, Chase falls for a local girl, kicking off a series of romantic moments that launch them — like a pair of star-crossed teens awkwardly shuffling around outside the prom — straight into questioning why they're in this movie at all.
A surprisingly star-studded (if E-list) cast here though — B-movie vet Don Sullivan, French Miss Universe contestant (1957) Lisa Simone, and an appearance by long-time cowboy comic (and legendary Dallas KLIF DJ) Shug Fisher.
Wildly absurd on so many levels it makes the idea of a 70-foot lizard seem plausible, but holds up well for a midnight double feature.
We gasp, we chortle, we squint tighter than Clint Eastwood with a hangover trying to figure out if that's a real French fry next to the lizard, and gaze in wonder as a gila monster plays with tiny cars and buildings.
The moral of our story seems to be "don't park near train tracks when there's a giant lizard on the loose unless you have a few crates of nitro lying around.”
Really — what's not to love?
Sure, it's cheesy. The plot is thinner than the veneer on Dr. Oz’s teeth.
The acting is... present. The Gila monster seems the most invested in the craft, if we’re being honest. The (“very) special” effects consist entirely of filming a regular old lizard wandering among little toy cars, probably acquired locally from Kress’s.
The black-and-white cinematography captures the lizard's slow, ponderous movements and increasingly bored expression beautifully, making the 74-minute runtime feel like watching geological processes — in real time and 3D.
Not one for those who enjoy fast-paced action, BAFTA-quality acting (except from the lizard, of course), coherent plots, or chin-stroking contemplation for Lettrbox — but who cares? This is a giant monster movie!
"The Giant Gila Monster" is absolutely worth a watch today, especially with your suspension of disbelief cranked all the way up (and fueled by Shiner) and your critical faculties set to "wow a big lizard!"
How to Survive A Giant Monster Attack, According to the "The Giant Gila Monster"
When facing giant reptiles, teenagers with hot rods are your best defense.
Musical numbers about laughing children are surprisingly ineffective against lizards.
Nitroglycerin solves most giant monster problems.
If you're going to film a giant monster movie, maybe — just maybe — consider a monster that moves faster than continental drift.
When facing certain death by lizard, your teen romance suddenly becomes much more urgent.
Wanna check it out for yourself? You’re in luck!
You can catch the whole movie on YouTube, courtesy of Drive-In Radio. Hit the button below to head right over there. See you at the Drive-In!
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This movie was awesome, and everything about that double feature poster perfect. "Bring extra blood", what does that even mean?? haha.