Caltiki - il mostro immortale (1959)
| Caltiki, The Immortal Monster | |
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Italian theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | |
| Produced by | Nello Santi |
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| Starring | |
| Music by | Roberto Nicolosi |
| Cinematography | Mario Bava |
| Edited by | Mario Serandrei |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Lux Film |
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Release date
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Running time
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76 minutes |
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| Box office | ₤94.15 million |
Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (Italian: Caltiki, il mostro immortale) is a 1959 black-and-white science fiction-horror film. The film's storyline concerns a team of archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins who come across a creature that is a shapeless, amorphous blob. They manage to defeat it using fire, while keeping a sample of the creature. Meanwhile, a comet is due to pass close to the Earth, the very same comet that passed near the Earth at the time the Mayan civilization collapsed, raising the question: "Is there a connection between the creature and the comet"?
Made with the a foreign audience in mind, Galatea Film started exploring other genres after the success of their film Hercules (1958) which led to Freda being tasked to direct Caltiki, The Immortal Monster. Freda left the project during filming, later explaining that he wanted to give his friend, the cinematographer Mario Bava a chance to direct and earn more on the project. In interviews done long after the film was release of the film, both Freda and Bava gave conflicting opinions on who should be considered the real director Caltiki. Various historians and ministerial papers suggest that Bava did create a large amount of footage of the film involving death scenes, the monster, matching shots and special effects scenes. The film was released in Italy on 8 August 1959 where it grossed less than Bava's and Freda's previous genre collaboration I Vampiri.
A delirious archaeologist stumbles into his group's camp without his partner, both of whom have been exploring a nearby cave. He quickly goes mad, requiring hospitalization. Their interest piqued by this strange turn of events, the group sets out for the cave.
Once there, they find a deep pool of water, behind which is a large statue of Caltiki, the vengeful Mayan goddess who was ceremonially presented with human sacrifices. Hoping to find artifacts, the group sends one of their own down into the pool. At the bottom, he finds a menagerie of skeletons clad in gold jewelry. Running out of oxygen, he comes back up, clutching as much gold as he can carry. Although wishing that he not go down again, he insists on doing so, suggesting that they could become millionaires from the wealth below. Relenting, they let him descend once more. As he collects more and more treasure, his cable to the surface suddenly begins to move erratically. Fearing for his safety, the group pulls him back to the surface, only to find, upon removing his face mask, that his body has been reduced to a decayed mass over his skeleton.
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Wikipedia