‘The name written in blood!’
Eegah is a 1962 American sci-fi fantasy horror film written by Bob Wehling. The movie stars Arch Hall, Jr. (The Sadist), Arch Hall, Sr. (who directed as Nicholas Merriwether, co-produced The Thrill Killers; and wrote The Corpse Grinders), Marilyn Manning and Richard Kiel in the titular role, the same year he was in the classic Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’.
Seven foot two inch tall Kiel would go on to appear in House of the Damned (1963) twice play Jaws, a James Bond villain, star in Italian sci-fi film The Humanoid (1979) and play ghost Captain Howdy in horror spoof Hysterical (1982).
Assistant cameraman Ray Dennis Steckler appears in the picture as Mr Fischer, the man at the hotel who is thrown into the pool near the end. Steckler made his directing debut the next year in the Arch Hall Jr. vehicle, Wild Guitar. Steckler’s first independent feature, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies was later distributed by Fairway-International, owned by Arch Hall, Sr.
Eegah is often cited as being one of the worst films of all time. Unfortunately, there are many worse movies.
One night after shopping, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is driving to a party through the California desert when she nearly runs her car into Eegah (Richard Kiel), a giant caveman. She tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson (Arch Hall, Jr.), and her father Robert Miller (Arch Hall, Sr.) about the giant. Her father, a writer of adventure books, decides to go into the desert to look for the creature and possibly take a photograph of it.
When his helicopter ride fails to show up at his designated pickup time, Tom and Roxy go looking for him but the latter is soon kidnapped by Eegah and taken back to his cave…
Reviews:
“Eegah! is considered by many to be the worst movie ever made. We think we’ve seen worse, but there’s no denying that Arch Hall Sr’s caveman epic is among the most poorly made motion pictures of all time. Hall cast himself, his son, and his secretary in the lead roles, and all three of them are low on talent. The only person involved with this film that has any scrap of talent whatsoever is Richard Kiel…” Shameface.com
” … bad movie fans have a special place in their hearts for the efforts of the Halls, and for Eegah especially, perhaps because of the deeply emotional reverberations, it leaves in the minds of all who see it. Or maybe because it’s a good laugh.” The Spinning Image
“A horror movie of sorts whose central character is chased away by a barking poodle in one scene, Eegah maintains its level of goofiness with a golly-gee-whizz sincerity that makes it far more enjoyable (read: laughable) than mere run-of-the-mill bad moviemaking.” John Wilson, The Official Razzie Movie Guide
“Terrible in all the right ways, Eegah is about as bottom of the barrel as they come but no less enjoyable for it if you’re in the right frame of mind. It’s not often a movie combines dune buggies, rock n roll, cavemen and helicopters in on a ninety-minute mainline hit of celluloid weirdness, but here it is. Hall’s typically clunky direction is on display and the film’s minuscule budget shows throughout…” DVD Talk
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