The Navy vs. the Night Monsters
The Navy vs. the Night Monsters
NR | 01 November 1966 (USA)
The Navy vs. the Night Monsters Trailers

US Navy battles monsters unearthed from the frozen arctic.

Reviews
WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Konterr Brilliant and touching
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- The Navy vs the Night Monsters, 1966. US military starts "Operation Deep Freeze" in the South Pole. It's a scientific expedition to discover unusual tree specimens. (Trees in the South Pole?) When some odd tree specimens are shipped out for further study, the trees are accidentally taken to a tropical South Sea Navy base. These tree specimens soon reveal themselves to be killers with acid-secreting walking monsters that live by night foraging for meat, even humans. *Special Stars- Anthony Eisley, Mamie Van Doren, Billy Gray, Walter Sande, Bobby Van. *Theme- Polar region organisms should not be moved to study them.*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W. Michael A. Hoey optioned the original novel and wrote the screenplay in 1959, hoping to emulate the success of The Thing from Another World (1951). He was paid $10,000 for the script. Mamie Van Doren was cast because she owed uncredited producer Roger Corman another film on her contract. Van Doren was highly dismissive of her work on the film and indeed the film itself. Shot in ten days; The entire cast and crew were on the point of walking out during production when they learned halfway through filming what the film's plot was to be.*Emotion- Again another unintentional comical romp in a film that was made badly, cheap, fast, and the participants hated spending their time and talents in this project. It shows on film to the viewer. Preposterous situations and badly acted, don't waste your film viewing time. See the 'Day of the Triffids' for same plot and done better.*Based on- Outer space fears, post Atomic Age.
Paul Andrews The Navy vs. the Night Monsters starts in Antartica where scientists have found frozen planet & animal specimens buried deep under the icy surface, they are packed up & sent by plane to Gow island where the plane is due to refuel & drop the specimens off at a military research base. However while making the approach to land something happens on the plane, all communication is severed & the plane crash lands on the island. A rescue is sent straight away but only the pilot is found & in a state of extreme trauma unable to speak, the race is now on to find out what happened on the plane, why it crash landed & where the other nine crew disappeared to. The plane is unload & the specimens are taken to the base where Dr. Arthur Beecham (Walter Sande) gets to work, it's not long before worrying incidents begin to happen as a corrosive substance turns up everywhere, people start going missing & mutilated bodies are found in the jungle. It seems that killer Tree's are loose on the island & looking to feed...Co-written & directed by Michael A. Hoey who apparently had major disagreements with the producer during filming & as such John Hall & Arthur C. Pierce were hired to shoot scenes that Hoey refused to including some of the more comedic moments & some of the terrible looking scenes featuring the Tree monsters. I quite like 50's & 60's sci-fi horror monster films generally but The Navy vs. the Night Monsters is pretty hard to sit through let alone recommend. The script was based on the novel 'The Monster from Earth's End' by Murray Leinster which I have not read so cannot compare the two but I suspect it's better than what ended up on screen, even at a fairly brisk 84 minutes long this thing drags badly in places & is very talky with lots of dull exposition that has dated very badly. The character's are clichéd, the dialogue is wooden, everyone is so impassive & uncaring despite what is going on & copious amounts of stock footage means that a few scenes are a complete mess to watch especially the ending. Overall this is a pretty dull film that takes ages to get going, it's well over an hour before we get any significant killer Tree vs. Navy action which is too long. This starts out like a mystery as we try to figure out what happened to the nine missing plane crew & a Penguin but it doesn't hold ones interest & it's pretty obvious what happened anyway, after that it's just a plodding monster film full of dull talk & stock footage bookended with some narration about nothing in particular.All of the action scenes including the crash & the napalming of the island is nothing but stock footage badly edited into the film & there are other scenes of stock footage like planes flying, waves hitting rocks & shots of the island from above. The Tree monster look daft, they look like ordinary Trees but with thicker trunks & leaves that shake a bit. The best moment is when a soldier has his arm ripped off by one of the monsters in what was probably quite a graphic scene back in the mid 60's. Originally title 'The Night Crawler' the producer changed it which is one reason why he & Hoey feel out.With a supposed budget of about $178,000 this was shot in about ten days this is badly made throughout. The acting is poor & very wooden.The Navy vs. the Night Monsters is a pretty bad 60's sci-fi horror monster film with nothing to recommend it apart from some bad special effects which end up being funny & a guy having his arm ripped off. Don't waste your time.
Michael_Elliott Navy vs. the Night Monsters, The (1966) * 1/2 (out of 4) This now legendary cult movie has the reputation of being one of the worst ever made but I wouldn't go that far. The film has a pretty simple storyline as a Navy base has a plane land where only the pilot is alive and the rest of the crew have mysteriously disappeared. The only strange thing is this acid material that is all over the place. While the doctors try to figure out what's going on, more deaths happen and sure enough it's because of those killer trees brought back from Antarctica. The killer tree genre didn't deliver too many movies and you just need to watch this one to understand why. Again, this is no where near the worst movie ever made but at the same time I will call it one of the most disappointing because it really isn't as bad as what you've heard. I think the biggest problem with the film is that it really doesn't do anything with its silly and stupid plot. Yes, the plot is incredibly dumb but so were the majority of stories that were used for our sci-fi and horror favorites. The filmmakers want us to believe that trees have come to life and can attack people. Fine, do something with it. The first hour of the film pretty much has everyone talking about terrifying these creatures are yet it takes forever to get to see them in action. Once they do go into action we get a few nice laughs because of how silly they look. The low-budget is obvious with the special effects and especially one scene where a man gets his arm pulled off. An even stranger thing is why this movie was made to begin with. Outside it being shot in color the thing really looks and feels like something made ten or fifteen years earlier. When you think of what was going on in the film world by 1966 it's as if the filmmakers of this thing were in a coma and didn't realize how out-of-date their movie was. The performances, as you'd expect, are all rather wooden and this includes cult favorite Mamie Van Doren who plays the head nurse. She's suppose to be playing this brilliant mind but I think you know how that turned out. At least the directors were smart enough to keep her in tight shirts. At 88-minutes this comes off as one of those films where you keep watching and keep yourself entertained hoping that something good eventually happens but in the end there's not enough there to make it worth the effort. THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS isn't a good movie but sadly it isn't bad enough to be fully entertaining.
vampi1960 I love b-movies and i especially enjoyed navy verses the night monsters. its so bad its good,i would call this a poor mans day of the triffids. i especially liked the music on the soundtrack,its been used in many other monster films like;king Kong vs Godzilla.there's these prehistoric plant monsters that look like tree stumps that walk,and its up to the navy to stop them,led by gung ho navel officer;Anthony Fred Eisley (wasp women,mighty gorga)and busty Mamie van doran(high school confidential)also on hand is billy gray(father knows best)and bobby van. there's some early gore scenes like arms being ripped off,acid burns,etc; kind of gory for 1966.its a perfect b-movie.kind of enjoyable in an odd sort of way.this would've been great on mystery science theater 3,000. i give this b-movie gem 5 out of 10.