Eegah: Difference between revisions

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''[[Eegah]]!'' is a 1962 horror film starring Arch Hall Jr., Arch Hall Sr., Marilyn Manning and Richard Kiel in the titular role.

 

One night after shopping, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is driving home through the California desert when she nearly runs her car into Eegah (Richard Kiel), a giant cave man. 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 he fails to show up at his designated pickup time, Tom and Roxy go into the desert looking for him.

Roxy is soon kidnapped by Eegah and taken back to his cave while Tom searches for her. In Eegah's cave, Roxy is reunited with her father, who tells her that he has begun to communicate with the caveman and has developed a theory as to the creature's astounding longevity. When a frisky Eegah expresses what seems to be romantic interest in Roxy, her father, fearful that the creature may kill them both if he is rebuffed, suggests she put up with as much of it as she can bear. Eegah never tries anything too explicit, though, and Roxy even ends up giving him a shave before the pair is able to escape. Crushed, Eegah follows them back to civilization, and a final confrontation ensues.

 

* Richard Kiel as Eegah

* Marilyn Manning as Roxy Miller

* Arch Hall Sr. as Robert Miller

 

 

After the financial success of his first venture into the drive-in/juvenile delinquency genre, The Choppers, Arch Hall Sr. was able to fund ''Eegah!'', a starring vehicle for his son, Arch Hall Jr., who had some success with songwriter Alan O'Day on the rock and roll/blues scene in Los Angeles. Hall, Sr. both co-wrote the film with Bob Wehling, directed the picture under the pseudonym Nicholas Merriweather, and co-starred opposite his son under the name William Watters. While the library music used to underscore the picture was supplied by André Brummer (under the name Henri Price), an uncredited O'Day ended up being the music editor on Eegah!

At one point, Hall Sr. realized the sound man had pressed "PLAY" instead of "RECORD" in one day of shooting, and had to redub a lot of the dialogue and sound effects. He also supplied the voice of Eegah, using a mixture of Spanish, Navajo and other languages.

 

 

''Eegah!'' was included in the Michael Medved book ''The Fifty Worst Films of All Time''. A clip from the movie appears in the opening montage on Something Weird DVD releases, synched up to the last word in this line from an anti-drug film: "Often the introduction comes in the form of a [[Visual Pun|goofball]]." It was mocked by Elvira in a 2010 episode of her ''Movie Macabre'' show.

A scene of Arch Hall Sr. uttering "Watch out for snakes!" from offscreen in what was obviously dubbed in after filming became a minor pop-culture meme. Not only did it become a [[Running Gag]] on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' in episodes after the film aired on that show, it was also referenced on ''[[The Office]]'' and used as the closing line of ''The Rick Emerson Show''.

 

 

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* [[Cool Car]]: Tom has an ''awesome'' ride.

** Ray Dennis Steckler, as described in the main article.

** Arch Hall Jr., who also starred in ''[[The Sadist]]'' as the villain.

* [[Incestuous Casting]]: Writer/director Arch Hall Sr. cast himself as the father of his son's love interest.

* [[Looping Lines]]: The infamously poorly dubbed line "Watch out for snakes."

* [[Mars Needs Women]]: Eegah's infatuation with Roxy

[[Category:Public Domain Feature Films]]

[[Category:Films of the 1960s]]

[[Category:Eegah]]