The Milpitas Monster is regional filmmaking taken to a new level. Filmed in 1974 in the Californian town of Milpitas, this throwback to the creature features of the 1950's had a good portion of the town's residents, businesses and the local high school pitch-in resources, money, and locations in order to help get the movie produced. And while it's not a good movie by any means, it's still a good effort considering the means it was made and also that director Robert L. Burrill was the photography teacher in a local secondary school.

The movie opens with a narrated introduction that gives us a brief history of the town of Milpitas while telling us that thanks to modern society things in this once charming burg are becoming worse due to an overabundance of pollution and garbage. That's right, they've the environment to unleash their creature here (in the 50's it was mostly about atomic bombs) and mixed into the scattershot story a few anti-pollution messages to boot.

There's really not much in the way of a script here as the residents of Milpitas are suffering from having their garbage cans stolen in the night. Usually this is just passed-off as the work of some bored juvenile delinquents but, apparently, in this town it's quite a big deal - such a big deal that it makes the news even.

Well, it turns out that all this stolen garbage is because a giant, moth-like creature has been spawned from the nearby dump and is using their waste to keep itself fed. Of course, this being a monster movie, a few of the townsfolk also fall victim to our winged, glowing-eyed beast because they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It falls to a group of prankster teenagers, the wimpy rule following Jeff (who is given a really annoying dubbed voice that sounds a few decades too old for the character) and his girlfriend Priscilla and some scientists armed with the pleasingly dopey "Odorla", a monster detector (okay, why would someone invent one of these in the first place?), to track down and try to stop our environmentally concerned monster. It's all fine and dandy that our giant moth-man wants to stop pollution but couldn't he of just been a little bit more productive about it? Perhaps make a documentary or hold a bottle drive? But, noooo, he's just got to wreak some havoc on this peaceful Northern California town.

There's plenty of random teenage goofing off, a few weak monster attacks (a garbage man pricelessly witnesses our creature early), a constantly drunk homeless man named George ("Crazy George" Henderson) who's merely here for comic relief and gets way too much screen time, Priscilla being grasped in our monster's clawed hand and kidnapped at the school dance in the film's "King Kong moment", and a finale set on a radio tower to check out in The Milpitas Monster. It's little, admittedly cheesy, things like these that helps make this amateurish low-budgeter tolerable (for the most part).

Not surprisingly, most of the people involved with this "labour of love" didn't go on to do anything else. Screenwriter David E. Boston did manage to write the Robert Clouse directed The London Connection and a few episodes of TV's long-running "Wonderful World Of Disney" (one of the show's many titles and the one I remember it most as) series, but everyone else just went back to their normal, everyday lives. The only real person who appears here that had any sort of career in the film industry is opening narrator Paul Frees who had a lengthy career as a voice over artist in such television specials as "Frosty The Snowman" and the 1960's "Fantastic Four" cartoon series.

If you're hankering for lowbrow monster movie silliness, you might get a few chuckles from The Milpitas Monster. It's a movie better known for its history than anything and it's unique in how it brought a community together, but there's some dopey moments and not overly bad monster effects (most of it being of the "man in a suit" variety although there is some okay stop motion too) to help make all the movies flaws gone down a little bit easier. (Chris Hartley, 6/24/07)

Directed By: Robert L. Burrill.
Written By: David E. Boston.

Starring: Douglas A. Hagdohl, Scot A. Henderson, Scott Parker, Daniel G. Birkhead.