The Incredible Petrified World

The Incredible Petrified World (1959)

** (out of 4)

A scientist (John Carradine) creates a diving bell that will allow him to try and get a better understanding of the ocean. On its trial run he lowers it (and several people) into the ocean but it breaks free and falls to the bottom of the ocean. He fears that everyone is dead but in fact they are alive and find a cave that has a strange form of life.

If you read the reviews for this Jerry Warren film you'll see many of them calling this one of the worst movie ever made. I very much disagree with that and in fact, for a Warren film, it's actually pretty good. This here was the second film he directed after his debut MAN BEAST and in all honesty these two are the best that he ever would make. I've seen all of the films that Warren directed so perhaps that's why I feel this one here is pretty good considering where he would go from here.

Obviously he was working on a very low-budget so instead of any real monsters or special effects we're treated to various bits of stock footage. This was obvious during the opening where the narrator is babbling on about stuff that has nothing to do with what we're seeing! From here the film continues to show its low-budget as we're told about the various dangers facing the people but we never actually see it. Instead we basically watch the actors sit around and talk about various bad things that could happen.

Again, there's nothing remotely special about this film but at the same time there's no question that the movie is mildly entertaining if you've just got 66-minutes to kill and want to watch something mindless and rather pointless. For the most part Carradine and Clarke are both fun to watch and the rest of the supporting players at least hit their marks (there's a compliment).

THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD features nothing scary or even good for that matter. It's a low-budget movie that probably played third or fourth at local drive-ins so go in with that in mind and you might have some mild entertainment.