No doubt about it - Trog is a bad, bad film. yet, I think it is better than most give it credit for and wholly entertaining for its camp. The story is inane: some troglodyte had been frozen in nearby caves somewhere in England for centuries, found by exploring men, kills the exploring men, and then is taken alive to go to the Brockton Scientific Research Center run by a high-coiffed Joan Crawdford. Crawford plays the scientist out to get a name for herself, her institute, and for added measure, science itself. But she is not the cold, dispassionate stereotype of a scientist. No, here she plays ball outside with what she affectionately calls Trog. She plays games with him. Gives him toys. Beams when he learns a new trick and mothers him in general. The trog, while in no way could I argue it was good make-up - what little there really is - is better than it could be. And at the very least, the trog costume/make-up is able to convey feeling and emotion to some degree. The rest of the story is preposterous as some local decides to let trog out - for reasons I never fully found convincing - so trog could go out and do his obligatory rampage through a small English village. Don't look for much in this movie. Freddie Francis, the old Hammer stalwart himself, directed this muddle and it is sub-par for a man with his talent that directed The Creeping Flesh and so many other great horror films of the 70s. From a directorial perspective, Trog is a major disappointment. But, if it is high camp you want and entertaining camp - I was never bored - then Trog might just be to your taste. What can be all bad about seeing a sixty-plus Joan Crawford don neon lab coats, throw rubber fish and lizards into a cage, throw a ball to a man in a troglodyte costume,or tote a hypo gun acting with all the seriousness of a Robert Stack. Those scenes were well-worth the pain one might incur during the "talky" scenes so many seem to have mentioned. I found the film to be surprisingly short at 93 minutes. The last two "major" films Crawford made were for legendary B producer Herman Cohen - Berserk! and Trog. Yes, they were dramatic departures for a legend such as Crawford, but they were acting jobs that still were mainstream cinema to some extent. And I am sure no one - including Crawford most of all, would have thought these two films would be her last(least if you will). Michael Gough is also in the picture in what I can only term as a completely throw-away role meant to make a plot that shouldn't move - move.
