Until last night I had thought the the holder of the above title was “Plan Nine From Outer Space” made by the redoubtable Ed Wood, I was mistaken. My son and I watched a fright night movie and I wondered why my son was smirking ever so slightly as he loaded the DVD in to the machine.
I must say that the cast was quite illustrious, Nigel Stock, Eric Porter,both serious actors and also starring were a large number of actors of repute,none of this prepared me for the horrors to come as “The Lost Continent” began it,s inexorable descent from the sublime to the ludicrous!
It seemed that the ships Captain,played by Eric Porter was down on his luck and had decided to carry one last cargo, an illegal one which would enable him to retire a wealthy man. This cargo was a highly inflammable substance Phosphor B. He had neglected to inform his crew of the nature of the cargo although how the hell they could miss finding out is a complete mystery as the legend Phosphor B was emblazoned on the side of each container.
On board were a number of passengers, a motley group of ne’er-do-wells who had for various reasons been obliged to leave town on a hurry. These included the faded and discarded mistress of a head of state, a lecherous doctor and his nymphomaniac daughter, the obligatory drunk and a number of other shady characters, altogether and unpleasant bunch.
The barman, played by Jimmy Handley God help him, sampled his own wares rather more than was good for the plot and seemed bemused by the whole affair.
The first forty minutes of this nightmare constituted the most dreary yawn feste I have ever had the misfortune to encounter but things soon livened up when “Hurricane Wendy” arrived. The benighted crew for reasons best known to themselves decided to drop anchor and in doing so holed the ship which commenced letting in water faster than the “Titanic”. It was at this point that one of the crew noticed the cargo which was now soaking wet.
There followed a scene of complete panic as the Captain informed them that the cargo would if exposed to water blow then all into the next world, Oh how I wished that one of those bloody barrel had a hole in it but my luck was out. Having run around like headless chickens the crew decided to abandon ship which they proceeded to do without informing the passengers and it was during the following debacable that one of the crew was shot and another managed to hang himself from on of the davits!
By now the sozzled passengers had realised that something was afoot and with the captain and the engineers manned the other life boat and let the ship to its fate. These life boats were rather like the small rowing boats one finds on the Serpentine and how they managed to survive the attentions of Windy Wendy I cannot tell but after much tossing about ,heaving to and bailing out with buckets calm was restored.
For no apparent reason a fight broke out and the pervy Doctor was pushed overboard, the man who had hit him jumped in to rescue the old lecher and would have been successful had not an enormous shark turned up and bit the old pervert in half, This was followed by much screaming and fainting. Then the crew suddenly realised that they were trapped in what appeared to be man eating sea weed and to prove it a minor and presumably expendable member of the cast was dragged over the side and devoured rather messily.
By some miracle the ship so recently abandoned had remained afloat and the the crew now reunited with the passengers and their captain climbed back on board and discovered a drunken Jimmy Handley reeling about the deck. Now you my as I did ask why the ship did not sink and I am sorry to say that like me you will remain forever in the dark as to the nature of this miracle as no further mention was made of the hole for the remainder of the film.
It was now apparent from the number of rotting and abandoned vessels that they had, God knowth how ended up in the Sargasso Sea. How they managed this I cannot tell as they had the previous evening left a port on the west coast of Africa and even a bloody hurricane would not have been able to blow them so far.
Now it gets really silly for in the distance strange figures can be seen walking over the man eating seaweed with tennis racquets attached to their shoes and balloons above their heads. These newcomers turned out to be a group of Spaniards who's ancestors have been blown off course after the Armada! They were keeping company with a party of Vikings who had a similar pedigree, and some very dodgy looking women. Just when I thought things could get no worse some thing no one ever expects happened....the Spanish Inquisition turned up complete with Pointed head gear and a crowd of hooded monks on of who played continuously on a squeaky organ of massive proportions.
Obviously there had to be interaction between these disparate groups and a number of the crew and passengers including Eric Porter were captured by the Inquisitors but not before the Nymphomaniac had worked her way through the male population of the vessel and had witnessed the horrible death of a would be suitor when he was devoured by the most unbelievable octopus I have ever seen. I assume that the shock affected her badly as for the rest of the film she never spoke another word.
Noticing a small rocky out crop Eric Ported decided to land and search for fresh water and fruit? What he actually found was a huge man eating hermit crab and a massive scorpion made of Lego,which attacked the still paralytic Jimmy Handley,they were saved by the arrival of the Spaniards and a few of the Viking raiders.
The nasty Spaniards had a boy King whom they called El Diablo and I have to tell you that he was not half as diabolical as the rest of the movie. The Inquisitors decided to execute the heretics and they had a novel way of doing this. One of the Vikings lifted what appeared to be a lavatory seat to reveal a ghastly monster with lots of gnashing teeth at the bottom of the pan and in to this, just to show that their intentions were serious they threw on of their own people?
Just when all seemed lost the remainder of the crew found a use for the Phosphor B and using a catapult....don't ask.... they rained down barrels of the stuff on to the Spanish Galleon and that was that. They sailed of into the sunset in there now miraculously mended ship without so much as an explanation for the hour and ten minutes total rubbish.
I pointed out to my son that at my age cannot afford to waste hours of my life watching such trash but I must say that this morning my sides were aching from the amount of laughing I did . He tells me that he knows of a much worse film that he wants to share with me, I would rather walk naked through the fires of hell.
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