Beast of Hollow Mountain, The (1956) d. Nassour, Edward / Rodriguez, Ismael (Mexico/USA)
I’ve been a fan of dinosaurs and giant stop-motion beasties for as long as I can remember. Growing up in an age before Netflix, YouTube, VHS, or cable, the monster kid that was the young Doc was relegated to poring over the TV Guide every week to see what, if any, new thrills our local programmers had in mind for us, either via the 3:00 matinee movie or Friday and Saturday night’s helping of Creature Features. (Considering Mama AC didn’t let us watch hardly any television, it’s a bit perplexing as to why she kept purchasing the TV Guide in the first place, but I’m glad she did.) In order to be better informed as to which titles to be on the lookout for, I would haunt my public library and make extensive “to-see” lists from the various monster movie guides. As I whittled my way through the various big bug flicks, kaiju stompathons, and Ray Harryhausen showstoppers, one title that never seemed to wind up on the docket was the infamous “cowboys meets dinosaur” epic, The Beast of Hollow Mountain. Ultimately, about ten years ago, as I was completing my “Monster of Arts” degree, I broke down and bought a bootleg VHS version – something you’ll not have to resort to thanks to Scream Factory’s DVD/BR combo, released yesterday.
