The Lost Continent (1968)

Written by John Chard on December 7, 2015

Then we'll go on trying, and the day we stop trying we stop living!

It is one of the major oddities out of Hammer Films, a nutty slice of fantasy adventure sci-fi, resplendent with rubbery effects work, an incoherent screenplay, auto-cue hammy acting and obligatory humongous cleavage!

Plot, for what it is worth, finds a potentially explosive cargo ship and passengers, piloted by an uber serious Eric Portman, become victim of a mutiny and then find themselves lost in the Sargasso Sea. But wait! There is an island offering salvation, only it's a bit of a time warp populated by despotic Spanish conquistadors. Oh and the landscape is filled with man-eating beasties, including rampaging seaweed.

Based on Dennis Wheatley's novel Uncharted Seas, it's a film where adults have to double check to see if they have had some bad liquor, while the kids delight in the garish colours and rubber monsters. It's all very surreal, and daft, and not quite a masterpiece of "Z" grade cinema, but it is fun, even if for those of us who like a drink, we will never ever be drunk enough to embrace its madness fully. 7/10