Caltiki, the Immortal Monster

Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959)

Caltiki il mostro immortale

Slimy Glob of Doom Engulfs The World!

Academic researchers are chased by a nuclear-hot specimen of ancient Mayan blob.

Date of release
1959-08-07
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (55)
Runtime
1h 16m
Genres
Horror, Science Fiction, Adventure
Director
Riccardo Freda

Casting

Interesting facts

Caltiki – The Immortal Monster is a 1959 science-fiction horror film starring John Merivale, Didi Sullivan, Gérard Herter, Daniele Vargas, and Daniela Rocca. It is credited to director Riccardo Freda, though large portions of the film were ghost-directed by cinematographer Mario Bava.

Production

After the release of I Vampiri, director Riccardo Freda took on another new genre, the science fiction film, with his next genre film Caltiki - The Immortal Monster. Very few sound films in Italy were science fiction films at this point, with Sergio Corbucci's comedy film Baracca e burattini made in 1954 and Steno's Totò nella luna and The Day the Sky Exploded from 1958.

Reasoning that Italian audiences might be more receptive to a genre film if it appeared to be made by American or British creators, Freda took the pseudonym 'Robert Hampton', a name he would use several more times on his horror films. Likewise, several of the other cast members used anglicized aliases ('Arthur Dominick' for Arturo Dominici, 'Black Bernard' for Nerio Bernardi, etc.). Prints of the U.S.

Freda was angered by the way producers and other filmmakers had his cinematographer Mario Bava work on previous films, specifically films of Pietro Francisci. Freda concocted a way to push Bava into the director's chair of Freda's next film, Caltiki – The Immortal Monster; he left the project early.

Specific information on how much Freda and Bava directed the film differ between interviews and recollections. Freda noted with an interview with Luigi Cozzi in 1971 that he "left it when there were just two days of shooting left. I did shoot it yes, but it's Bava's type of film. I don't enclose it in my body of work.

Massimo De Rita, who worked as a unit manager for Galatea, spent time on the set of Caltiki and opined that "at 90 percent Bava was also the director of Caltiki. Freda was away, he didn't know anything about what Bava was contriving." De Rita noted that Bava told actors what to do and that Bava shot all the connecting shots with the monster and all the death scenes. Ministerial papers also note the Bava and Freda's roles in the film.

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