At the Earth's Core
Dir: Kevin Connor
1976
**
There are certain scenes in Kevin Connor's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic novel that are reminiscent of the pre-raphaelite and impressionist paintings of the Victorian era - the era the film is set, and they are quite wonderful. However, this is where the film reaches its peak and it is pretty dire everywhere else. The set, props and effects are fairly awful, especially by 1976's standards. Doug McClure lacks panache and character and Peter Cushing's performance is embarrassingly over the top. The garish colours and clumsy editing is the sort of thing you think of when discussing 1950's B-Movies and even then, they were never as bad as this. Maybe that was the idea. Did Kevin Connor home in on the 'So good it's bad' idea before the term was coined? I suspect it is meant to be somewhat retrospective of old B-Movies, The Land That Time Forgot had been successful the year before and it was a genre that was popular again. At the Earth's Core was a hit and was financially successful, I think it is one of the weaker films of its ilk released around that time but I guess people had gone without telepathic Pterodactyls for far too long.