At the Earth’s Core – 1976
Take the Most Terrifying Journey of Your Life !

Director
Kevin Connor

Writers
Edgar Rice Burroughs novel
Milton Subotsky

Producers
Harry N. Blum
John Dark
Max Rosenberg
Milton Subotsky

Cast
Peter Cushing – Dr. Abner Perry
Doug McClure – David Innes
Caroline Munro – Princess Dia
Cy Grant – Ra
Godfrey James – Ghak
Sean Lynch – Hoojah the Sly One
Bobby Parr – Sagoth Chief
Michael Crane – Jubal the Ugly One
Keith Barron – Dowsett, the reporter
Anthony Verner – Gadsby
Helen Gill – Maisie
Andee Cromarty – Woman Sacrifice
Robert Gillespie – Photographer

Review by Theo Robertson

At the Earth’s Core (1976)
Rubbish Fantasy Adventure,

Doug McClure has starred in a few of these British produced genre adventures and this one has got to be the worst of the lot . I know THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT has its critics but please at least that movie featured location filming and relatively good production values . That’s the problem with this movie – The production values go way beyond ” So bad they’re good ” affectionate territory and become ” so bad I think I’ll go and see what’s on the other channels ”

One case in point is the first scene featuring the intrepid Cushing and McClure encountering a monster . It’s painfully obvious the monster is an average sized man dressed up as a rubber monster being made to look over twenty foot tall via overblown back projection . It becomes even more painfully obvious that our heroes are trying to escape the monster by running on the spot . Have I mentioned that this is one of the more convincing set pieces ? No really this looks like it was filmed in somebody’s living room with the spare change left over from that year’s DOCTOR WHO budget . Even former DOCTOR WHO Peter Cushing is bland and what should have been an amusing line ” You can’t mesmerise me – I’m British ” is delivered in a very flat way ( A very similar line is spoken by Cushing in HORROR EXPRESS ) in a script devoid of characterisation , plotting and memorable dialogue . It’s not just the fact that the dialogue is unmemorable it’s also infrequent and rare since the monsters don’t speak . Wouldn’t it have been better having the chief bad guys humanoids like in WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS so that they could explain the plot . Does anyone here know what the plot actually is ?

A very tedious British seventies film that even the twin talents of Caroline Munro can not save . The whole mood of the movie is summed up by the final sequence featuring two keystone cops