CINEHUNCH / YOUR NEXT CHAPTER

A FRESH ALLOWANCE AT MIDNIGHT · ISTANBUL TIME

Back to the finderTHE FILM / 1959
The Giant Gila Monster posterA FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOK

THE FEATURE PRESENTATION

MOVIE1959 1h 14m USA

IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU

Movies like
The Giant Gila Monster

HorrorScience Fiction
IMDbView on IMDb
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME

Keep the feeling.

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CURATING YOUR NEXT FRAME

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01 / THE STORY

A little about the film.

The movie opens with a young couple, Pat Wheeler (Grady Vaughn) and Liz Humphries (Yolanda Salas), parked in a bleak, rural locale overlooking a ravine. A giant Gila monster attacks the car, sending it into the ravine and killing the couple. Later, some friends of the couple decide to assist the local sheriff (Fred Graham (actor)) in his search for the missing teens. Chase Winstead (Sullivan), a young mechanic and hot rod racer, locates the crashed car in the ravine and finds evidence of the giant lizard. However, it is only when the hungry reptile attacks a train (a model train set substituted as a low-budget effect) that the authorities realize they are dealing with a (roughly) 70-foot long venomous lizard. By this time, emboldened by its attacks and hungry for prey, the creature attacks the town. It heads for the local dance hall, where the town's teenagers are gathered for a sock hop. However, Chase packs his prized hot rod with nitroglycerin and rigs it to speed straight into the Gila monster, terminating the lizard in a fiery explosion and heroically saving the town.

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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME

The people who bring it to life.

Don Sullivan

Don Sullivan

Chase Winstead

Fred Graham

Sheriff Jeff

Lisa Simone

Lisa

Shug Fisher

Shug Fisher

Old Man Harris

Bob Thompson

Mr. Wheeler