The Lost Continent

This wasn’t the first time that London-based Hammer Films dipped into Dennis Wheatley’s literary worlds for inspiration (“The Devil Rides Out”, 1968; “To the Devil a Daughter”, 1976).

This time, however, the result is an overall disappointment. In fact, “The Lost Continent” is a bizarre film, imbued with a certain experimental ambition, but left suffering from its noticeably disjointed narrative style: In the early part of the film, reminiscent of “Matango” (1963), director Michael Carreras focuses on the immoral characters aboard the “Corita” (along with blackmail, lechery, and graft, we’re presented with a cross-section of pettiness and cynicism worthy of Dante’s circles of Hell).

After that comes a slipshod mess that doesn’t know where it wants to go – we get a little bit of everything, from breath-taking marvels à la Jules Verne, to unspeakable monstrosities reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft, to a pseudo-historic “Lost World” civilization like the ones H. Rider Haggard was so fond of.

The cast phones it in, the direction is adequate – tension is generated with a certain skill, and a decent dose of violence is thrown into the mix -, the art direction is even compelling at times; but in the end, way too many balls in the air plus its abrupt ending make the whole thing tough to swallow.

The rubbery special effects look dated.