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Synopsis: The airways are being terrorized by some unseen force that is destroying airplanes. The military is called in and discover that the world is under attack by a giant turkey monster whose erratic flight patterns are surely the result of the wires used to suspend the monster in the air. Can civilization be saved from certain doom? Are you kidding?

I won't claim that The Giant Claw is the nadir of the fifties-style monster movie (not when there are contenders like The Beginning of the End, Dinosaurus, and the latecoming Night of the Lepus), but it is certainly in the running. I mean, A GIANT TURKEY MONSTER?(*) Come ONNNNN!! It ALMOST seems as if the filmmakers are providing the audience with a metaphor for their own movie. This can't have looked good even during the fifties, an era replete with lame special effects. Everything is played so straight that one can't help but wonder how the actors involved kept from laughing. On the other hands, I doubt they actually SAW the monster until the film premiered.

Fortunately, the audience can't help but laugh at this movie. When the head of the monster comes up behind parachuting pilots, laughs begin to come fast and furious. It's difficult for me to concoct a serious in-depth review of this movie because it is just SO ridiculous. My recommendation is that everyone should see The Giant Claw once (twice would be too much and thrice borders on masochism)--it DOES have a certain naive charm in the way sincere bad movies are sometimes charming. Alcoholic beverages and hallucinogenic controlled substances are optional. Watch it drunk. Watch it sober. It makes no difference. Either way, it's surreal.
 
 

(*) Turkey monsters did not have their Swan Song, so to speak, in The Giant Claw. See also Blood Freak.