Eegah (1962)

One night while driving home, hapless Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) almost runs down a giant caveman who has survived in a cave in the Californian desert with his mummified relatives for millennia.

She screeches to a halt and faints at the sight of the colossal Eegah (Richard Kiel) dressed in furs and a clearly glued-on beard and swinging a plastic club.

Roxy tells her musician boyfriend Tommy Nelson (Arch Hall Jr) all about the giant she saw. Meanwhile, Eegah kidnaps Roxy’s fantasy book writer Dad (Arch Hall Sr) and takes him to his cave (which is clearly made of canvas and filled with badly-carved mannequins supposed to be his long-dead kin).

Tommy and Roxy go into the hills in his home-made dune buggy to find and save Mr Miller. But the horny caveman has other plans for racy Roxy and proceeds to terrorise the couple and the rest of Palm Springs.

The movie was filmed for just $15,000 in 14 days at Bronson Canyon, a cave complex in the hills above Hollywood.

Arch Hall Sr had the idea for the film when he met 7’2″ Richard Kiel who was working as a bouncer at a cowboy bar at the time.

Kiel would go on to fame as ‘Jaws’ from the James Bond movie franchise.

Hall devised, wrote and directed the film specifically as a vehicle for his son, Arch Hall Jr.

Unfortunately, the boy is pudgy and rather unfortunate looking, can’t act, can’t sing, and can’t do action.

Eegah is silly, goofy, stupid and cheap. The dialogue is horrible and poorly dubbed, very little happens, the characters are all annoying, production values are rock bottom and the acting is really really bad.

No wonder it was voted one of the Worst Movies of All Time.

Tommy Nelson
Arch Hall Jr
Roxy Miller
Marilyn Manning
Eegah
Richard Kiel
Dr Miller
Arch Hall Sr (as William Watters)
George
Bob Davis
George’s Wife
Addalyn Pollitt
Detective
Ron Shane
Kruger
William Lloyd
Mr Fishman
Ray Steckler
Band Members
Clay Stearns
Deke Lussier

Director
Arch Hall Sr (as Nicholas Merriwether)

Video