The Milpitas Monster (1976)

As King Kung Fu was to Wichita, The Milpitas Monster is to the city of Milpitas, California (once a rural hub, now essentially a Silicon Valley suburb): a micro-budget, locally-made monster movie that acts as both an affectionate parody and time capsule, which is probably why it seems to still get played in theatres there on a yearly basis. It’s also a production that sometimes makes King Kung Fu look lavish by comparison—not surprising given that this was a project initiated by students and a photography teacher at Samuel Ayer High School (leading to the “Samuel Golden Ayer Productions” gag at the beginning of the movie), although the fact that it received some kind of national distribution is maybe a bit more surprising (it was even blessed with one of those VHS-only title changes, sometimes being called “The Mutant Beast.”) Needless to say, one does not watch a movie like The Milpitas Monster expecting a professionally-made object, but an odd piece of local colour—employing almost every civil servant and local business in the city if the credits are anything to go by—that is anchored by a fantasy plot based on local waste management issues. In eco-horror terms, it’s a broad issue placed in a very specific context.

Equinox (1970)

I always appreciate a movie whose trailer yells its title at me multiple times

Equinox is a home movie made by some dudes who would become major figures in the special effects sector that was later distributed as an actual movie—that sounds reductive, but it also means that this is part of the history of movie effects, which is definitely something notable. Mostly directed by Dennis Muren (later: Star Wars, Jurassic Park) with stop motion animation by David Allen (later: Q – The Winged Serpent) and Jim Danforth (later: a whole bunch of stuff, although I’m mostly familiar with his work on Jack the Giant Killer from 1962) with a budget of $6,500 (in mid-sixties dollars, mind you), this exists mainly as a showcase for creature effects in the Ray Harryhausen mould—would you be at all surprised that they had the direct support of Famous Monsters of Filmland’s Forrest J. Ackerman? This is pretty much the exact kind of movie you’d expect a Famous Monsters reader to make.