A rural Texas sheriff (Fred Graham) is mystified when a teen couple disappears without a trace. We, of course, know they got ate up by a great big lizard who caught them out necking with all their clothes on. Soon the sucker’s flinging cars and trucks off the highway whenever it gets hungry. To distract us from all this fun is a crooning mechanic (Don Sullivan) who zips around town in his hot rod when he isn’t making eyes at his French mademoiselle, or taking care of his polio-stricken kid sister. He teams with the sheriff in a county-wide search for his missing friends, but only discovers their wrecked car. It’s about then that the sheriff springs his giant gila monster theory on the kid who acts like there’s nothing at all extraordinary about such a thing. In fact, our hero decides it’s an excellent time to go dancing. CineSchlockers will savor the riotous forced-perspective special effects with an entirely average-sized lizard toppling model kits.
Notables: No breasts. Four corpses. Dancing. Exploding tanker truck. Gratuitous soda jerk. Hot rodding. Drunken disc jockey. Lionel train wreck.
Quotables: The town drunk offers these words of advice to young people, "Buying a car, son, is just like getting married or going to New York City. Everybody ought to do it once, but nobody ought to do it twice." And later tells the sheriff, "I demand a sober-tee test."
Time codes: First clear look at the beast (11:29). Our hero caterwauls, er, sings (24:45). There he goes again (40:00). And again (1:04:35).