review for Godmonster of Indian Flats on AllMovie

As movie metaphors go, you aren't likely to find one as obtuse, or for that matter, as downright insane as Godmonster of Indian Flats. Part small-town political thriller, part environmental plea, part head movie, and part monster flick, experimental artist and filmmaker Fredric Hobbs' rarely seen final feature is a disjointed mess that misses most of its targets due to the impenetrability of its plotting. At its core, the film concerns the discovery of a mutant sheep embryo in a former Nevada mining town. When exposed to phosphorus gas, the mewling fetus grows into a huge monster and runs amuck. The town's unscrupulous mayor (Russ Meyer regular Stuart Lancaster) calls for the creature's capture, hoping to feature it as a tourist attraction for his newly revitalized town, which is undergoing an upswing thanks to some shady deals he's brokered with a major mining corporation. This secondary story line offers a few nuggets of dramatic interest, especially in the conflict between Lancaster and a black corporate representative (Christopher Brooks). But like so much of the film, these scenes quickly devolve into surreal weirdness, with the rep threatened with lynching by a masked vigilante group. Too earnest to succeed as camp, and too off-kilter to work as an independent feature, Godmonster of Indian Flats is, like its title beast, a visually memorable but ultimately ungainly animal. Image Entertainment and Something Weird Video's letterboxed DVD presentation is paired with some equally unusual supplemental features, starting with the 1964 oddity Passion in the Sun (aka The Girl and the Geek), which pits a blowsy stripper against an escaped carnival freak. An abbreviated, R-rated edit of the adults only sex-with-Bigfoot movie The Geek is also included, as are two '50s-era training films on pest control. A wealth of exploitation pressbook reproductions and vintage radio spots round out these enjoyable nature-gone-nuts extras.