You know the coelacanth, the prehistoric fish believed to have been extinct for 66 million years? It turned out that fishermen on the east coast of Africa caught them all the time.
A specimen arrives frozen at a university. The frat-boy (Troy Donahue) bringing it there warns that it's starting to thaw. His German shepherd starts lapping up the water from the melting fish and turns vicious. His teeth appear longer like one of his prehistoric ancestors. Later, a dragonfly comes in an open window, lands on the fish and turns into a giant prehistoric dragonfly. And the professor (Arthur Franz) cuts his hand on the fish's teeth and----well, you can guess what starts happening. Like an early, less pretentious version of Altered States. They find the prof lying unconscious near the body of a co-ed hanging from a tree by her hair.
It was the opposite of Food of the Gods where people want to destroy the giant animals and pretend they never existed. In this, the professor is shocked by the giant dragonfly but wants to capture it for science.
With Joanna Moore the same year she appeared as Marcia Lennekar in A Touch of Evil.
Well-made but not scary or especially gruesome. From Universal Pictures.
Directed by Jack Arnold who directed Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. He also directed 26 episodes of Gilligan's Island and 15 episodes of The Brady Bunch. A surprising career arc.
Free on Tubi.
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