text: Man, what a scam this turned out to be! Not because it wasn't any good (as I wasn't really expecting anything from it) but because I was misled by the DVD sleeve which ignorantly paraded its "stars" as being Stuart Whitman, Stella Stevens and Tony Bill. Sure enough, their names did not appear in the film's opening credits, much less themselves in the rest of it!! As it turned out, the only movie which connects those three actors together is the equally obscure LAS VEGAS LADY (1975)  but what that one has to do with THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER is anybody's guess <br /><br />Even so, since I paid $1.50 for its rental and I was in a monster-movie mood anyhow, I elected to watch the movie regardless and, yup, it stunk! Apart from the fact that it had a no-name cast and an anonymous crew, an unmistakably amateurish air was visible from miles away and the most I could do with it is laugh at the JAWS-like pretensions and, intentionally so, at the resistible antics of two moronic layabouts-cum-boat owners who frequently squabble among themselves with the bemused local sheriff looking on. The creature itself  a plesiosaur i.e. half-dinosaur/half-fish  is imperfectly realized (naturally) but, as had been the case with THE GIANT CLAW (1957) which I've also just seen, this didn't seem to bother the film-makers none as they flaunt it as much as they can, especially during the movie's second half!