A Blog About Trog: Joannie Loves Caveman

This is a movie about cavemen and the women who don't mind them. It's directed by a guy with the Marvel Comics-esque name of Freddie Francis and was made in 1970.

It stars Joan Crawford, her last flick. I love seeing legit stars in monster movies. It's a crossover from the world of Regular People to my world. The world of...The Dementia Squad.

Three guys find a cave. Inside this cave they find a caveman. He is surprised by their visit and shortly three guys become two guys, one of whom is permanently freaked out by the experience. The one still holding on to his sanity and groovy coif escorts anthropologist Joan back to the cave. She snaps a pic, a cop goes ick, and then it gets sick.

Cavey-baby has a half-hearted, unenthusiastic rampage, probably realizing he'll need his energy for the bigger climactic rampage later in the picture. The kid's got a sense of theater! A hypo gun comes into play and the beastie is captured. Joan's convinced now that the missing link is no longer missing. Joan puts him in a cage, feeds him rolly-polly fishheads, names him Trog short for Troglodyte, then forces him to play with dolls. Due to Joan's legit background, she doubtless doesn't realize that if you teach a monster to play with a doll, it will guarantee later he'll want to kidnap real little girls. That's one reason people should watch as many monster movies as possible, you learn stuff like that.

We've got science repped by Joan and her assistants, we've got authority repped by the coppers and later the army, so what's left? Religion, natch, here personified by Michael Gough who has something against Trog, probably, for the purposes of the film, that Trog isn't mentioned in the Bible. Gough prefers Gog and Magog to Trog.

This forms the simple but effective mythical triad of the modern moral debate that is featured in many sci fi and horror movies - science, state, church. As is typical of films of the period, religion comes off the most nutty and hysterical, science the most compassionate and even- minded, and authority the most pigheaded and pragmatic. These days, in films, science and liberal politics are all mixed up like pasta primavera, and the perceived relevance of religion to the debate is implied by the filmmaker often not including it; except sometimes as comic relief, since religion is politically a relatively safe foil. Christians might get mad at you, but very seldom do they engage assassins. Which makes me wonder what was supposed to be so daring about Religulous.

But enough about that, make with the freakin' rampage! Once Gough whips Trog into a frenzy and leaves his cage open, it's off to the races! Trog gives heed to the HH creed, and goes ape! (It ain't a long trip, obviously.) A reasonable amount of mayhem ensues, including a gory scene in a butcher shop. That scene climaxes with a grisly putting-a-person-on-a-meathook scene that precedes Texas Chainsaw Massacre by a few years, if you're the sort of person who keeps score on what precedes what, which seems to be a fixation of many internet trivia hounds. "Oh my begleebers, Chainsaw is a 'COMPLETE RIPOFF' of Trog! I must warn the rest of the world before they foolishly declare Texas Chainsaw Massacre a groundbreaking horror movie with absolutely no similarity to any film that preceded it! Because only a movie with absolutely no similarity to any movie that preceded it can possibly be thought of as original and creative!"

But here's another barn-burner: Before the movie Trog, there was a band called The Troggs who made groovy music like this song.


And here's a tune from 1972, Jimmy Castor Bunch's "Troglodyte", another of the many songs celebrating the Hepcat Hermit lifestyle but acknowledging that sometimes it's "cherchez la femme" time. Picture the Hepcat Hermit at home, listening to his stereo.