Sting of Death

Sting of Death (1966)

Runtime: 80 minutes

Directed by: William Grefe

Starring: Joe Morrison, Valerie Hawkins, John Vella, Jack Nagle, Deanna Lund

From: Essen Productions Inc.

Last night I decided to view something decidedly unpretentious; this lead me to something I've had on disc for many years: this B-movie, on DVD via Something Weird Video. It was filmed in the southern half of Florida and has a Jellyfish Man. The most infamous aspect is the appearance of the creature but I'll get to that in a bit.

College girl Karen brings some of her gal pals to her dad's private island. He is a marine biologist who has two assistants, one of them mildly deformed and named EGON-no, not Harold Ramis. He apparently is supposed to have a visage like Rocky Dennis with how other characters treat him... the makeup used does not reflect this. Trouble happens when some other college kids show up for a shindig and treat him like dirt. This is when Jellyfish Man really ramps things up.

Note that this costume is: a dirty black SCUBA suit w/ flippers, colored ropes, and what look to be Mardi Gras beads. It is not until the end that the full outfit is revealed, and it is not to the movie's benefit when it is shown that the head is... a giant opaque garbage bag! Striking terror into the hearts of all, it does not. However, it will provide plenty of guffaws. This is an incredibly goofy movie with bad acting and a plot with several illogical moments. Yet my low rating does not reflect the amount of campy charm this has. It is at least an easy watch and it is apparent that director William Grefe does try. Sure, the scene with a school of jellyfish is obviously portrayed by multicolored plastic bags yet the idea of what he was trying to go for in the scene was sound.


The true highlight is that somehow, NEIL SEDAKA provides two songs for the soundtrack. He must have been like many acts in that their careers went down the commode for awhile after The Beatles became a phenomenon. In the early 1960's he had several Top 10 hits on the charts and more often than that you can hear those on the oldies/60's stations. He went from that to working with a random low-budget filmmaker in Florida and creating the earworm of a ditty known as Do the Jellyfish. With its inane lyrics, it is no Breaking Up is Hard to Do. That said, forever seared into my brain is the “dancing” that accompanies Do the Jellyfish; White People Dancing is the best descriptor! Imagine your parents or grandparents back in '66 gesticulating around w/ no rhythm...