Godmonster of Indian Flats

We continue our discussion on Something Weird Video...

I've drafted a list of 69 films that might begin to illustrate their aesthetics and refined taste, and the movie being discussed today, The God Monster of Indian Flats, from director Frederick Hobbs, is number 64 on the list.

Released briefly in 1973, Something Weird found themselves in possession of a 35mm print, initially dropping it on VHS in 1996 as part of the Frank Henenlotter's Sexy Shocker series.

Here's what Frank had to say on the back of the box.

The 1970s also saw a rise in killer animal movies, made in the long shadow of Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds, and exploding in 1975 with the success of Jaws.

The structures of these stories were often modeled on the 1950s atomic monster movies, where a John Agar type would wrangle the town to help defeat the threat, but not before a couple of necking teens got eaten.

Hobbes took the idea for the God Monster of Indian Flats from a local legend of a beast that was known to haunt the abandoned mines of Virginia City, Nevada.

He made the logical guess if drunken miners had seen something they thought was a monster, then it might be a stray sheep from one of the many sheep pastures in the area.