I keep thinking of steampunk as an annoying genre that only appeared in the past couple of decades, and then I remember it is actually a very old style, going back to the works of Jules Verne.  Other authors also dabbled in it, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose silly At the Earth’s Core was developed into a film in 1976 by Amicus.  It would be the last feature released by the studio.

This takes place in Victorian London, which alone meets half of the requirements of steampunk right there.  Then there’s the ridiculous steam-powered drilling apparatus Peter Cushing and Troy…I mean, Doug McClure are debuting in a public demonstration.  It’s all brass, iron and wood, and doubtlessly the sight of it gives some steampunk fans some serious wood.

All our heroes need to do is bore through a hill to the other side.  Instead, they manage to go off wildly course, all the way to the deep in the Earth’s crust.  Despite the title, they don’t go the molten iron core, but to what is basically an extremely large cave where life has developed independently of that well above the surface.

The strange world they find is all garishly lit giant flora, like a planet from the original Star Trek.  Cushing exasperates, “This can’t be the other side of the hill!”  Are you sure you didn’t drill to Scotland?

The fauna is also weird, as it seems the dominant species is some sort of dinosaur that has arms legs and a tail, but is topped off with a bird’s head.  There are simply preposterous rubber suits, not in any way improving upon those of the original Godzilla more than two decades earlier. 

These things are the Mahar, which enslave humans that somehow developed to be like us, though we have no idea how they came to be here.  I should find it deeply ludicrous our distant cousins miles below the surface also speak English, but them existing at all is silly enough.

But one of those humans is played by Caroline Munro, so I’d say the trip was worth it.  She was a veteran of Hammer films and so is well suited for this kind of fare.  As expected, her costume here did not require much material, and I am amazed they must have Scotch tape down there in that primitive world, and in ample quantities.  I marveled about the same when seeing her in Corman’s Starcrash, and her infamous costume there, which implies that adhesive is still around in the far future.

There is a third species down there, small human-like beings with piggish faces.  They are the henchmen for the Mahar, capturing and corralling the humans.  These things have strange voices that are like sort of digitally scrambled audio, which I know wasn’t possible back then.  I think it intriguing I can’t figure out how this was done, and I like that.

The Mahar boss around their henchmen through telepathy.  They can also control humans that way.  In a scene where we discover they eat people, they force a woman to walk forward some and then back again.  Not sure why they wanted her to do a runway walk before whisking her away to become dinner, but I believe it is rude to play with your food.

Other than the pathetic Mahar costumes, the effects aren’t too bad.  I especially like the miniature of their drilling machine, The Iron Mole.  It must have been a rather large miniature, as it is remarkable detail and a great many moving parts.

Of the actors, Peter Cushing fares the best, though I suspect he thought they were still filming the non-canonical Doctor Who movies he appeared in a decade prior.  He gets a chance to really ham it up and it was nice to see him take full advantage of that opportunity.  One of my favorite lines of his is when he confronts the Mahar: “You cannot mesmerize me, I’m British!”  I also liked a moment where he encourages McClure in a fight to “Forget the Queensbury rules!”

Alas, the biggest problem this film has is the pacing is very odd.  There were some cues that inform an audience a movie is coming to a conclusion, but this one does that three or four times, which is wearying.

At the Earth’s Core is a mindless, though mildly entertaining film.  It will check off various boxes, depending upon your own tastes.  I’m sure even the bad monster costumes will be endearing to some.  There are definitely worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, and this picture is so perfectly suited for such viewing that I can’t imagine watching it at any other time.

Dir: Kevin Connor

Starring Doug McClure, Peter Cushing, Caroline Munro

Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray