“I’m not praying to any man, let alone a child who isn’t old enough to wipe his own bottom!”

Anyone looking for a repeat of the successful Hammer and Dennis Wheatley partnership on show during 1968's classy Devil Rides Out in the barking mad Lost Continent is going to leave the place sadly disappointed - however, if what you're after is a dry run for the Amicus 70 s dino-fests The Land That Time Forgot etc, then you're in for a high old time…

The Lost Continent is a mishmash of boat-set soap opera-cum-disaster movie (a la The Poseidon Adventure), science fiction lost civilisation rubbish, and killer seaweed-on-the-loose nonsense that defies belief. Whether it's a bona fide horror film is a debatable point - but a quick look at the posters for the thing reveal that back in the late 60s, what would these days be seen as a laughably poor kiddie's film actually qualified for an X certificate.

The Lost Continent almost qualifies as a "lost" Hammer film - not as famous as their bikini cavewomen output, not lumped in with the horror, not shown at 4pm on a winters' Saturday like their "comedy" films.

It's a slice of 60s kitsch which fails to interest anyone, as it falls so resolutely between every genre Hammer made a success of that no-one's bothered about it.

The whole thing's told in flashback, as the captain of a tramp steamer (Eric Porter, sans Hands Of The Ripper beard) wonders "How did we get here?" as he conducts a funeral on-board with a bunch of "modern" people (wearing fisherman's jumpers) and what looks suspiciously like the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition team.

We join the back story as the ship evades customs. Why? Well, get this for a reason - the hold is packed full of comedy explosive which will go off if it gets wet. None of the passengers are that bothered about the customs evasion, however, as they all have little secrets they'd rather the authorities didn't find out about. After some high-jinks with the anchor, the hull gets holed and the explosives start getting wet. The crew mutiny, but don't get very far (Porter shoots one and the unfortunate chap ends up getting caught up in a winch and dies, messily). It's then announced that there's a hurricane a-comin', so everyone pitches in to help move the explosives somewhere less damp.

The hurricane hits, and the crew end up adrift in a lifeboat in shark-infested seas, still squabbling. After losing one person to the sharks, another gets offed by the flesh-eating seaweed they've drifted into (not a huge amount of luck going on here), and if that wasn't enough, on finding the ship again (bit of an odd storyline, this - it hardly seemed worth them abandoning it in the first place) they then get attacked by a killer octopus, which drags a Phil Lynott look-alike to his doom (he takes ages to die, which is reasonably amusing - "Aagh! Ugh! Aagh! Ugh!"). The ship is fouled up in the seaweed, which drags it off to a ships' graveyard, where they're approached by a girl with tennis racquets on her feet and two balloons strapped to her shoulders (Dana Gillespie).

"Save yourselves!" she shouts. "They've come to kill you!"

She's talking about the men following her. Yes, as if there wasn't enough plot in this mental film to fill at least two others, now we find out that:

a. This place they've ended up in is home to a bunch of pirates and conquistadors, who have been there for hundreds of years, worship a young prince called El Supremo, and get around on top of the seaweed aided by their balloons / racquets contraptions. It's a sad fact that whilst making my notes I actually wrote "I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition";

And:

b. After the sharks, the seaweed and the octopus, the crew now have to cope with enormous man-eating crabs too (although they're not exactly the most terrifying creations ever committed to celluloid).

As crackpot films go, The Lost Continent ranks as one of the crackpottiest. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is entirely a matter of taste.

Tony Beckley is there too, giving a great performance as a drunk who swears off the booze after accidentally feeding Suzanna Leigh's father to the sharks.

"The rum is strictly for emergencies!" shouts an angry Porter after discovering that Beckley's made a beeline for the supply on the lifeboat. "And what makes you think that my hangover isn't an emergency?" comes the louche reply.