One of my all time favorites.

not horrible nor great

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This movie begins with a documentary detailing life in the deep depths of the ocean. It then switches to a ship owned by an oceanographer named Professor Millard Wyman (John Carradine) and four divers who plan on entering a diving bell which will take them "deeper than any man has ever attempted before." Unfortunately, as the diving bell descends the cable breaks which causes it to sink with all those aboard presumed dead. However, as it turns out the divers are not dead and upon regaining consciousness they manage to see a strange light shining from a distance through the porthole. Since the oxygen within the diving bell cannot sustain them for very long, the divers decide to don their gear and try to swim toward the strange light. As luck would have it they find an underwater cavern which has plenty of oxygen and fresh water. It also has its own kind of danger as well. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a typical low-budget, grade-B horror picture from an era in American filmography which specialized in that kind of thing. Although the plot had potential it wasn't developed well enough and suffered from a great lack of excitement. Sad to say, but it was all rather dull. That being the case I have rated this film accordingly. Below average.

One problem of this movie is that it has a great introduction. We see underwater creatures, are told how miraculous the world down there is - but afterwards, we see a couple of guys sitting in a cave most of the running time. They are explorers who got caught there, fortunately with plenty of air, after the cable of their diving bell broke. They can't do much but wait, meet another survivor who tells them there is no way out - not really encouraging - and wait for the scientist Wyman (John Carradine) who sent them on this dangerous expedition to start a rescue team. "The Incredible Petrified World" simply is a little adventure flick that isn't silly enough to be funny, but certainly didn't have the budget to achieve anything serious, either.

To be kind, I would give writer John Steiner and director Jerry Warren credit for playing this very "straight." Considering that it was made in the 1950's, this movie was tailor made for the use of undersea monsters and all sorts of creepy life forms. There really weren't any - aside from the man living in the underground caves, who wasn't a monster but was just an unfortunate soul who got trapped there 14 years earlier. So, whatever else you might say about this, it doesn't fall into the "hokey" category that so many B-grade (or worse) 50's films fall into. I can respect the effort to take the story seriously. It revolves around 4 people who, because of a diving bell accident, become trapped in dry caverns deep under the ocean with no apparent way of escape. But, having watched it, as much as I give credit to the effort to take this seriously, maybe a little bit of "hoke" would have helped!The end result was that nothing - absolutely nothing - especially interesting happened in this until the last 5 minutes or so. Otherwise, you get some dreary narration to open, some discussion of the diving bell experiment, a depiction of the accident, and then a lot of shots of people wandering through caves and periodically going back into the water. (YAWN!!!!) It really hardly seemed worth the effort. The only member of the cast who I recognized was John Carradine. Otherwise you had a cast made up either of unknowns who barely acted, or of those (like Robert Clarke or Phyllis Coates) who made acting careers out of guest shots on various TV shows but never really reached any heights. I honestly wouldn't recommend wasting your time with this. It gets a couple of points for the effort to take the story seriously, but in return it loses a lot of points for being just so plain dull! (3/10)

One of the few schlockmiester Jerry Warren films that doesn't seem to be a clip job made from other films with new inserts. (Give Warren a hand he was no were near as bad as Chinese filmmaker Godfrey Ho who never tried to even match the films he was cutting up). The film has a diving bell getting cut loose and ending up in a cave network where the survivors find oxygen and a previous survivor. It makes no real sense, then again few Jerry Warren films do, but in a twisted way it can be entertaining. the problem is that the film is painfully dull. As with most Warren films you have long static shots where people just talk. I guess Warren never wanted to pay for an editor. I challenge you to make it through the film with out either hitting the fast forward or falling asleep. I usually fall asleep which is why I keep the film handy for those nights I can't sleep. Recommended for insomniacs or bad movie lovers only (a combination of the two is probably best)