Salt for your tail, Daddy-O

Remember that gushing praise I heaped on cheesy rubber monsters in my post about last week’s movie? Well, I may need to un-gush, a little.



This week’s movie was The Giant Claw (duhn-duhn-DA). The flying monster - or Big Bad Bird - attacks anything that moves, including planes, trains, and automobiles. Just standing still doesn’t help, because when it gets bored, BBB attacks tall buildings.

Models and man-in-suit can work perfectly well for visual effects. Look at Clash of the Titans - no, not Liam releasing the kraken. The first version. Look at Gojira. Not Matthew Broderick. The first version.

Sometimes, though, even when we are laughing at something obviously bad, it can get too cringe-worthy to stand. Stir in a walking sexual harassment lawsuit as a hero and military officers who I would never trust with a government plane, and is it over yet?

Aside from the goofy BBB, one scene stuck in my mind. Our heroes were on their way back from destroying one of the BBB’s eggs when they encounter a foursome of rowdy teenagers racing along in their car, fast and with lights.



Not only did the kids shout disparaging things at Our Hero (Get that tin can off the road, Daddy-O!), but they flouted the danger of the BBB!

Hey, man, who’s afraid of the Big Bad Bird!

Don’t worry about us. We’ve got salt for its tail.

According to the VAST CLOUD MIND KNOWN AS THE INTERNET, there’s an old folk belief that if you put salt on a bird’s tail, it can’t get away.

Naturally, BBB is having none of this. It swoops down to grab the rowdy teens, killing two of them, injuring the others.

At the end of the scene, our heroine kneels down to check a pulse - and finds a salt shaker!