I'm not even sure how to begin looking this one up since there is only one thing I recall about it, so if it's been covered already, I'll use the excuse that something is sucking out my brain.
My mother raised me right. She and I used to watch the ‘50s-‘60s-‘70s era classics together. She got me started early, and I recall the ones that scared the night-lights out of me… THE BLOB making its first appearance out of the meteor… the way its victims just completely disappeared… the word "absorbed" has always (and always will) have a much more traumatizing association for me than, say – paper towels. Another one: the hands with the alcohol needles and the drunk cow of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN. Or the general's brain being revealed in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS. You get the idea.
With all of those great (clear!) memories, there is one I just can't seem to pull out of my somewhat cluttered brain.
It was at the end of the movie, which I'm fairly certain was in B&W, and showed a claw, presumably from some regenerating creature (that's important), floating down to the sea bed, and then slowly beginning to "crawl" around. There was no mistaking that it was meant that "it ain't over yet."
I thought it might be the end of the original GODZILLA. Nope. It wasn't skeletal. THE GIANT CLAW? HA! Definitely not. REPTILICUS? Hmmm… if that's it, it doesn't appear on my VHS (what?) copy, and besides, that was in color.
Anyone who can direct me to the correct movie might just save the sanity of two movie fans. If not… well, I'm pretty sure we've all seen what happened in PSYCHO.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Kinderpal Senski solves it again with REPTILICUS!
That's pretty definitively the ending for Reptilicus, and it's on the DVD release from MGM's Midnight Movies series (now out of print). There have been some alternate edits of the film, including one with the monster flying, and even a musical number, so it may be that you have a slightly different version. But Reptilicus is a much-beloved movie among members of my tribe, so I'm guessing that's it.
Gotta be Reppy, color or no. The claw in the final shot is toes-down and very distinctly (yet slightly) crawling…an oddly subtle touch in an otherwise outrageously silly film. (The "Giant Claw," on the other hand, is still, toes-up, and sinking into the water.)
Add some "geddon dot org" to your "cinema" and you can find both the Americanized version AND the uncut Dansk version (albeit without subs), with Reppy's flying scenes (HA HA HA HA HA) and the idiot handyman singing a funny song about Reppy eating up little girls while chasing a flock of same around a park (…hm).
Also some other Sid Pink movies there.
Ah, nothin' like a cheese Danish.
You folks ROCK!
My copy of Reptilicus ends with a picture of water.
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Thank you very much for the information. At least I now know I'm not a nut case. At least no more than usual.