Don't listen to the negative reviews

A Masterpiece!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

With a longtime feud going on between commander Scott Brady and crew member Mike Road, it's going to be a tough journey for scientific experiments going on at the bottom of the beautiful briny sea and research doctors Gary Merrill and Sheree North. An alleged space craft that looks like the size of one of the hubcaps in "Plan Nine From Outer Space" flies over their sea station here, and while at first assuming that it belongs to the Russians, the crew soon finds out otherwise when they take what looks like a large couch pillow back into their sea station that somehow amongst earthly oxygen starts to get bigger. Soon, it explodes open, and a giant creature appears to terrorize them, making Road regret bringing it back on board. His feud with Brady has to explode to a head as well, as Road blames Brady for the death of crew members on a submarine they were both on years before, but the truth is much deeper than that as Road must come to terms with. It takes teamwork to deal with a monster like this, and as Merrill demands, Brady and Road must put aside their differences in order to fight this creature that seems indestructible.For once, the monster isn't silly looking, even though it's obviously made out of rubber. In fact, it's actually pretty scary looking, and the color photography helps bring out the details used in creating it. Only the special effects of the alleged Russian spacecraft with the ability to travel through deep ocean waters cheapens the look of this late in the game sci-fi monster movie that utilizes a few well established human conflict to create some tension and add a story that is both believable and touching. There is a scene towards the beginning with Brady and North that is definitely showing sexual harassment at work, and Wende Wagner, as the expedition photographer, must put up with some of that as well. But these women show that they are able to stand up for themselves against even the most vile of harassment circumstances, so they command respect here rather than demand it, and the men actually come out of this expedition learning something, not only about how to deal with monsters from outer space, but how to deal with women in a close space and how to get past conflict with co-workers where truth is not always what it appears to be.

I rate this movie to be like..."The creature from the black lagoon" meets a bad episode of "Sea Hunt", meets "Mars needs women". But....you have to remember the 60's didn't have computer graphics special effects. And you must remember this was a low budget movie. It is ok to watch for a laugh if you watch it in the spirit of the times in which it was made. I like this movie particularly because I have acquired and own the twelve foot long, red, torpedo shaped, twin open cockpits, wet submarine that was used in this movie. It's neat to own a piece of the original equipment from this movie.

Warning! Contains Spoilers! Destination Inner Space is almost so bad it's good. Almost. The special effects are simply laughable. It is set in an underwater lab the exterior shots of which clearly show it to be a miniture. The crew of this underwater lab encounter a alien spaceship (also an obvious miniture)and the hijinks ensue. Although it has a fairly decent cast the acting is incredibly wooden. What continually cracked me up was that the two female crewman (a marine biologist and a photographer)who were supposed to be in an deepsea lab ran around in brightly-colored turtlenecks, miniskirts, beehive hairdos, dangling earrings and long gold necklaces! The B-52s go nautical! And although it is supposedly set in the deep sea the lighting in the underwater scenes make me doubt that it was filmed in anything deeper than a swimming pool.

I cry more often now that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 quit making new episodes, and rarely harder than this evening after viewing "Destination Inner Space." This film features a yellow (sometimes orange, depending on aquarium clarity) crucifix-shaped Sealab ("Aquasphere") reached via a yellow-painted soup can on a string and filled with abrasive oxygen-depleting humans being stalked by the Wisconsin state record bluegill. I would applaud the many silent hours of scuba diving, but Scott Brady looks exquisitely uncomfortable in his extremely snug wetsuit; also the lovely silence is often disturbed by loud outbreaks of soundtrack. I like actress Sheree North and was sorry that her character was pressured into falling for the pickup line "Shove that under your microscope and study it." This movie hurts quite a bit, yet amuses in that painful MST3K style, so I recommend it highly to cheese admirers who can drown it out with their own commentary. Grab a puppet and wipe those tears away!