**SPOILERS** With a strong earthquake erupting under the Salton Sea in Southern California it opened up a hole where there were some prehistoric giant sleeping Mollusks. The Mollusks not only came back to life but started killing and eating a number of people and cattle in and around the sea. They then start laying eggs to bring and replenish their extinct species back to the point that they'll overflow the inland Salton Sea and work their way into all the waterways and oceans of the earth. Eating everything, man animal fish plant insect, on the planet into extinction.
The US Navy having a top secret base on the southern tip of the Salton Sea and experimenting with atomic energy has a lot of explaining to do to the American people in the fact that the Mollusks are now a danger to the nation, as well as the very earth itself. The Navy had been fooling around with nuclear fission in and around the sea that caused, together with the earthquake, the mollusks to grow to such enormous sizes and breed like a bunch of sex starved rabbits.
After losing a number of Navy men and some civilians along the sea the Navy goes out on a hunting trip to find these killer Mollusks. It soon confronts a number of them ending up capturing an unhatched egg of the creatures. With the commander of the naval base John "Twill" Twillinger, Tim Holt, in charge together with the head scientist Dr. Jess Rogers, Hans Conried, they place the egg in a temperature controlled tank at 38 degrees to keep the egg from hatching. The up-tight and by-the-books commander Twillinger get very friendly with one of the young women at the base secretary Gail MacKenzie, Andrey Dalton. Thats after finding here cute but somewhat bratty little daughter Sandy, Mimi Gibson, lost lady bug which leads to Twillinger finding an opening to Gail's heart. It turns that Gale lost her husband in a tragic naval accident two years ago. Twillinger takes Gale out to dinner where he spends more time looking at her then eating his meal.
Meanwhile the deadly and giant Mollusks begin to fan out of the Salton Sea and move into a nearby canal. Killing and eating everything in their path including, in the most jarring scene in the film, an old and cranky canal lock operator, Ralph Moody. Who thought the story about these "Monsters from the deep", that the Salton Sea Naval Station warned him about, was all a joke until he himself got swallowed by one of them.
The Navy tracks down where the Mollusks are and where their laying their eggs and with Twillinger and Dr. Tad Johns, Max Showpher, donning naval scuba outfits they both go underwater and plant explosives in the Mollusks breeding grounds; thus blasting them and their eggs to pieces.
What Twillinger and the Navy forgot was that back at the naval stations laboratory there was still an unhatched giant Mollusk egg and little Sandy, being there with her mom Gail, decided to heat up the place by raising the temperature level of the water. That caused the Mollusk to hatch and go on a wild rampage.
Exciting and nail-biting final with Commander Twillinger, or "Twill" to his friends, coming to the rescue of Gail and Sandy who both locked themselves up in a side room to escape the crazed earthworm-like mutation. Twillinger single-handedly holds off the mad and surging Mollusk with a fire extinguisher and then steam hose until the troops finally arrive blasting the slimy thing right back into the stone age.
The US Navy having a top secret base on the southern tip of the Salton Sea and experimenting with atomic energy has a lot of explaining to do to the American people in the fact that the Mollusks are now a danger to the nation, as well as the very earth itself. The Navy had been fooling around with nuclear fission in and around the sea that caused, together with the earthquake, the mollusks to grow to such enormous sizes and breed like a bunch of sex starved rabbits.
After losing a number of Navy men and some civilians along the sea the Navy goes out on a hunting trip to find these killer Mollusks. It soon confronts a number of them ending up capturing an unhatched egg of the creatures. With the commander of the naval base John "Twill" Twillinger, Tim Holt, in charge together with the head scientist Dr. Jess Rogers, Hans Conried, they place the egg in a temperature controlled tank at 38 degrees to keep the egg from hatching. The up-tight and by-the-books commander Twillinger get very friendly with one of the young women at the base secretary Gail MacKenzie, Andrey Dalton. Thats after finding here cute but somewhat bratty little daughter Sandy, Mimi Gibson, lost lady bug which leads to Twillinger finding an opening to Gail's heart. It turns that Gale lost her husband in a tragic naval accident two years ago. Twillinger takes Gale out to dinner where he spends more time looking at her then eating his meal.
Meanwhile the deadly and giant Mollusks begin to fan out of the Salton Sea and move into a nearby canal. Killing and eating everything in their path including, in the most jarring scene in the film, an old and cranky canal lock operator, Ralph Moody. Who thought the story about these "Monsters from the deep", that the Salton Sea Naval Station warned him about, was all a joke until he himself got swallowed by one of them.
The Navy tracks down where the Mollusks are and where their laying their eggs and with Twillinger and Dr. Tad Johns, Max Showpher, donning naval scuba outfits they both go underwater and plant explosives in the Mollusks breeding grounds; thus blasting them and their eggs to pieces.
What Twillinger and the Navy forgot was that back at the naval stations laboratory there was still an unhatched giant Mollusk egg and little Sandy, being there with her mom Gail, decided to heat up the place by raising the temperature level of the water. That caused the Mollusk to hatch and go on a wild rampage.
Exciting and nail-biting final with Commander Twillinger, or "Twill" to his friends, coming to the rescue of Gail and Sandy who both locked themselves up in a side room to escape the crazed earthworm-like mutation. Twillinger single-handedly holds off the mad and surging Mollusk with a fire extinguisher and then steam hose until the troops finally arrive blasting the slimy thing right back into the stone age.