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6
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
I
first became aware of Robot Monster
in the pages of the Medved Brothers' Golden Turkey Award
books published in the 1970s. Although time has shown the authors
to be a little loony, it's hard to fault their fingering of
this until-then pretty obscure flick as one of the worst of
all time. The film's reputation was only enhanced by being ripped
apart on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television
show but even that group of pranksters barely scratched the
surface. Happily this gloriously silly mess has become a true
legend in bad film history second in reputation only to Plan
9 from Outer Space. Proving that bad filmmakers often think
along the same lines, Robot Monster
is also a tale of incompetent alien invasion that comes to naught.
It tells the apocalyptic tale of a handful of human survivors
of said alien invasion attempting to... uuuhh. Well,
they really don't attempt much —
except to whine, repair a radio, get married and then die stupidly.
Jeez! Even at 62 minutes this is a long movie!
It
begins in Bronson Canyon, in the sunny hills of California,
where a family is having an afternoon picnic. Young Johnny (Gregory
Moffit), irritated by his little sister's constant requests
to play house, wanders off to play 'kill the aliens' and meets
The Professor (John Mylong) and Roy (The
Human Duplicators' George Nader), two archeologists piddling
around in a nearby cave. The men are amused by Johnny's childish
antics but Roy is much more impressed by his older sister Alice
(Claudia Barrett). The siblings' mother (Selena Royale) gathers
her children away from the busy scientists and enforces a baffling
afternoon nap on them. But Johnny fakes being comfortably asleep
on the rough, rocky ground and runs back to the cave. Once there
he falls down, bumping his head... and when he revives, everything
is changed. Cue Twilight Zone style music and cheap negative
image effects.
When Johnny comes
to he sees in the cave's mouth two sets of odd machinery. Sensing
something is wrong, he hides just as a horrible monstrosity
lumbers out of the depths of the cavern. Well, perhaps "horrible
monstrosity" is stretching it a bit. What comes out is
Ro-Man (George Barrows) an alien creature that has wiped out
all of Earth's human population except for eight people. As
a wielder of such frightful cosmic power you would expect a
hideous thing, possibly tentacled with terrible eyes or a cruel
inhuman mouth. But you'd be hoping for a movie with a budget.
Ro-Man is a big guy in a poorly-fitting gorilla suit capped
by a diving helmet. The diving helmet does have some antenna
attached and the glass faceplate seems to have the vague outline
of a small head behind it, but it's really about as terrifying
as the old man down the street who's always screaming to stay
out of his yard.
Johnny runs back to
the bombed-out house in which the other characters are hiding.
Now, with nary an eye blink or explanation The Professor is
the boy's father, married to his mom, and he and his two sisters
are almost all that is left of humanity. The evil Ro-Man has
destroyed everyone else and leveled the mighty cities of Earth,
even going so far as to deploy stock footage — uh, I mean giant
lizards with fins glued to their backs — uh, I mean dinosaurs
to help scour the planet. If you think this makes no sense,
you ain't seen nothing yet!
Through some of the
most ham-handed acting this side of grade school we learn of
our world's sad fate and watch as the family is joined by brave
Roy. He brings word of an attempt by the other two surviving
humans to take a rocket to the orbiting "space platform"
where a remnant of humanity still lives. But as they try to
contact the platform Ro-Man intercepts their signal and blasts
the rocket out of the sky and the space station to bits. Deep
in despair, the group responds by contemplating suicide but
instead Roy and Alice have a quick roll in the grass and decide
to get married. By this time Ro-Man has seen Alice on his viewscreen
and finds that there may be one Hu-Man that he doesn't wish
to destroy. He attacks the honeymooning couple, carrying off
the fiercely kicking girl to his cave base. But it is not to
be. Ro-Man's leader, The Great Guidance (who looks a lot like
Ro-Man with a slightly different helmet), is angered by this
turn of events and unleashes his low budget fury. So as the
earth shakes and cast members die, all looks bleak in Bronson
Canyon. Until Johnny wakes up from his concussion-induced nightmare,
of course. So the happy family and the two scientists walk off
together, content that they are not the only people alive and
that the film is only 62 minutes long.
The measure of a good
bad movie is how much fun you can have watching it. Robot
Monster can be safely called one of the funniest accidental
comedies of the 1950s. Inept on so many levels, it is simply
amazing that a finished film got made with so little money and
talent. Everything is either poorly thought out, badly shot,
dumbly written or just plain silly. Ro-Man's advanced machinery
includes a pair of TV rabbit ear antennas and spits out a constant
stream of bubbles. Why? Who knows! It's alien stuff! Ro-Man
destroys two billion people in a matter of weeks but six people
about a mile from his base elude him for days. How? Who knows!
Ro-Man twice confronts Johnny and calmly asks him what he's
doing out here. What? Why doesn't he just zap the kid?
Of course none of
this stuff matters. The movie is nonsensical in a way that you
have to see to believe. The creators obviously thought that
since it all turns out to be a boy's nightmare the silly things
wouldn't matter. In a way they were right, in that without all
the juvenile touches the movie would be even worse! In the proper
frame of mind it's a feast for fans of Le Bad Cinema
but I suggest the use of your favorite intoxicant for maximum
enjoyment. It certainly ain't good but it can be fun! For me
the sight of a man in a gorilla suit and diving helmet — fiddling
with a bubble machine — is timeless entertainment.
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| I
can highly recommend Image's DVD release of Robot
Monster.
Part of the Wade Williams Collection, the disc features
a very good print of the film giving the production a very sharp
presentation. This film has usually looked pretty good on video
but this is much better than my old tape; this copy even retains
the Intermission card at about the 30 minute mark. Although the
movie was supposedly shot in 3-D it is presented here flat —
or, as the
DVD cover would have it, in "Intriguing 2-D". I'm unaware
if there has ever been a release of RM
in 3-D but I have to admit I'd shell out money for a copy. The
disc sports no extras other than the movie's trailer and the trailers
for five other DVDs under the Wade Williams imprimatur. Available
very cheaply from most retailers, this is a must-own for fans
of unintentionally funny movies. Invite over some friends and
make a night of it. 7/13/07 |
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