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| ROBINSON
CRUSOE ON MARS |
| 1964:
From the director of War of the Worlds comes this decent
sci-fi, which benefits from on-location shooting in Death Valley.
The Robinson Crusoe story is updated to the space age, with
the great Adam West in a supporting role as an astronaut. The
story could have used a little more updating, though - Friday
is just a long-haired guy in a loincloth, rather than an interesting
alien (for budgetary reasons, I suppose - but really, at least
his costume could have been creative). The space angle
doesn't really add anything new; it's pretty much just window
dressing on the same old story, with next to no exposition about
the alien culture. And the spaceships, though good, look a bit
too much like the ones from War of the Worlds repainted.
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| ROBOT
MONSTER |
| 1953:
An all-time camp classic, with George "The Man"
Barrows as the Ro-Man, a gorilla wearing a space helmet, who
terrorizes the last human family left alive after a terrible
nuclear apocalypse. Giant lizards, in the form of stock footage
from One Million B.C., make an appearance, although what
exactly they have to do with anything - and why the family never
has to worry about the lizards coming by and crushing their
house - is never clear. The whole thing is hilariously haphazard
- one guy doesn't even wear a shirt to his own wedding! (Guess
he's just in a big hurry). The Ro-Man doesn't know how to deal
with his feelings for the Hu-Mans - particulalry a young woman
- so he grabs her and carries her off to his cave ... but in
the end, it's all just a dream. Or IS IT??? ...
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| THE
ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY
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1959:
Mexican movie about a
scientist who creates a killer robot which - yep, you guessed
it - goes head to head with an Aztec mummy. Pretty poorly plotted;
it stumbles along from event to
event more like a serial than a movie. The villain cackles with
inanely overdone ghoulish glee, and the robot's about as terrifying
as a pile of scrap metal (its face conists of a glass-front
helmet through which we can clearly see a man with his eyes
closed. I guess a reg'lar mask was too expensive, or something).
At one point, the heroes are about to be thrown into what's
supposed to be a pit full of snakes .. only it's got about three
snakes in it, and they're very docile-looking (I mean, I myself
would be afraid of just one snake, but seeing the snake-pit
looking so empty just made the whole thing seem very un-menacing.
And it's Mexico, fer gawrsh sake! How hard could it be to find
a couple more snakes?). The most horrifying thing about this
is that there are more Aztec mummy movies, alhtough I
haven't seen any of them (thankfully). Also, a suspiciously
Aztec mummy-like critter (meaning a pile of crummy-looking,
oat meal-like makeup with long, scraggly hair) showed up breifly
in Face of the Screaming Werewolf. Back |
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| RODAN
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| 1956:
From the people who brought you Godzilla comes Rodan
- The Flying Monster! Workers in a deep mineshaft are mysteriously
dissapearing, and eventually the culprit - a large bug-like
monster - escapes into the countryside. Later, after an explosive
accient, a lone man is trapped in a huge underground cave, where
he sees that the big bugs are just food for an even bigger creature...Rodan!
The scene in which the man looks up to see the the monster bugs
dwarfed by the huge, red Rodan is pretty effective, and great
for fans of this sort of thing. Eventually, two big bird-critters
escape, and their mighty wings cause teribble winds that destroy
much of Japan's infrastructure (which, given the frequency of
these movies, must be being rebuilt at an almost constant rate).
As is the norm for the Toho monster movies, Rodan is never shown
as as evil - he's just a big ol' force of nature. Pretty entertaining
- and mercifully SHORT, unlike the later, more padded
entries in this series - it's Rodan!
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Text
copyright 2000 by Conall Pendergast.
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