Dragnet's Jack Webb makes his contribution to the cold-war
era with
this heavey-handed propaganda short about the ever growing threat of
communism upon the world's democracies. This thirty-minute,would-never-be
epic, takes a modified Twilight Zone-look at a middle-American town
mysteriously transformed into a communist state.
Our hero, a family man who possesses a stunningly gorgeous wife and two
beautiful children, wakes up one morning to find his world has
drastically changed around him. With the churches locked up, the children
off to military training facilities, and his betrothed a lifeless shell
of what she once was, our hero must fight a never-winning battle against
this new cosac-horde that threatens to annihilate the American way of
life. Good thing in the end it was all a dream..or WAS IT?!! Webb even
shadows the players off in the wings in a Serling-like hosting spot
through-out the feature.
It was this kind of ignorance that fed the fire of the Macarthy-era, with
most likely Webb in full support of the movement. Campy, humorous, but
also a low-down, dirty shame at the same time. Although it wouldn't be
able to fill an entire episode of MST3K, it would make a excellent
candidate for an opening short.
Frank Lund, w.bate@sk.sympatico.ca
CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965) Paramount Pictures
Dana Andrews plays a terminally ill scientist
bent on tapping the ultimate geothermal source in the earth's mantle. By
exploding a thermonuclear device deep within the earth, he unwittlinly starts a
crack the earth's crust, threatening to split the planet in two. Obviously, the
author had no knowledge of plate tectonics.
Teresa Tutt, tuttt@rpi.edu
A geologist tries to find the ultimate source of natural energy by tapping
into the earth's core. Unfortunately, his drilling causes a crack in the
earth's crust which eventually results in a chunk of the crust being blasted
into space and becoming a new moon. In addition to having loathsome special
effects, the scientific concepts used in this movie were apparently conceived
by a group of third-graders. (If I were to make a guess, I would say these
third-graders eventually went onto careers as staff writers for Star Trek:
Voyager.) One is left wishing that the footage for this film had been
blasted out into space instead- it is insulting to have to share the planet
with this movie.
Erica Drescher, ADresc9197@aol.com
THE CURIOUS FEMALE (196?)
Dippily insane piece of no-core porn (or would that be soft-pore corn?)
that has this sexually liberated future society watching movies about
the weird sex customs of the old world (i.e., us). With movies like
this, who needs acid? And yes, there's a title song.
Serdar, syegul@ix.netcom.com
CURLY SUE (1991) Warner Brothers
John Hughes bombs again. It's about two bums, one of them is a little
girl, who get to live in some rich lawyer's house. That's all I remember
of it (I'm trying to forget), except that it was so bad it made They
Saved Hitler's Brain look like John Waters' wonderful Pink
Flamingos.
Now that's a good movie, and it cost less than this Thanksgiving dinner.
Attmay, ansch002@acpub.duke.edu
THE CURSE (1987) Trans World Entertainment
An early work of Wil Wheaton's (Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG),
this is definitely a film best left alone. Supposedly based on an
H.P. Lovecraft story ("The Color Out of Space") even though no such
claims are made anywhere in the credits, this is anything but decent
horror. There are no scares, minimal special effects (except for
some rather cheap lumpy head makeup for some of the cast), and far
too many scenes involving maggots and slime. The plot, which starts
with a middle, ends with a beginning, and has no ending, involves
an object from space (or somewhere else, perhaps, it's never explained)
which lands on a farm, leaks goo, and makes people turn lumpy and fruit
turn rotten. Eventually, almost everyone is infected and the farmhouse
falls over, and the credits roll, and the audience grumbles and tries
to get on with life. Like so many movies, this film deserves a solid
MST bash, but it's just too disgusting to be successful. Oh well.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
CURSE II: THE BITE (1988) Trans World Entertainment
This sequel to The Curse, in the tradition of Prom
Night II and various
other horror sequels, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the
original. In this film, a young couple traveling in the desert have
some unpleasant problems. First of all, the girl is an annoying singer
who has romantic dreams about dinosaurs. A lesser problem is the fact
that the guy gets bitten by a snake, which causes his arm to turn into
a snake. When first bitten, the victim is treated by a businessman
from Brooklyn who gives him the wrong antivenom, then tries to get his
trucker buddies to find Mr. Snake-arm in order to prevent legal action.
This would be a perfect film for MST3K if it weren't for the fact that
many of Screaming Mad George's (!) special effects are quite gory and
disgusting (which is not to say they're at all convincing, just gross).
Probably the ultimate highlight of the film is Mr. Snake-arm's attempt
to chop off his hand which, unfortunately for him, doesn't want to be
cut off. This is probably the first horror rendition of the famous
"fighting with myself" comedy gag. If you can stomach the gruesome
ending (in which Mr. Snake-arm begins sort of falling apart), this is
a pretty good movie to make fun of.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
CUTTHROAT ISLAND (1995) Live Entertainment/MGM
It is a very rare thing to find a movie that announces that it is a
stinker from Frame One--fortunately for the sanity of moviegoers.
Cutthroat Island trumpets its awfulness from the very first line of
dialogue. Things go downhill from there.
Geena Davis looks considerably more macho than her pathetic leading man.
There is a lot of innuendo and stuff that was intended to be funny. None
of it is.
And it just goes on and on, explosion after explosion after
explosion. Sort of like having your head hit with a piledriver for 2
hours.
Nancy Beiman, peachdog@mindspring.com