Mesa of Lost Women

Being a fan of B-Movies I am, of course, familiar with the phrase, 'So good it's bad.'.  There are, however, exceptions to every rule.  Movies that are so bad that you can feel your brain cells dying as the movie plays.  Mesa of Lost Women is one of those movies.

The movie begins with a evil mysterious unseen narrator telling us that humans are puny and insects are great.  While he endlessly drones on a man and woman walk through the desert.  And the narrator is still talking.  Shut up already!  Anyway, the man and woman are saved and wake up in a hospital... or at least what passes for one in Mexico.  I point this out because the movie feels the need to remind us we are in Mexico at every turn.  The male survivor babbles about Superman and super monsters.  He tries to tell his story but the narrator interrupts and talks to Pepe, who looks confused...and a bit scared.  

Now, the narrator has taken over and is telling the story...through a flashback of Pepe?  Or from some ominous god perspective?  I dunno.  A new couple arrive at the evil mesa lab of Dr. Aranya.  Aranya meets the guy and they talk...Science!  Why does Aranya have a jellybean stuck to his face?  He keeps going on about telepathy with spiders and mixing spider genes with women.  He intends to create a super spider woman that can control the world.  Random guy reacts as any sane person would and gets injected with something when he tries to escape.

 
At some point he escapes...I guess...and makes it back to civilization and ends up in an asylum.  He escapes from the asylum and goes to a bar for a drink.  Can't say I blame him.   Though I have to wonder if the security of his asylum is as lax as that of Arkham Asylum.  He does his best Smilin' Bob impression as a strange spider girl dances.  And dances.  Finally, Smilin' Bob has had enough, produces a gun and shoots the dancer.  He kidnaps a couple and his nurse from the asylum who came looking for him.  They get in an airplane with Kato and take off.  Kato keeps getting random closeups...I don't know why.  The plane crashes on the mesa and Kato makes a campfire.  They immediately break out the booze.  I approve. 

The nurse wanders around with his tiny penlight and runs into the spider womenz.  Our characters slowly search for him.  If this is supposed to be tension building it fails.  The constant Mexican guitar irritates me to no end.  Yes, we know you're in Mexico!  It's difficult to be scared or have any sense of tension if you have an upbeat soundtrack.  It would be like playing Happy Birthday during the shower scene in Psycho.  Kato is here only to spout random nonsensical phrases it seems and wanders off.  The pilot and womanz make kissy face and suddenly the film jumps to womanz freaking out.

They send Kato to find a comb...I couldn't even make this up if I tried.  So apparently Kato has been working for Dr. Aranya the whole time.  While not quite a Fight Club twist it certainly comes from out of nowhere.  The mind boggles. One of the passengers runs off and gets killed by a giant spider while the others are captured by...midgets and spider womenz.  Aranya cures Smilin' Bob of his madness...somehow.  Smilin' Bo threatens them with a smoking tube of...something and destroys the lab.  The flashback ends.  The pilot and womanz are ok now.  The Narriator returns and we see one of the spider womanz survived and have reached...

Ugh.  This movie is just awful.  It suffers from disjointed editing and from being boring and lifeless.  The flashback within a flashback is like something out of Inception.  Is it Pepe's?  Pepe who appears at the very beginning and end of the film and nowhere else.  The Pilot's?  The Pilot who wasn't even present till Smilin' Bob kidnaps everyone.  Worst of all...unending Mexican guitar soundtrack!  Smilin' Bob is amusing at times but not near enough.  Never mind that the ending is ripped from Bride of Frankenstein.  Though on one hand I feel I shouldn't be too harsh.  Mesa of Lost Women had a troubled production to say the least.  Production was shut down, then abandoned.  Then a few years later the film was purchased and new scenes were shot. 

If Dr. Aranya appears familiar that's because he played Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.  Other bits of trivia are the connections to Ed Wood.  Delores Fuller, who was Wood's girlfriend for a time, and Plan 9 From Outer Space star Mona McKinnon are in this film.  Also, the terribly infuriating Mexican soundtrack is used in Jail Bait.  Even if you love watching bad movies...watch at your own risk.

Fire and Ice

After a lengthy prologue of exposition that seems more at home in The Lord of The Rings our first sequence involves a mountain of ice approaching a village.  The ice mountain explodes and destroys much of the village, paving the way for barbarians to rush in and kill the survivors.  They begin to loot gold from the dead and enjoy the spoils of war.  One of the survivors plays dead and later battles the barbarians.  They chase him through a dense jungle and after he is backed onto a tree limb that overlooks a ravine...he jumps.  He falls for a long time but several vines break his fall and he survives.

Meanwhile, representatives of the evil ice guys arrive and give their demands to the fire people (hence the name of our film).  It is but a distraction as their comrades kidnap the princess.  She isn't captive long as she uses her 'attributes' to her advantage and escapes.  They continue to chase her but the story doesn't really progress for some time.  A giant lizard eats some bad guys.  Our blond haired blue eyed cliffjumper fights a pack of wolves.  Just a bit of the old ultra violence really.  Not complaining about the lack of story though, as the animation is beautiful. 

  
Cliffjumper and the princess meet up as she steals his supper but claims she is not a thief.  They begin to bond and flirt a bit.  He tries to kill a hentai tentacle monster for her and nearly dies in the process.  While he recovers the barbarians find the princess and recapture her.  Cliffjumper is saved by a guy who looks like Conan the Barbarian combined with the Black Panther. His name is Dark Wolf. 

The princess manages to escape yet again...just as Cliffjumper and Dark Wolf attempt to rescue her.  She isn't free long as she is captured by a giant caveman and taken to a lesbian sorceresses.  But...the lesbian sorceress and caveman are quickly killed by the barbarians.  Cliffjumper arrives and finds the rotting corpse of the sorceress.  He convinces her to tell him where the princess has been taken.  She is a captive of Nekron, no relation to the DC Comics character, and is to be his wife.  Nekron is like a combination of the Emperor from Return of The Jedi and Ming the Merciless.

Nekron laughs at the princess when she proposes peace and throws her in a pit of dead bodies.  When she wakes up she finds the dead body of her brother.  He attempted to rescue her but was forced to kill himself by Nekron's magic.  Cliffjumper finally confronts Nekron and the two engage in a duel, but is defeated and thrown in prison.  He quickly escapes, of course, and is chased through a blizzard by the barbarians.

Dark Wolf comes to his recuse.  They return to the ice fortress with a squad of pterodactyls.  Archers shoot down Dark Wolf's steed but he manages to fight his way to Nekron.  Cliffjumper and the princess reunite as Dark Wolf and Nekron face off.  Nekron fights with his magical force powers but in the end Dark Wolf manages to put an ax in his side and in his chest for good measure.  As he dies the ice fortress grows out of control and the king of the fire people unleashes a wave of lava that completely destroys the ice fortress.

Cliffjumper and the princess survive and as one last barbarian crawls to them Cliffjumper is ready to kill him.  The princess steps in and declares the conflict over.  The barbarian's life is spared.  The princess finally has the peace she desired at the beginning of the film.  The two embrace and you have...the end. 

This film was created to cash in on the success of Conan the Barbarian and The Beastmaster.  With a script by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway who wrote issues of Marvel's Conan series no less.  Other minds behind this film are Thomas Kinkade and Peter Chung, who would go on to be the brains behind Aeon Flux.  The hero of this film, Larn (who i have reffered to as Cliffjumper) is like a combination of Tarzan and Conan.  With his long pony tail he reminds me of He-Man from The New Adventures of He-Man.   

Say what you will about the plot...but the movie is simply beautiful.  The backgrounds are all fully painted and overall the film feels like a Frazetta painting come to life.  In fact there are several scenes that reverences his paintings.  If the characters seem more lifelike than normal that's because animation was rotoscoped over live action actors.  Overall, the film is unfocused.  Characters come and go, like the sorceresses or the brother to the princess.  They have little to no affect on the overall plot of the story, they simply exist.  The villains are evil simply because...they're evil.  No real motivations. One key aspect cut from the script was the fact that Dark Wolf was revealed to be Nekron's father, which would explain his motivation for killing him. 

Bottom line.  If you enjoyed Heavy Metal then you will like this film.  Any fan of Conan, Beastmaster or Tarzan should check it out.  Or, if you are a fan of Frazetta and have yet to see this I highly suggest you give it a look. Think of it as an animated version of Conan or an extremely violent episode of He-Man.  It's definitely not for kids though.  If you're still unsure if this film is something you'd enjoy then check out the trailer.

The Last Dinosaur

Richard Boone, most famous for his role on the classic tv series Have Gun, Will Travel,  stars as a big game hunter with an affliction that affects many millionaire playboy types.  He has no worlds left to conquer syndrome.  He hold a press conference and announces that his polar borer, which looks like the thing Shredder used in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, has vanished in the arctic.  The only survivor tells of finding a jungle world beneath the ice.  That's not all they found.  They found...dinosaurs!

Boone announces that an expedition will be launched to find this mysterious land.  The team will consist of Boone, the survivor from the first trip, a Japanese scientist, an African tracker and a journalist.  When Boone discovers the journalist is a womanz he tells her she has no place on his expedition.  Womenz belong in the kitchen, not hunting dinosaurs.  Later he changes his mind when she shows up in a black evening dress.  They make kissy face later.  Seeing an aged Richard Boone smooch a younger actress reminds me of Roger Moore's last few Bond movies.

Next day, they all enter the polar borer and being their journey.  After just a few minutes of drilling they emerge in a jungle, complete with pterodactyl's flying around.  As soon as they make land they spy a dinosaur that looks like Anguirus combined with a wild boar.  It sees them and charges.  Boone saves reporter womanz from getting trampled.

The next day they go looking for dinosaurs.  When Bunta the tracker climbs a tree he spies a T-Rex that attempts to eat him.  Boone shoots the T-Rex and it makes the Godzilla sound effect.  Boone's gun jams.  Bunta throws his spear which drives the T-Rex off...for some reason.  Really, it would be like pricking a rhino with a toothpick.  Back at camp the T-Rex shows up and crushes the Japanese scientist.  He then picks up the polar borer and tosses it in the jungle.  Lesson learned, don't piss off a T-Rex.

As the T-Rex is knocking the polar borer about it manages to uncover a Triceratops that was buried.  A landslide begins and the Triceratops wakes up, as though it were taking a nap.  Wait...do what now?  Never mind the fact that it shouldn't be able to breath or anything.  Anyway, being a T-Rex and a Triceratops they naturally fight to the death.  T-Rex wins.

Back at camp the others arrive and discover the mess.  Boone swears vengeance, even though at the start of the expedition he promised not to kill any dinosaurs.  Later the expedition is randomly attacked by cavemen.  I say randomly because it simply happens...no build up or explanation.  Apparently, it is now four months later.  After an argument the survivor and reporter womanz make kissy face while Boone watches.

Next morning the cavemen approach camp.  Without any guns Boone was forced to make his own crossbow.  Boone manages to kill with one shot and the rest flee in terror.  The group takes to the mountains and acquires a pet cavegirl.  As the girls wash their hair the T-Rex shows up and chases reporter womanz into a cave.  The guys show up and tie one end of a vine to a rock and the other end to the tail of the T-Rex.

The rock ends up rolling down hill, taking the T-Rex with it.  Boone again vows to kill it and has everyone begin construction of a catapult.  While out and about the survivor finds the polar borer but Boone is determined to kill the T-Rex before they leave.  Much later reporter womanz tries to convince Boone to leave.  They make kissy face but the T-Rex interrupts them.  Boone fires the catapult and...the rock bounces off its head.  It falls down but is only stunned.  When asked if it's dead Boone shouts, 'I DON'T KNOW!'  Which is one of the worst line readings I can recall.

Boone starts throwing grenades...wait, where did he get those?  Did he have those the whole time?  Together, Boone and reporter womanz hide in a ravine till morning.  Unable to talk Boone into going with them they launch the polar borer without him.  Boone watches them leave and walks away with the cavegirl  following closely.  The T-Rex roars and the credits roll.

This film was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, who produce the Ultraman tv series, and Rankin/Bass Productions.  Unlike many movies that involve dinosaurs this film uses guys in suits as opposed to stop motion or lizards with fins tapped on.  It's pretty obvious with the Triceratops and when the boulder launched from the catapult hits the T-Rex you can see the rubber head cave in as it bounces off.

This is a fun movie, though it feels like a lesser version of The Land That Time Forgot.  The Land That Time Forgot has a very similiar premise.  Survivors find a jungle land in the arctic and fight off both cavemen and dinosaurs.  Eventually they escape once their submarine is repaired. The Last Dinosaur was a tv movie that aired in 1977 and The Land That Time Forgot was released in 1975 so maybe there is some correlation. 

If you enjoy The Land That Time Forgot or any of the Toho monster movies then you will enjoy The Last Dinosaur.  This is a movie that feels like it was made for lazy Saturday afternoons.  It's goofy, campy and has some hammy acting...but simply put...it is a lot of fun.

The Giant Gila Monster Strikes Back!

 Many thanks to Derek for this.  Presenting a video version for my review of The Giant Gila Monster.

The Giant Gila Monster

Bluebeard

 
Our movie opens with a body floating downstream.  Soldiers fish it out and a notice is posted warning citizens that a 'Bluebeard' is murdering womenz.  A group of nervous ladies go out and meet...The Puppeteer!  No, not the DC Comics character.  And this isn't my own made up name for him either, its what they actually call him at first.

Anyway, he invites them to his puppet show.  We have some bad dubbing when the people behind the puppets are singing for their characters.  This sequence kinda goes on too long.  I feel like i should be watching Thunderbirds instead.  Our female lead...uh, whats her name, is moved by the show however.  The Puppeteer quickly gets her alone and awkwardly puts the moves on her.  When he gets home his female singer confronts him about his flirting and suddenly she realizes that he is, in fact, Bluebeard.

 

She screams and...dies?  The movie jumps to Bluebeard picking up her body and tossing her in the river.  The next day he identifies her body and throws suspicion off himself.  In a later scene Bluebeard trades his top hat in for...a cowboy hat?  Strange choice.  The top hat gave off a Jack The Ripper kinda feel.  Bluebeard invites whats her name over and acts manic depressive.  Flirty one moment and moody the next.

Later, we learn that Bluebeard has quit painting but his accomplice wants him to do more.  He has this habit of painting his victims and this is something that could lead the police back to him.  The problem is that someone bought a painting of a victim and has it on display at their art gallery.  Whats her name's sister comes to town and they meet the inspector working the case.  He informs them of his suspicions and of the painting.

Whats her name's sister devises a plan to get Bluebeard's accomplice to expose who painted the victims.  The plan begins and Bluebeard works behind a curtain while the sister poses for a portrait.  A large sum of money is involved, money that goes to the accomplice.  After she annoys him he emerges from the curtain and  strangles her.  He then becomes angry with his accomplice and strangles him as well.

As the police break in Bluebeard escapes into the sewers.  At the funeral for whats her name's sister she recognizes the murder weapon as a scarf that belongs to Bluebeard.  Later that night whats her name goes to Bluebeard's.  There is an eerie scene where he paces a dimly lit house with the shadows of his puppets hanging about.  Their shadows look like hanged men.  Whats her name questions Bluebeard and he tries to throw her off by saying he loves her.

The puppeteer gives us his origin.  He took care of a sick woman and fell in love with her.  He painted her and when she turned out to be something completely different that his ideal love he flew into a rage and strangled her.  Each woman he paints he kills, each one failing to live up to his ideals of a perfect woman.  After his story whats her name rejects him.  Bluebeard attempts to strangle her but the police rush in and chase him on the rooftops.  A brick gives way and Bluebeard falls into the same river he threw his victims into.

While i wouldn't say this is a bad movie it isn't great either.  Its slow but it has a nice build of suspense at the ending.  It has a great atmosphere and some nice imagery as well.  John Carradine, who we previously saw in The Incredible Petrified World, gives a subdued performance as Bluebeard.  Pulling off a romantic yet obviously psychotic character.  In fact, Carradine said that of all the roles he played this was his favorite.  If you have an hour to kill its a film worth checking out.

The Wasp Woman

Bees!  I hate Bees.  Anything that can sting really.  And oh god, its a Roger Corman movie.  If you've never seen one of his films before...well its an experience to say the least.  He makes his movies the way some people like their women...fast and cheap.  Anyway, our movie begins with forced bee relocation.  A man relocates some bees and we see him interact with his beekeeper friends.  So this scientist has been experimenting with royal jelly from queen wasps and has basically made a youth serum.  Bees make honey, wasps make jelly...who knew?

When Bee Man tells his boss about what he discovered he's fired for being crazy.  Well, to be fair Bee Man does seem to sit around and talk to his bees quite a bit.  We jump to the Big City and a thrilling board meeting.  More like bored meeting!  So fifteen minutes in and the best thing so far was the Bee Man talking to his bees...its not looking good for this movie.  Well, to be fair we were warned it was a Roger Corman film.

The Bee Man shows up after the bored meeting with a convienent solution to their problems.  Office Woman use to be the spokesman for womens cosmetics but had to retire from that because she was starting to show her age.  He displays what his serum can do by turning old gerbils into...young rats.  They work out some silly deal and he sets up shop to continue his experiments.

We get a weird montage of the bored meet inter-cut with Bee Man doing SCIENCE!  After some pointless chit chat by secretaries the Bee Man is ready to experiment on the Office Woman.  I dunno if its my insomnia or the bad audio...or both, but I can hardly understand what Bee Man is saying half the time.  Not satisfied with the progress of the youth serum Office Woman takes moar.  It works...or does it?

In the lab Bee Man struggles with...a deadly cat!  Later, acting like a zombie, he walks into traffic and is ran over.  The police begin a search...which drags on for far too long.  Bee Man is still alive and in a coma.  Office Woman keeps taking more shots, even thought its giving her headaches.  And we know she has headaches cause she keeps touching her head.  I know when I get a headache I walk around touching and rubbing my noggin. 

While office worker Snooty Pipe Smoker is snooping around he is attacked.  Office Woman has, finally, mutated into...The Wasp Woman.  She struggles with Snooty and bites his face off!  Well, near enough anyway.  At the very least he's now all covered in chocolate syrup.  Later, she is seemingly back to normal.  Bee Man gets better and they move him into the office.  Later, Teddy Roosevelt is attacked and killed by Wasp Woman...though sadly this happens off screen.

Two office workers make a leap in logic and conclude the missing staff are dead.  Office Woman turns into Wasp Woman and kills Bee Man's nurse, acting more like a vampire than a mutant wasp.  She then struggles with her annoying secretary and runs amok in the office building.  Bee Man hits Wasp Woman with a bottle of acid and she falls out a window.  Bee Man dies and we have...

If I had to sum up the movie with a single word it would be...AVOID!  While this isn't the worst movie ever its certainly no fun to watch.  View only if you are intoxicated or as a cure for insomnia.  As someone who struggles with insomnia, I can tell you it works!

If Bee Man or rather actor Michael Mark looks familiar it's because he has been in several Universal Frankenstein films.  He was Ewald Neumüller in Son of Frankenstein and he was also in several other B-Movies such as Attack of the Puppet People.

Finally, just for giggles and kicks, i leave you with this...

The Giant Gila Monster

 
Released in 1959 The Giant Gila Monster is just one in a long line of movies about giants that run amok.  The Gila Monster hates teenagers.  Well, to be fair who doesn't?  After some guy (the narrator?  a scientist?) tells us no one knows how big a gila monster can grow (um...scientist can) we see two teenagers sitting together in a car enjoying music.  Suddenly, the car is knocked off a cliff and the monster crushes it.  The movie continues at a diner where the local teenagers gather.  A quirky old man enters and asks for 'a snort of that there sodie pop.'.  Me thinks he hast been snorting something else.  Anyway, the father of one of the missing kids asks the Sheriff to look for his son.

The Sheriff talks to our main character, Chase, and we see the two are good buddies.  A bit later Chases' boss comes in with several cases of nitroglycerin.  Chase demonstrates why we all hate teenagers, by pointing out how much more he knows about nitroglycerin than his boss.  Though, i have to wonder which is worse;  a teenager with nitroglycerin or an old man. Chase and the Sheriff investigate a wreck later on and the Sheriff lets Chase steal a headlight from the wrecked car.  That's the spirit!

We see the Gila Monster lurking about and learn he also hates smokers, as he kills a man about to light up.  Chase later helps a drunk who crashed due to sped up footage.  Chase is a really 'swell' guy, to use an outdated phrase.  In fact, he's just a little too good to be true.  The Sheriff asks Chase for help in searching for the missing kids.  Does the police force of this small town just consist of the Sheriff?  Chase and his girlfriend, who apparently is French (though sounds spanish) begin searching.

While driving down the road Chases' boss suddenly yells and his truck flips over and explodes.  The Gila Monster has struck...apparently.  Later, Chase sings for his disabled little sister.  This goes on for far too long.  I signed up for a giant monster, not songs!  Don't give me songs!

The quirky old man, we see, is a drunk and plays chicken with a train.  The Gila Monster destroys a section of the track, causing a nice model train wreck.  Even though its just a model and a normal size lizard, as a kid i always though this was well done and the highlight of the movie.  Out of the blue the Sheriff starts going on about giants.  Apparently he talked to a Zoologist off screen. Still, this just comes outta nowhere.

 
Chase then goes to a barn party.  At some point, also off screen, Chase recorded a record demo and it is played at the party.  I'm telling you this guy is too perfect.  He works on cars, helps the Sheriff, has a French girlfriend, takes care of his sister and cuts records.  This man has too much time on his hands.  What, is he Batman or Wolverine?  Anyway, while Chase sings the Gila Monster approaches the barn.  It bursts through the barn wall, which thankfully cuts short Chases' song.  The Sheriff takes aim with a riffle but all it does is drive the monster off.

 
Chase decides he can do better than the Sheriff and takes off on his own.  He takes four canisters of nitroglycerin and drives off...through the rough and rocky terrain of...wherever the heck they are.  Chase jumps out of his hotrod, it stays on course hitting the Gila Monster and explodes.  The Sheriff tells Chase the railroad company will buy him a new car (why?).  Everyone smiles, watches the lizard burn and we have...The End.

This is another movie that is best viewed through the guidance of robots, as Mystery Science Theater 3000 covered this film.  The thing is, there isn't even a proper gila monster in this movie.  They used a Mexican Beaded Lizard.  Cause actual gila monsters are dangerous you know.  I've always been a fan of the giant rampaging monsters of the 50s and 60s.  Though this isn't one of the better ones, its good for a laugh.  Besides, where else are you gonna see a hotrod drive into a giant lizard and explode?