Mesa of Lost Women

This is one of the zeniths of bad films. We often hear about movies that are so bad they will make you laugh. This film is just one of those films. It's awful! A doctor has hidden himself away in the interior of Mexico on some huge mesa...way up in the sky that can only be reached by plane. His name is Dr. Aranya(that's spider in Spanish). Jackie Coogan, later to be rolly poly Uncle Fester, plays Dr. Aranya. Coogan looks and acts like a madman with his huge black mole and his incessant barking of orders. His performance is achingly bad. But soon he is supported by a horde of very bad performers. It seems that Dr. Aranya makes spiders into humans. The serum he uses only works well on girls and many of his female tarantulas turn into scantily clad females with big bosoms while the male spiders turn into hunchbacked, ugly midgets. Hmmm. Anyway, Aranya has a quarrel with a fellow doctor who has been hypnotized somehow, placed in a mental institution, and later found in a bar where he takes a group of five people with him in a plane that suspiciously lands on the mesa of the lost women. The actors start to die and we see midgets(one of which is famed Angelo Rossitto!) and more scantily clad women(one of which is Delores Fuller no less!) jump in and out of the light of the fire or a flashlight. The acting is just sooo bad and will have you laughing in no time. Harmon Steven plays Dr. Masterson, the fella who is hypnotized. He has an expression on his face that looks so corny and his dialogue made me wince with glee. The film ends as it begins with the two survivors telling the tale of how they escaped. The plot is like a bad serial from the forties. Easily the most annoying aspect of the film is the musical score of a guitar that plays almost throughout the whole film. It is repetitive and loud. I actually had trouble hearing what the characters were saying because that music would not stop. It had my hairs(what few I have left)on edge! The film even has a narration by Lyle Talbot of Ed Wood fame in the beginning. This is one of the most fun bad films I have ever seen. The acting, the direction, the script had me rolling with laughter. I don't know if anyone else caught it, but the name of the mental hospital was Muerto Hospital...Death Hospital. One major plus performance-wise is the sight of Tandra Quinn. She is breathtaking as she does her spider dance and exudes sex appeal. If you want to watch a real, real bad movie that will make you laugh...watch Mesa of the Lost Women. For my money it tops even Plan Nine From Outer Space as a truly inept in every fiber of its being film.

I saw this movie TWICE within the same week. Yes I did, believe it or not, but I do not ordinarily subject myself to such pure torture, but the main reason was (other than sharing my find with a close friend) - I wanted to count the number of times that the exact same chord sequence and jangling flamenco guitar riff repeated (plus, I kept expecting a villain to appear from behind the bat-wing doors of an old western tavern). I confess that I gave up and threw my notebook at the screen after only about ten minutes in. Yet I continued to watch it again, slowly tugging at my hair, whilst my friend stared at the screen with his mouth open during the amazingly weird voice-overs that may have found a place in a commercial for men's cheap cologne...

Okay, it isn't a movie solely about an infinite flamenco guitar motif as it also has someone banging a key or two on the piano here and there at inopportune moments throughout... I confess that I still heard parts of the soundtrack in my head about three days after I last saw this, so be careful if you value your sanity.

Anyway, it's about a mad doctor who seemingly doesn't even know the difference between spiders and insects, which is no surprise, really. His experiments, other that making giant mutant spiders that are shy and need to hide behind a folding dressing screen, is producing beautiful strong women, and very short ugly men. Why the women turn out beautiful instead of more spider-like (unlike what is implied) is anyone's guess.

I would guess that the dance of Tarantella is supposed to be somewhat erotic and I guess it is, in a way, and probably the only thing worth watching other than laughing yourself sick at Masterson's gleeful stare whilst pretending to be quite mad. (I assume he was just pretending, anyway.)

Seriously, if you want to hear an endless flamenco guitar motif that deeply embeds itself in your brain forever and ever, this is the one to watch!

1/10.

I guess this one must be an acquired taste (judging by the other reviews). Of COURSE it's awful - that's what makes this 1953 film so good! Tandra Quinn's eerie and erotic 'Tarantula Dance' in the cantina scene alone is worth the price of admission. The voice-over narration is also great, not to mention such trenchant dialogue as "And they threw her down, and her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and he trod her underfoot"! If you enjoy the cinematic misfires of Edward D. Wood ('Plan 9 From Outer Space', etc.), you'll love this one! (trivia tidbit: Ed Wood's 'Jail Bait' uses the same soundtrack/score)

The amazing, and as yet unmentioned, stroke of genius about this film is that it invents a totally new and, as far as I know, never again used narrative device: best described as "Someone Else's Flashback"

At the opening of the movie a man and a woman staggering across the Mexican desert are rescued from certain death by handsome hunk Frank the surveyor - thus setting him up as the hero but, as the couple start to recover in the oil exploration company's base, he goes back to work and he's never seen again - so he isn't.

As he recovers the man starts to tell his story - a strange garbled tale of crashed aeroplanes, monstrous Spider women and a man called "Dr. Aranya" - the camera focuses in on Pepe, the Mexican driver who, on the surface, looks like he's going to be the funny foreigner comic relief of the flick but doesn't appear again after this opening scene - so isn't.

As the camera dwells on Pepe listening to this tale there is a fade to a wide shot of the desert and a car driving towards the camera. The narrator says something to the effect of - "Yes it's an interesting tale isn't it Pepe? You could tell them more about this mesa and the strange things your people tell about it couldn't you? But this isn't where the story starts, a month before, doctor Leland Masterson..." and we're into the 'story' at last.

The whole film is then played out as a flashback - but whose? It starts before the pilot has arrived on the scene so it can't be his flashback. Because of the focus on Pepe and the fade it looks like it should be Pepe's but he wasn't there! So it must be the Narrator's. If it was the Narrator's flashback why go to all the trouble of setting up at least two false starts to the film?

You are so busy pondering the meaning of this multi-layered, layers within layers, Like an Onion!, Russian Doll of an opening that it takes some time before the simple truth reveals itself. Sheer unmitigated incompetence! This movie is so bloody awful and lacks any structure whatsoever... It's hilarious. I especially love the bit where after surviving the air crash they traipse off into the jungle to rescue George all holding hands like school children crossing the road. Into the darkness they creep - on and on and on and on till they reach the studio wall (and George's body) then they turn around and all creep back again on and on and onzzzzzzzzzzz. Not one second of shot footage was wasted. It's totally surreal. The best boring, zen-like, creeping through the jungle holding hands scene in the history of the movies.

Other highlights include the huge spider leg coming out from behind the screen in Dr Aranya's lab. What was that spider doing behind the screen? Getting dressed? - another movie first! a modest giant mutant spider!

This film also contains a candidate for the worst excuse for sending someone off to their certain death ever - "Where is the comb I gave you?" asks the rich man of his wife. "It is a family heirloom! Wu, take the only flashlight we have and leave us huddling in the dark around this pathetic fire and go into that monster infested jungle and find it!" (Wu it should be explained is Chinese and a bit creepy therefore falls into the "People who are't going to make it to the end of the movie" category. If he had been a Chinese happy scared-cat cook he might have made it).

So Terrible it's worth watching.

I just saw this gem on the big screen and it is terrible! The audience laughed with glee. It has what may be in serious contention for the worst sound track of all time! A constant Mexican Guitar that plays really obnoxiously for dreadfully long periods. There is one scene that is supposed to be scary but is very funny. Some Spider Women and midget Spider men are sneaking up on the films heroes and suddenly someone turns to look in their direction and the scantily clad spider women and midgets have to scamper to hide and it is just an outrageous sight seeing these grotesque midget men scampering around for cover...if you love horrible B films then you have a winner here!