Microwave Massacre

Described by its original DVD distributor as "The Worst Horror Movie of All Time", this 1983 black comedy doesn't quite live up to that promise, but it's a close thing. The painted cover art is fantastic, and typically unrepresentative of the lousy content of the film.

Donald (Jackie Vernon) is a depressed, disillusioned construction worker who returns each evening to his frumpy, nagging wife, May (Claire Ginsberg). She feels she doesn't get the gratitude she deserves for "slaving away" at her new microwave all day.

One night Donald snaps and murders May. Naturally, the only way he can destroy the evidence is by cooking and eating her. He gets a taste for it (excuse the pun) and thus begins enticing ladies of the night back to his suburban home. He cooks them and feeds them to his insatiable, ignorant co-workers. Donald is free and he's impressing his new best buddies. What can possibly stop his campaign of cannibalism? Vernon was a stand-up with a distinctive deadpan style, which is entirely incongruous with the farcical events of this story. Combined with the film's weirdly languid pace and Leif Horvath's eerie electronic score, it's quite an unsettling experience – although this is mostly due to it being an outright tonal disaster, rather than any controlled sense of atmosphere.

With the humour and delivery of a 70s sketch show, it's a movie badly in need of canned laughter, if only to inform us of when we're supposed to laugh. Genuine humour comes in the briefest of snatches: Donald's encounter with Dr Van der Fool (Ed Thomas), who doesn't know which side the heart is on; or the scene where May's sister stops by and Donald has to prop May's disembodied head in the bed to pretend she's still alive ("She looks awful pale...").

It's a movie of a mercifully bygone era in which all the women are nags or sluts, although this is par for the course in trash horror of the time. What the flesh sandwich lacks is a juicy layer of satire. Given that the microwave was just becoming a household essential in the 80s, promising the death of the conventional cooker, this has to go down as an opportunity missed – we get none of the consumerist satire of The Stuff, nor the grotesque farce of the more enjoyably outrageous Street Trash.

Microwave Massacre just about claws its way into the midnight movie slot through a certain uniqueness and, frankly, its brevity (it comes in at around 75 minutes). But it's more of a freak-out than a fun time.

My friend and I got bored last night so we decided to watch a movie my Dad had bought for me from a yard sale. 3 guesses what movie it was. Anywho. Right off we knew it was bad. And then I realized I had heard about this movie from badmovies.org. Lauren and I are strange, I think. We enjoyed the movie. We laughed and cried. We cried because it was so painful to watch, but enjoyable at the same time, go figure! This is definitely a party movie to lighten the mood. Maybe have a some finger food around for atmosphere *grin*

Okay, first off, this is quite possibly the worst movie that I've ever seen. It makes Ed Wood (R.I.P.) movies look like the best movies out there.

The movie follows a construction worker named Donald as he kills his wife when he is mad at her and accidentally eats some of her flesh while looking for a snack. He loves the taste, so he goes out and kills more girls and eats them, occasionally sharing the new meat with his friends. They don't know its human meat, but they like it so Donald keeps giving them the meat.

Okay, and as for the ending, I thought it made sense, but it was still funny. I won't reveal it, but trust me, you will never have guessed what happens.

The special effects are horrible, but I find myself laughing at these more than the jokes in the movie. I love bad SFX, and this one takes the cake in the bad special effects department. Bravo Microwave Massacre.

So see it if you can find it, and if you can't find it, get a bootleg. Its worth it if you like bad movies.

Grab a mate, something to drink and eat and enjoy the hilarity of this movie. From the moment I found this movie and added it to my watchlist, I never expected anything more than a trashy and bad forgotten movie. Well, I'm so glad I was wrong, because "Microwave Massacre" is for it's relatively low budget very competently made movie with unbelievably smart and funny remarks from our cynical and hilarious protagonist. There is also a decent amount of nudity in this movie and all of it is high quality nudity for such a relatively low budget movie! All in all, if you like over the top humour and are not offended by unsophisticated content (violence, nudity), you won't go wrong with this one! 6.5/10! I recommend it to all the fans of the genre or anyone with open mind looking for a laugh!

Stand up comedian and sometime actor Jackie Vernon had his last movie role in this laugh riot camp horror film. Jackie plays Donald, a construction worker whose wife May (Claire Ginsberg) is trying to get him to eat her experimental dinners. She does this supposedly for his own good, and does it with the assistance of her microwave oven (a real gargantuan artifact). Finally, he can take no more of her nagging and, in a drunken rage, bludgeons her to death with a salt grinder. He comes to realize that he likes the taste of human flesh, so goes out and kills more people to feed his newfound appetites.

Written and produced by Craig Muckler and Thomas Singer, and directed by Wayne Berwick, "Microwave Massacre" is a pretty tasty morsel when it comes to horror comedy. It's full of utter ridiculousness, and absurd dialogue, not to mention some deliciously tacky gore effects and one utterly priceless severed head. The amusingly deadpan Vernon alternates between being sincere, and letting the audience in on the joke by breaking the fourth wall. His interactions with victims and other characters are a joy to behold. We have a hooker named Dee Dee Dee (Lou Ann Webber), a psychiatrist (John Harmon, who'd acted for director Berwicks' father Irvin in things like "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" and "Malibu High"), a doctor with the childish moniker of Von Der Fool (Ed Thomas), a hottie foreigner (Anna Marlowe) who makes a living dancing in a chicken costume, Donalds' fellow construction workers Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Philip (Al Troupe), and Sam (Phil De Carlo), a grumpy bartender who doesn't want to hear his patrons' sob stories. Ginsberg is perfect as the kind of nagging wife that would drive any husband mad.

This movie keeps coming up with enough wacky and irreverent shtick to sustain it through a very reasonable one hour 17 minutes run time. Just don't expect to see the title appliance come into play all THAT often while it plays out.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm so hungry I could eat a whore.

Seven out of 10.