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.

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.

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.

Filmed several years ago and finally emerging as a homevideo release, "Microwave Massacre" is an amateurish comedy dwelling on cannibalism in its lampooning of gory horror films. Vaguely resembling the spoof-of-a-spoof "Please Don't Eat My Mother" (a takeoff on "Little Shop of Horrors" made a decade earlier), this film is suited for fanciers of grotesque black humor only.

Standup comic Jackie Vernon toplines as a mild construction worker Donald, engaged in Bickersons-style arguments with his stout wife May (Claire Ginsberg), especially over her penchant for inedible gourmet repasts prepared in her large microwave oven. In a rage, he kills her, and cuts the body into pieces (including a very cheap plaster head) and stores them neatly wrapped in aluminum foil with the frozen meat.

When Donald accidentally nibbles on one of his wife's hands for a midnight snack, he discovers he likes the taste and begins cooking the human flesh in the microwave, sharing the results at lunch with his friendly co-workers. Now, a bachelor again, he starts picking up pretty girls, but ends up killing them while having sex and eating the corpses.

Filmmaker Wayne Berwick, Thomas Singer and Craig Muckler overplay this material for cheap laughs, with mugging actors including the usual deadpan Vernon. Gore is very fake-looking, aiming at viewers laughing at the production rather than being outraged by realism. Emphasizing vulgar gags and slowing down dialog delivery results in an embarrassing, generally unfunny exercise, punctuated by the usual quota of female nude shots.

Budget is microscopic, with passable technical credits. In explaining Donald's final comeuppance (yes, even in amoral farragoes such as this there lurks some form of retribution), picture briefly intimates a supernatural element, but this is not enough to attract the interest of traditional horror film fans.

My review was written after watching the film on a Midnight videocassette.

Construction worker Donald (Jackie Vernon) is having a hard time getting anything good to eat since his wife has decided to only cook gourmet foods. That and her constant harping cause him to snap, and he whacks her. Somewhere in the confusion he comes up with a new use for the microwave oven, and begins to eat much better. Soon he's experimenting with different recipes. And different meats.

AllMovie wrote, "Despite utterly failing as comedy, horror and pornography, Microwave Massacre is grotesque enough in design and attitude to be fascinating, much like a car accident." That summary is perfect. "Microwave Massacre" is bad in almost every way, especially Vernon's acting. But there are some funny scenes and jokes that make it worthwhile. The drive-through scene is especially humorous, and for those who know Vernon mostly as Frosty the Snowman's voice, this will twist what you think of Frosty.

Now, maybe not too much should be expected for a film with a budget under $100,000. But it does make for interesting shooting techniques -- saving money by using Mickey Dolenz's house as a set, and having Robert Burns (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) do art direction for only $1,000. Burns, who also appears as a homeless man, was referred to the film by no less a figure than Wes Craven. So that might make this film's background a bit more interesting...

The producers originally wanted Rodney Dangerfield, but ended up with Jackie Vernon. His acting is awful, and actually the worst thing about the film, but he does offer a few ad libs. Would Dangerfield have been better? Yes, no doubt. Luckily, the other actors -- especially the two construction workers -- are excellent actors. Except, of course, this only further points out how bad Vernon is.

How this has become a "cult classic" is beyond me. Is it the gratuitous addition of topless women? Is it Jackie Vernon? Or is it one of those so-bad-it's-good types of things? I love bad movies as much as anyone, but for me this really is not one of the great forgotten gems.

Regardless, Arrow Video has done what they do best and put their heart and soul into making this as good as it can be. There is a brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative, which looks pretty good for such a low budget film. There is a brand new audio commentary with writer-producer Craig Muckler, moderated by Mike Tristano, with plenty of stories about Wes Craven, "Phantasm", Jill Schoelen, "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and more. This is really the best part of the disc. (Because Muckler has certain phrases he uses a lot, the commentary would make a great drinking game.) Lastly, we have "My Microwave Massacre Memoirs" a new making-of featurette including interviews with Muckler, director Wayne Berwick and actor Loren Schein. Although brief, it does expound on Muckler's commentary a bit and is worth a watch.