Eegah

Ah, a serene night, your girl camped out on a bed roll on your tricked out dune buggy, a horny prehistoric giant (talked about in Genesis none-the-less) on the prowl for your girl, and not a care in the world. You pull out your guitar and sing an ode to Veronica, and that guitar plays bass, percussion, and even whistles. Strange I never actually heard guitar in any of his songs.

This is just a sample of the so-bad-it's good campiness available in Eegah. But unfortunately there is just as much so-bad-it-reeks that I can't give it more than 3 stars. I actually thought it was over when the unfortunate trio escaped from the cave. Man was I mistaken, there was another excruciating stretch of film with Eegah in the modern world. And don't get me started on Arch Jr., he can thank whatever god that smiles down on him that Sr. is in charge. How else would this hack get to be the "Elvis" of this movie. "I swear on my stack of Elvis Presley LP's" there are few worse performances in cinematic history.

So in review - this movie is not as bad as the bottom 100 ranking leads you to believe, but nowhere near masterpiece theater. Is entertaining though with a bunch of smart-mouthed friends and lots of beer.

Eegah taught me a lot of things about life. It taught me how to love, it taught me how to hate, and it taught me how to paaaarrrrtttaaaaayyyy! If you love to get down and dance the night away, then have we got a movie for you! Never once, have I seen so many fantastic elements combined to create such a pristine film. The only word that can describe it is "Eegah!" After watching this movie several times, I finally realized the hidden message behind the word eegah. Eegah is an acronym, and goes as follows.

E-Ecstatic-my mood after watching this movie

E-Envisioned-this film captures everything a film should

G-Gay-this movie made me the happiest I've ever been in my life

A-Archie Hall Jr. and Sr.-that dynamic duo that just wouldn't quit making me smile

H-Hell-I'd go to Hell before giving up my copy of 'Eegah'

Thanks to this movie, I had Arch Hall Jr's terrible singing voice singing about Vicky for a week. It almost drove me mad. If your one who easily gets songs stuck in ones head, this is a movie you would do well to avoid.

Other than that, it had some real camp value.. Not enough Go-Go Dancing though.

I agree with Dave Sagehorn's review in Bad Movie Nights. See it by clicking the Reviews button. I saw this at a U.S. Naval Station theatre when it came out in 1962 for an admission charge of ten cents. It was overpriced. It was so bad that the sailors enjoyed booing, hissing, cheering, and throwing empty popcorn boxes at the screen at appropriate moments (you don 't get to share such moments with home video).

Years later, on the radio I heard a review of a book called "The 100 Worst Movies of All Time". The movie that the author rated as the No. 1 Worst Movie of all time was Eegah! On the IMDb ratings search, only 23 other movies have ratings that equal or fall below the 2.1 user rating achived by Eegah! So this is not just a bad movie. It is so flamboyantly bad that it has earned a permanent niche in the history of the cinema. I recommend it only if you and a group of friends are in the mood to hiss, boo, and throw popcorn boxes.

Watching this movie is an experience akin to being run over by a dairy truck...it leaves you dazed and confused, with an overwhelming memory of cheese.

'Eegah!" is one of those enjoyably wretched films of a long gone era, made in a time when anyone thought they could make a film, and indeed, anyone could. (See "Manos" or "Teenage Strangler" for further examples.). The script is so disconnected and incoherent, the actors so unconvincing and affected, the whole vibe so amateurish and transparent in its effort to be cool and hip and with it, while having no clue as to what 'hip' really is....that you almost want to affectionately pat the cast and crew on their little heads and comfort them. "There, there, Arch Hall Sr., you did your best, that's all that matters," you want to say.

That is, when you don't want everyone associated with the film dead.

Arch Hall Jr. has been the target of numerous remarks comparing his face and appearance unfavorably to everything up to "a pile of napalmed squirrels heaped around a parking meter" (Rick Johnson from Creem magazine). In his defense, I am sure that he probably didn't look all that bad in person. But there is that unfortunate blond Pompadour and an unfortunate snub nose and too much skin bronzer, and the results on camera are indescribably uncompelling. So the camera hates him, and the poor kid is completely out of his depth; he can't act, he can't sing, and he can't do action, and the director keeps forcing him to do all those things front and center for the entire movie. You can only wonder if the kid actually thought his performance in EEGAH was going to make him the new Fabian, or if he knew that he would be lucky not to get lynched by the public when the film was released.

There are three songs 'performed' (along with an swinging band instrumental piece) by AH Jr in this film, and they are all guaranteed classics of unintended low comedy. The most side splitting is the one where Arch and his amps are poolside, and he starts lip-syncing to a song about about 'Vicki'.A coloratura soprano voice kicks in behind him a measure later, doing solfeggio on the melody line a full two octaves above his thin little voice and completely overpowering it. It's the goofiest, most overblown, inappropriate thing possible to do to this simple little ballad, but they tear right into it with gusto. What was the arranger smoking when he came up with this? (Or what did he start smoking in order to get through having to arrange it in the first place???)

The plot is also endearingly pathetic in its attempt to work in a 'Beauty and The Beast' motif between the female lead and Eegah himself...Roxy is apparently supposed to be torn between her fear of Eegah and her sympathy for him as an innocent. Or else she's supposed to be torn between Eegah and Arch Hall Jr. However...I have no idea what the young lady playing the girl was like in real life, but there has rarely been a poorer choice to play an ingénue. She does faint on cue real good, though.

Any time a film chooses to end with a quote from the Bible, you can bet that the filmmakers knew they were in trouble and wanted to invoke a 'class act' so they could gain validity from association. Given how creepy and self important Arch Hall Sr's performance was during the film, his quote from the Old Testament about "There were Giants In the Earth' , which was meant to serve as Eegah's eulogy comes completely out of nowhere, and leaves you going..."What? Huh?" And the final embrace between Archy and Roxy, where he dubs in the line "Remember...I love you" and no ones' lips move is fully as bad as "Watch Out For Snakes"...but because it comes after the movie has bludgeoned the viewer fully into a coma, I don't think people remember it as often.

Watch EEGAH! at least once. You'll have a great time heaping scorn on it.