O Massacre do Microondas

Far from being the worst horror film of all time, and really not much of a horror movie at all but more of a black comedy for lack of a better description. Jackie Vernon plays Donald whose wife refuses to give him solid, working-man food but rather inundates his lunch box with crab sandwiches and other gourmet meals. Donald gets so upset after a night of drinking his woes that he slays his wife and then packs her in the freezer, later goes for a bite to eat, and unwittingly eats her hand wrapped in tin foil. From there he realizes he loves the taste and begins to eat women all the time(yes, that pun and every possible one under the sun was used in the film!). Thereis an endless parade of one-liners, many just wretched, but after a bit I was finding some of them amusing as this film is trying to be nothing more than a sophomoric horror spoof. It has a seventies feel to it though it was made in 1983. The scary moments are non-existent. What do we get: roly-poly Jackie Vernon quipping wisecracks as he searches for dinner and a date all in one. Vernon is just, well, there. He quite honestly doesn't have much of a movie presence, but he can deliver his lines - if you can be more unlike me and get past the voice of Frosty the Snowman swearing and having his way with a prostitute and even stuffing a turkey. The gal that plays his wife is amusing if nothing else, and the rest of the cast could be extras on Lost for all we know/care. There are a few exceptions because the film has liberal doses of gratuitous nudity - no more eye-popping then the opening with the knothole girl. A real looker and possibly the high point of this film. More is the pity. that being said; however, Microwave Massacre is watchable - even again in the next decade possibly. seeing Vernon act is intriguing as we have little of him in film(I wonder why?). You could definitely do a lot worse than this. I have seen horror films that made my eyes glaze over from boredom and wished/willed my fingers to pass the fast forward. This strangely enough for me was not one of those times.

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.

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.

Is MM a good movie? No. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes.

This is one of those films that falls into the "B minus"-movie category. It's sincere in being what it is, but what it is is a lot of schlock.

Oddly, Jackie Vernon is probably one of the weakest parts of this film. His portrayal of a middle-aged blue-collar schlub is just not convincing. (Hmmm...as if any of the other actors are convincing.) I/m sure that this film probably wouldn't have been made at all if he hadn't been attached to the project, but he's just not very good/interesting/funny in his role.

On the bright side, the producers somehow managed to scrape together quite a few pretty good-looking women and get them to take their tops of. In fact, I'm rather surprised that Marla Simons didn't go on to do more films after this one, even if this would have been due to her assets rather than her acting. The nudity in this film is silly rather than titillating and I personally would have given it a PG-13 rating.

Everybody else in the film acts as if they're in a sketch on the Carol Burnett Show, mugging and over-reacting. Some of the jokes and one-liners are pretty funny, just don't expect any real acting. Oh, yeah...and it's not at all scary or even gross.

The only big question that I had after watching this was, "How did the huge, industrial microwave fit into that little shipping box that you see in the beginning of the movie?" Recommended for people who are tired of artsy-fartsy horror films.