Robot Monster

How can you approach a recent repeat viewing of a movie you first saw 20 years ago in a double feature with 'Plan 9 from Outer Space', which to this day is still the most joyous, funniest cinema experience you have ever had. Without these two films, I would never have been seduced by the wonderful Golden Turkey Awards books, nor started my secret, indulgent near obsession with enjoying bad movies.

And as bad movies go, Robot Monster is simply wonderful.

Its almost pointless to go about what is in store for the unwary viewer, except that they will encountering a cinematic experience they will still be talking about in 20yrs time. However, I cannot complete this review without mentioning my two most favourite magic moments.

The first magic moment is this wonderful scene at the grave of the recently buried little brat girl (who thankfully is terminated extremely efficiently by Ro-man). Suddenly, in the top left corner of the screen is this small dot. Which starts slowly getting larger and larger. You eventually realize it's a shirtless George Nader running to the graveside. George keeps jumping rocks and branches as he eventually makes his way to the grave. Keep running George. Eventually, he finally gets to the grave, to tell the parents that Ro-man has their adult daughter. At which point, he instantly collapses, and is immediately pronounced dead. The timing is so exquisite, you will rewind the film, just to see this wonderful setup and delivery, again and again.

The second magic moment is a touching piece of prose which I feel has been ignored by scientists / engineers around the world as a personal incantation when confronted with a crisis. Basically, Ro-man doesn't want to kill the girl because he is having 'strange feelings' towards her (much like the strange feelings my neighbors dog had for my leg when I visited a few days ago). Alas, his superior wants her (and everyone else) killed. We then have this lovely 'to camera' moment, when a creature, consisting of the body of a gorilla, and the head of a deepsea diving helmet plus antenna, laments to the viewer:

'I cannot, yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do must and cannot meet? Yet I must. But I cannot'.

If only Macbeth and Hamlet had consider life as deeply, they might not have died.

Robot Monster is definitely recommended viewing – just don't do it alone. Invite around your closest friends, and you will be bonded with enough 'But what about when …' experiences for the next two months. And how many modern films can claim to be able to do that.

Robot Monster is the Citizen Kane of abysmal 1950s science fiction. It has everything modern viewers have come to expect from movies of this genre: a laughable plot line, completely improbable situations, ludicrous acting, unbelievably awful special effects, cheapjack production values, gaffes galore, and examples of how to fail miserably at every major aspect of motion picture production. For good measure it also sports easily the most ridiculous "monster" in the history of film! The plot is so thin that it can't even be stretched comfortably over the film's 66-minute running time without generous padding. A family, headed by the requisite German-accented scientist and including a "hot" chick, a "manly" guy, and two cutesy-poo kids wander through the desert after Earth has been annihilated by a guy in a gorilla suit wearing a plastic diving helmet. That's basically it, except for some nonsensical pap about an immunity serum. When the guy in the monkey suit is far and away the best actor in the picture, you've got a MAJOR problem--but compared to John Mylong as "The Professor," Ro-Man is Laurence Olivier. You could drive a semi through the plot holes. The dialogue clangers pile up like horseshoes on George H.W. Bush's lawn. You feel embarrassed for director Phil Tucker, and almost ashamed to laugh at this movie when you learn that the bad reviews of the film drove him to attempt suicide. The experience of watching this film, even with its abnormally short running time, is so excruciating that it feels like you've wasted five hours of your life. It's so bad that after a while you begin to marvel at its very badness, and ultimately you come away awe-stricken.

I call it a masterpiece because under normal circumstances only a talented and determined genius could make a film that sinks as low and violates so many rules of film-making, storytelling and suspension of disbelief as this one does. It takes real talent to make Ed Wood look like Stanley Kubrick, but Phil Tucker pulled it off. For that alone he deserves a place in film history.

If you could pick one single movie which fueled the bad sf/horror movie cult popularized by The Golden Turkey Awards and 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' then 'Robot Monster' would be it. Ed Wood's 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' is probably better known to mainstream audiences, especially since Tim Burton's fantastic Wood biopic, but 'Robot Monster' is just as good/bad, and the image of a lumbering goon in an over-sized gorilla suit with a diving helmet and antenna has become an iconic symbol of z-grade sci fi. Even people who don't know Ro-Man's name recognize his likeness and giggle. 'Robot Monster' isn't as inept technically as Wood's worst movies (especially his astonishing 'Glen Or Glenda'), but the script is as dumb as they get, the actors are wooden at best, and the not-so-special effects are laughable. What really makes this movie legendary is the "robot monster" himself, Ro-Man (George Barrows). You can help smirking every time you look at him, and when he pontificates on life and love the movie enters a new dimension of trash par excellence. And just dig that bubble machine and the unexpected (and totally irrelevant) use of stock dinosaur footage! Plus a score from (can you believe it?) Elmer Bernstein. 'Robot Monster' is a movie I never tire of watching. I still get a big kick out of it every time I see it. To say that it is absolutely essential viewing for anybody interested in cult movies is the understatement of the century! 'Robot Monster' is after all the movie that gave the world the term "psychotronic". Long live Ro-Man and all who smirk at his awesome calcinator death ray!

It's an old theme, and one particularly pertinent to the cold war. Aliens conquer the earth, and earthlings are too small minded to put aside their grievances, so all is lost. However, in the case of Robot Monster, the aliens are big guys in ape suits and old-school scuba gear (odd concept of a robot, IMO), and all the action in the film appears to be either stock warfare footage or scraps of bad sci-fi films found on the cutting room floor, spliced in with some pathetic burning miniature rocket ships, and all not even loosely tied into the "plot".

George Nader, who helped Frankie Avalon ruin the masterpiece of garbage cinema "Million Eyes of Sumuru", is the star, but the only people who act in this film are Claudia Barrett and John Brown (the Ro-Man), and even so, they're not very good at it. As a man well aware of his limits, Nader doesn't usually bother with acting. Like most of the cast members of Robot Monster, he simply recites his lines and adds a smile, a chuckle, or a gesture here and there.

It gets worse. I am a professional archaeologist, and though I appreciate the credit this film gives my profession, I sincerely doubt that any archaeologist will ever develop a serum that makes humans immune to every possible form of disease. Furthermore, I have ethical concerns about the fact that he tests it on HIS ENTIRE FAMILY, even if doing so allowed them to be the only survivors of the alien holocaust brought about by Ro-man! I guess this makes Robot Monster a pioneering cyberpunk film since the entire plot takes place after the destruction of most of earth's life. Most of the plot is incoherent, utterly ridiculous and unexplained.

You continue to watch because, despite the mediocre cinematography, worse than mediocre directing and script, you want to see just how much worse it can get. In that sense, this film is no disappointment. It gives Manos a run for its money, but in the end does no harm, and its a lot more fun, so I gave it a two (the extra star is for being harmless). This is an amazingly goofy and silly film, comparable in its absurdity to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Go for it if you're into that kind of thing, or if you harbor a secret desire to see George Nader get married without a shirt in a ceremony performed by a German archaeologist.

The first time I saw this, in the '60s, I managed to catch clips off of a late night Creature Feature that cut the crap out of the movie to insert commercials. Thus it made little sense. However, the images that I did see never left me and I have been haunted with the desire to see it again in its entirety. Over the years I managed to catch even more clips but never the entire movie. Nevertheless I was still intrigued by a certain something. Finally I just flat out bought the DVD.

I watched it twice in a row and discovered that this is really quite a little gem. When you finally realize what is going on (which I certainly won't tell you) it makes perfect sense in a 1953 flavor. The important thing to remember is that it is from a child's limited experience and point of view. Once that is realized it becomes great fun.

Perhaps the best part is Elmer Bernstein's score. It kind of does for this movie what Max Stein did for 'King Kong'. The mood is set. Things become a bit surreal and eerie. You become unbalanced. This is good because upon first viewing it throws you a curve and suddenly you aren't in Kansas anymore. How did this happen? It isn't explained until the end, but all at once we have stock footage of dinosaurs fighting(both actual lizards and stop-motion animated models) and a large armadillo walking through the scene. Why? It makes no sense....at first. It is certainly a bit upsetting to your reality though.

Then we discover that the entire word's population is gone with the exception of a handful of people because of Ro-man and ensemble taking over the world. As you know Ro-man is a guy in a gorilla suit sans gorilla head which is replaced by a goofy space helmet. He has a bubble machine (for some reason) and a communication device at the entrance of this cave. His mission is to kill off the rest of the remaining humans. Piece o cake? Nope. Crafty humans have accidentally figured a way to cloak their exact location.

The acting is not good but I have the strangest feeling it was completely on purpose to unbalance the viewer. The same holds true for much of the logic. But in the end that is OK when you discover what has really happened. As soon as that is revealed you will groan and wonder what you missed that might have explained this earlier in the film. No, you didn't miss anything. The movie leads you where it wants you to go and reveals nothing until it wants you to know. Then, if you're dedicated, you will watch it again and perhaps enjoy it much more like I did. I also discovered that while it is logically lame it is never flat out stupid. There really is a method to the filmmaker's madness here.

This movie is cheesy and cheap - it probably wouldn't have worked any other way. Because of Bernstein's music and some of the work by the sound department this movie can even raise your sense of unease. This is good! It doesn't try to scare the Hell out of you but tries to convey a story - which is somewhat interesting from a 1953 point of view.

Bottomline: I personally like this movie and will see it again. I think David Lynch should try a remake. It has some of the same qualities as some of his films for developing a sense of the surreal.

I give it a 4.