The Wild World of Batwoman

Good lord a'mighty! Is this thing dull! The director made a slapstick film that takes itself deadly seriously. Huh?

And the Batwoman is more of a what-is-it. What's that on her head? And what's with the very large and strategically placed pin on her- um- bosom? Isn't that painful? Does her mother know she goes out like that in public? Is this where Janet Jackson got the idea?

One wonders with what inducement she collected about her her teenage minions. I gather the recruitment speech went something like this:

"As part of my entourage, you will be working to save the world from the criminal element. But I'm not going to give you any training, so you're not going to be very good at it. And I don't accept any girls that are any too bright. Furthermore, no fun will be allowed. You will be forced to recite ridiculous, meaningless formulae and must do so without cracking a smile. By way of relaxation, you will be forced to sit around the living room listening to me playing funeral dirges on the organ. Well? Who's with me?"

Come to think of it, no wonder they're such pushovers for the happy pills! I'd sure be popping happy pills if I was stuck in that organization!

Oh, extra bonus: totally random footage from The Mole People stuck in for no conceivable purpose.

Tom Servo's final comment on this movie. This movie bad. This movie VERY bad! There isn't one shred of plot to be found. There's dancing, some good guys, some bad guys, and something very bad that can't really be called acting. This movie hurt me and I think it hurt others as well.

If you are a badfilm fan like myself, you might want to view this film. But I would definitely recommend sticking with the MST3K version with Mike and the Bots.

I don't feel that it is fair to compare this movie with something like Manos: The Hands of Fate. That is a totally different ball of wax. That was trying to be a straight-ahead horror film, and is funny because it is not remotely scary, is loaded with the incompetence of a completely inexperienced filmmaker, and filmed on a budget of two cents.

This movie, IS, in fact, trying to be bad on purpose. You know, because that's FUNNY. The Batman television show was something of a sensation when it originally came out. It's combination of comic book ridiculousness combined with straight-faced acting and a pop-art graphic design made the whole idea a verifiable hoot and a TV ratings juggernaut, at least for a second.

Enter z-grade, low budget movie auteur Jerry Warren, leaping with all his might on to the Batman bandwagon with The Wild World of Batwoman. The idea that "camp" could actually work creatively thus proved by the Batman TV show, Warren attempts the same idea, even down to the tribute to (ripping off of) the Batman character itself with Batwoman.

But attempting to create something self-consciously "camp," described by the old trope "so bad it's good" is a very dangerous task. The creative types working on the Batman TV show were experienced Hollywood hands, who knew what they were doing, of much greater talent than Mr. Warren and his company of rather unimpressive thespians, most of whom are young women chosen for their ability to pleasingly fill out a bikini (one of the most aesthetically pleasing parts of the film).

When attempting to create on purpose something that is funny because it is incompetent, or "wild" or "Crazy" or "out there", you are walking on a very narrow tightrope. And Warren and his crew fall off that tightrope time and time again. Making fun of outlandish comic book heroes and villains (or similarly, those from the old Hollywood movie serials) can be a ripe target for parody, or let's not give Warren too much credit, plain old goofing. (He never even approached the level of sophistication required in order to use the word satire.) But all we get here are jokes that fall flat, unfunny parodies, lame situations, and tired and laboring attempts at slapstick.

Slapstick, or physical comedy, is a form that usually gets little respect from those who fancy themselves film aficionados, but it can be done with vigor and effectiveness (The Three Stooges) or even balletic grace (Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin). However, Warren and his actors provide a limp, incompetent version of physical comedy that involves no thought at all. If a choreographer was used for these physical routines, he must have been dead for several years.

Someone else mentioned K. Gordon Murray, and this movie did have the same feel as one of his cheapo dubbed Mexican imports in spite of the movie being shot in California in English...not surprising since Jerry Warren earlier did a few films such as Curse of the Screaming Werewolf or something, which was a Mexican horror film cut together with a few new scenes Warren shot with Lon Chaney Jr. (Got to see that now, but I'm sure it's an unholy mess.)

About the only way to extract some entertainment juice from this leaden stone of a movie is the layering of Mike Nelson and the Bots on top of the whole rancid cheese on their Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. Some of the funniest one liners in MST3K history grace this presentation as Mike and his pals try to make sense of the truly nonsensical goings-on unspooling in front of their unbelieving eyes. But watching the film without their japery is truly a teeth-grinding waste of 88 minutes.

Score: Film alone: 2 out of 10. MST3K version: 8 out of 10.

Wild World of Batwoman, The (1966)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Infamous film from director Warren had the man sued by Marvel and this film, at one time, re-released as SHE WAS A HIPPIE VAMPIRE but it's the title here and the clear rip-off of Batman that has made this thing live for so long. The story is all over the place but we've basically got Batwoman (Katherine Victor) going after the evil Rat Fink (Richard Banks) who also had a nutty scientist (George Mitchell) working for him. I was somewhat shocked to see that this movie was ranked in the Bottom 100 at IMDb for several reasons. One is that this is the only Warren movie there. The second reason is that there are so many more movies out there worse than this one. I'm really not sure why this film has gotten so much special attention but I'm going to guess it's because Batman fans are checking this thing out and seeing a pure "Z" grade picture. I can understand someone familiar with "A" pictures to hate this. It does contain horrible acting, horrible direction, horrible outfits, a horrible plot and any other job title could have horrible before it. However, as someone who has seen many Warren film, this one contains something the others don't and that's an attempt at telling a story. Yes, the story is all over the place, makes no sense and at times will have you lost but at least it tries, which is a lot more than you can say for the director's other films. This one here also has more than just one long dialogue sequence after another. We've actually got quite a bit of action ranging from fights to some silly guns being waived around. Again, this isn't too common for a Warren picture. One of the silliest things here is the scientist who has created a "happy" pill that his girls to girls so that they will dance and do a few other things. These dances are so crazy that you can't help but laugh and the music they're dancing to certainly wasn't rock 'n roll from 1966 but seems to be about fifteen years late from its target audience. What's even sillier is the scientist who has an assistant who is mildly retarded due to an experiment that went wrong. The politically incorrect role was silly but at the same time it had me laughing. Again, all of these things make for an awful movie but at the same time they keep the film moving and make it rather fun to watch. If you're a fan of bad cinema then this here is certainly one of the all-time great bad movies. Warren would take a fourteen year break from filmmaking before jumping back onto the scene with the downright horrid FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND. It's really too bad he didn't go out with this sucker as it pretty much contains everything bad you'd expect from a movie like this. Just don't take it too serious, sit back and laugh.

Actually, I've seen this...this *thing* (I just can't use the word "movie"!) in its MiSTified version AND its pristine original version. Either way, whenever you watch it, you have to gawk at the screen in disbelief, your jaw hanging open in shock, and throw your hands up in the air and scream "Why? WHY did Jerry Warren make this thing?" The depressingly lame attempts at comedy...the too-obvious sexploitation...the haphazard integration of stock footage from "The Mole People" and Mexican horror movies...all of these elements mingle into a sheer cinematic mess...

If you are brave enough to endure "The Wild World of Batwoman", check out the MST3K edition--Mike, Servo and Crow's banter almost make this film entertaining. Almost.