The Lucifer Complex

When asked about the worst film ever made, it might be safe to take the easy road of listing cult favorites like 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', 'The Room', or 'Birdemic', but I firmly believe that films giving viewers the perverse pleasure of laughing through them, or indeed the type that invite midnight screenings, cannot truly be considered the worst. If you had fun watching it, how can it possibly be that bad?

'The Lucifer Complex', on the other hand, is the worst film I've ever seen.

It starts off promisingly enough: a man walks alone on the shores of a deserted island, rhapsodizing over the collapse of society and the fall of humanity. He returns to the confines of his man cave, full of futuristic tech that would've looked dated on 'Star Trek', and has a seat to reflect on the folly of his erstwhile descendants. Seemingly off to a great start, right?

Then, he watches film of what life was like at the turn of the century. War. Newsreels. Concert film? Five minutes becomes ten, and the next thing you know your brain is slithering out your nostrils. The story proper finally kicks in as one of these films, featuring a tired and bloated Robert Vaughn as the world's least convincing spy, uncovers an island where existing members of the Nazi party look to revive the Third Reich using clones. Yeah, it's basically an unauthorized rip-off of 'The Boys From Brazil', but even a plot this outlandish can't save the film for the midnight movie crowd.

Cheesy movies can be fun. 'The Lucifer Complex' is only cheesy enough to be depressing. Uninspired camera work, dialogue too stale to be droll, exhausted performances, locations that kind of work, editing that drains the energy from each scene... it's as much fun as waking up to discover that your arm is asleep.

I won't spoil the film more than the description already does, but rest assured, the film within a film ends, leaving our terminally bored, island-locked protagonist to mumble some commentary on mankind that was probably insightful before the transgenerational degradation of bad writers borrowing from good ones reduced it from Arthur C. Clarke to L. Ron Hubbard to Stephanie Meyer; it's so bland it's useless to mock.

On the plus side, it's a fascinating experiment in relativity. If you really want to make 90 minutes feel like forever, watch 'The Lucifer Complex'.

This movie could have been so much better if they would have had the lone survivor discovering that the video he is watching is really the Lucifer Complex and he was in it. Like he was discovering that he was a clone. But as the movie is, it makes little sense of anything.

This is a horrible movie. But it is also quite charming in the best bad movie way. What does it have. It has a man living in some mountainous (Scandanavian?) country with the entire knowledge of the earth on crystalline rocks, reviewing the decline of the human race. Interestingly, most of the history is in black and white with projection streaks running through them. The main story, however, involves the rise of the Fourth Reich. It is a convoluted story that really makes no sense. People are being captured and turned into zombie like clones. They then do the bidding of a Herman Goering type leader who sits back and yells out orders. There are women with machine guns that can fire up to 50,000 bullets without loading. The Nazi's are utterly incompetent. They leave a fully loaded tank around that can easily be commandeered by anyone who knows how to run it. What happens is apparently what causes the downfall of civilized society, but I'm not sure why. Keenan Wynn plays an old guy with a Santa Claus beard who rants and raves. We can't tell the clones from the real people and what, exactly, happens at the end. It's just the silliest piece of junk, but those women, running around in their gray prison uniforms, firing machine guns, is quite remarkable.

"An intelligence agent is set off to investigate events surrounding some of the world's leaders and he comes to a shocking discovery. A plot by former Nazi scientists to clone the world's leaders, in order to return the Third Reich to power, has been undertaken and he must try to stop them from completing their evil plans. Tracking down the headquarters of the Nazi scientists brings another surprise to the agent, when he uncovers the madman ultimately behind the sinister plot," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

One of the most boring films every created. Dare an insomniac to stay awake during the first twenty minutes. If you can keep your eyes open, as William Lanning seems strangely able to do, watch for the "Area L7" sign (probably the film's highlight). Then get ready for a spit upon Lesbian prison guard and a few explosions. A not so shocking surprise guest appearance would make the most ardent xenophobe racist swear off holocausts forever, lest they be exposed to more films like "The Lucifer Complex".

* The Lucifer Complex (1978) David L. Hewitt, Kenneth Hartford ~ Robert Vaughn, Merrie Lynn Ross, Keenan Wynn, Aldo Ray

But it has its moments. Not a great sci-fi flick, but not a total waste of time either. I thought the choreography was poorly done, and certain special effects, principally blowing stuff up, weren't done to well. But Robert Vaughn was, as always, cool. The "Nazi bitch" with the bride of Frankenstien hair style was kind of campy. Aldo Ray, and I've always enjoyed his work, didn't have much of a part or come across that well. The premise is okay but the plot, not to mention the characters, is never really developed. And the guy in the cave, watching all of this via computerized film footage? Well, lots of what he sees, which is what we watch with him, took place behind closed doors and in swamps and ... Who was holding the camera? Ahh, nothings perfect. This is OK sci-fi if you don't set your expectations to high. Its worth a watch.