Tag Archives: cheesy horror movies

Did You Scream?

Posted on November 6, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

During our Halloween movie viewing, Steven and I enjoyed what is perhaps the quintessential William Castle movie, The Tingler (1959).

We had seen The Tingler once before, but that was in Georgia over ten years ago (yikes!). I did not remember much about it, except for the tingler itself, which was pretty funny. I mean scary. OK, both. I have to confess, while we were watching it this time, I was fixing supper, so I missed a few parts entirely. Hey, if you don’t think it’s important to feed your spouse and eat well yourself, well, that’s where we differ.

William Castle was a producer and director who was quite the showman. He didn’t just make a movie, he gave his audience an experience. I’ve talked about him before. He did things like put a nurse in the lobby in case any audience member keeled over from fright. During House on Haunted Hill, a skeleton on a wire flew out over the audience at a dramatic moment. His gimmick for The Tingler involved wiring certain seats in the audience to deliver a startling sensation to unsuspecting movie viewers.

I’ve been thinking somebody ought to release a boxed set of William Castle movies with props. They could include a nurse’s hat so one of your friends could pretend to be on hand in case of fright emergencies (I forget which movie that went with), a skeleton to wave over the audience during House on Haunted Hill, and some sort of joy buzzer for The Tingler. But I digress.

In The Tingler, Vincent Price is a mad scientist whose area of study is fear. Of course he does not consider himself mad (I know, they never do), and his aim is not world domination or even untold wealth, as it is for any number of other mad scientists. He believes he has the good of mankind at heart. His handsome young assistant and the assistant’s beautiful girlfriend agree.

The tingler, Price finds, is an actual thing that attaches itself to your spine when you are frightened. It can kill you, but you can stymie its fell intent by screaming loudly. There does come a point when the audience is encouraged to scream, but Steven and I did not. The windows were closed, but we might still have startled the neighbors. My scream is piercing.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot (the parts I remember around cooking dinner, anyways), because this is one of those movies best enjoyed by letting it unfold before you. I thought it was very fun. I recommend catching it if you get the chance, and if it frightens you… SCREAM!

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Don’t Pooh-Pooh Your Wife!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I continue my Halloween week posts with a horror movie that is not cheesy. I find that oddly appropriate for a Wuss-out Wednesday.

I DVR’d Cat People (1942) with high hopes. When I learned it was a low-budget, independent film, that sounded even better. When Robert Osborne said in pre-movie commentary that it was part of their series about monsters who needed a little TLC from the opposite sex, I hesitated. Then again, Bride of Frankenstein falls into that category, so I said, “Bring it.”

It turns out Cat People is one of those movies that rises above its limitations to present a scary, suspenseful story. There are no special effects to speak of, but shadow and suggestion are used with excellent results. So with my usual Spoiler Alert, let’s get started.

The story centers around the marriage between a fine young man (at least, I don’t think he’s so fine as things turn out, but that’s getting ahead of myself) and a mysterious foreign girl. The two meet in front of the panther cage at the zoo. The girl will return to this site as her life goes downhill. The zookeeper tells her the panther is evil and quotes Revelations in support of this. That rather impressed me. I know very few people who can quote from Revelations. He quotes one of the scarier passages, so that is some nice foreshadowing.

More foreshadowing happens when the young man tries to gift the girl with a cat and the cat hates her.

Pause for PSA: Don’t randomly give people pets! First make sure (a) they want a pet, (b) they are able to care for a pet, and (c) they are not cursed from some ancient foreign village thing. Back to the movie.

They trade in the cat for a bird, after every bird in the shop expresses fear and loathing of her. Fighting fate, she says she is certain the bird will love her and vice versa. No more about that bird, because you know how I hate to see an animal come to a bad end.

So the Girl tells some scary stories of the village she comes from and expresses the fear she could be cursed. When an evil-looking, vaguely feline woman greets her as “sister” at their wedding party, the Girl’s fears increase. We never see the evil-looking one again, which of course was a disappointment to me. I greatly prefer a thorough-going evil monster to a conflicted, unhappy, cursed one. Then again, I’m trying to talk about the movie I did see, not lament the one I wish I had seen.

Young Man pooh-poohs his new wife’s fears, and they are off in pursuit of wedded bliss, which naturally eludes them.

I blame the husband, and not just because I’m a girl. You should never pooh-pooh your spouse unless he or she is clearly hoping to be pooh-poohed. Young Man goes on to make a number of stupid moves regarding the attractive, all-American woman he works with, arousing his wife’s jealousies.

Things soon start to get creepy, but Young Man still insists the fears are pooh-pooh-able. He gets the Girl a psychiatrist instead of a priest or exorcist or lion-tamer or somebody.

There are a couple of really scary scenes utilizing footsteps and lighting. The body count is not high, and there are no gruesome scenes of the cat slashing away. I call that making a virtue out of necessity, because it turns out to be a pretty satisfying Halloween watch.

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Horrible History or The Humpbacked Murderer

Posted on October 30, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I’m making bold to write about another horror movie, because it is Halloween week. Steven and I watched three this past Sunday. I do love to write about horror movies. Some may protest that The Tower of London (1962) sounds more like history than horror, but I think it veers more into the horror genre.

I knew I would be in for some spurious history, because the movie is about Richard III and the princes in the tower. However, Vincent Price as a hump-backed murderer, what’s not to like?

Richard III, many historians now say, did not have a hump and did not murder his nephews in order to seize the throne. These stories were commissioned by Henry VII, who defeated Richard III and became king himself, thus proving the adage that history is written by the winners.

Full disclosure: I may have that wrong or I may be quoting some controversial revisionism. I may look up some more information on Richard III and get back to you. Right now I want to write about a horror movie.

I feel no spoiler alert is necessary, because a voice-over at the beginning tells us what is going to happen: Richard Plantagenet is going to murder people who are going to come back and haunt him. I believe at the time this picture was made everybody believed the hump-backed murderer story, so perhaps the filmmakers figured people knew that already anyways.

I, of course, know all about what “everybody knows” about Richard III, because I saw a production of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. I kept comparing what I remember about that play to this movie, and I was a little disappointed that Richard never said, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer…” (That’s all I remember of that speech.)

After the spoiler voice-over, the movie gets right down to business with Richard having a hunchback and looking evil. I could see where Mel Brooks got the idea for Igor’s movable hump, because Price’s prosthetic is not real consistent. Then again, my memory may be at fault and I only think the hump changed. If I watch the movie again, I’ll take hump notes (anyways, why would I not include a reference to Young Frankenstein if I thought I could get away with it?).

One of my favorite aspects of watching an old period piece like this one is the hats. I don’t know what they kept putting on Price’s head, but as far as I was concerned it didn’t do enough to cover his bowl haircut. At times I thought he looked like a Pilgrim from the neck up. Oh well, Thanksgiving is coming.

The women’s hats were more fun. One lady sported the traditional princess hat of a cone with a filmy scarf hanging from its point. Richard’s wife Anne had the best headgear. I’m not sure if the costume designers got them from paintings of the era (or within a couple hundred years; you know Hollywood) or from a deck of playing cards. Perhaps the Queen of Hearts, because in this picture, Richard truly loves his wife. She is a good wife, too, all encouraging his evil ambitions and to hell with everybody else. It’s sad what happens to her, which, spoiler alert or not, I won’t share here.

So almost right away, Richard starts murdering and almost immediately following, he starts to be haunted by the ghosts of his victims. You’d think he would repent his evil ways after the first ghost, but, no, after bouts of tremulous madness, he gets his evil mojo back and continues his blood-strewn path to the throne.

He is helped along the way by some henchman whose name I didn’t catch. I kept waiting for the henchman to turn on him or come to a bad end himself, but if it happened, I missed that part. I’m sure some people think that if I’m going to write about movies, it would behoove me to watch them with more attention. Well, I’m not apologizing, because I was roasting pumpkin seeds. It is Halloween week, after all.

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Not Up On All the Good Guy Rules

Posted on October 29, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Two weekends ago, I watched an unusual Hammer Studios film in which Christopher Lee played the good guy, The Devil’s Bride (1968).

Before I forget, Spoiler Alert! I may even give away the ending this time. Perhaps I should also include a No Cheese Alert, because although Hammer Films are quite fun to write about and I do poke fun at them, I could not say they were cheesy. The production values are too good, for one thing. The films are visually appealing. Sets and costumes reflect effort and expense. Perhaps one day I’ll do a whole post pontificating on the cheesiness inherent in the horror genre. In the meantime, back to today’s feature.

The movie opens with Lee and a friend in a carriage riding to a reunion of some sort (you know I never bother about details). They decide to stop at the house of this guy that seems to have dropped from sight. We learn that this is the son of a friend of theirs. The friend is deceased, and Lee and his companion are pledged to take care of the son, now a fine young man.

When they arrive at the young man’s house, some party is going on. An innocent-looking girl says, “Oh, I thought there were only supposed to be 13 of us.” So in case we missed the title, we are clued in. Channeling Sherlock Holmes, Lee tells his friend to listen in on the other guests’ conversations.

When Young Man is all, “So sorry I can’t ask you to stay,” Lee pipes up with, “Can I just look at your telescope quick?” and bounds up the stairs.

The weird charts on the wall and cryptic symbols on the floor are explained away as decorations. Less easily explained are the two chickens Young Man tries to keep Lee from finding.

Lee says he would rather see Young Man dead than involved with this stuff, so this could have been a really short movie, although kind of a downer. Instead, Lee punches him in the face, knocking him cold.

I have to say it again, that is perhaps the movie cliche I find most annoying which is the least true. If it was that easy to knock somebody out with a blow to the face, most boxing matches would be a lot shorter. Oh, I know some boxers do knock their opponents out with one blow, but these are professional punchers and even they can’t do it every time. It is extremely unlikely that random movie characters can accomplish it so conveniently. Rant over.

So Lee and Friend get Young Man to Lee’s house, where Lee brings him around, hypnotizes him, slips a crucifix around his neck and sends him upstairs to sleep it off.

Of course he does not stay safely asleep or, again, this would have been a shorter movie. It’s round one to Satan (or rather his henchmen), but Lee says, “At least we saved the chickens.” That may be, but he leaves them in the basket in the telescope room closet. If he was really going to save them, shouldn’t he, for example, have brought them out to the chicken coop and gotten them some feed and water? Or is that just my Be Kind to Animals obsession talking?

Lee sends his Friend off to rescue the Girl, remember, the one who thought there were only supposed to be 13. Did I mention she is suitable for Friend to fall in love with? I can’t remember where Young Man is at this point. Lee is off to the British Museum for research. My inner geek rejoices at the thought of combating evil through books, but Lee puts an awful lot of faith in somebody who just now began to believe in Satan.

That is the first of several times Lee gives his second string good guys instructions and goes off to do his own thing. You know they aren’t going to be able to handle it. Only the main good guy can ultimately triumph over evil. Then again, as we said earlier, Lee usually plays the bad guy. He’s probably not up on all the good guy rules. And here I am again, carping on the usual means employed to keep the conflict going so the movie is feature length.

And then a bunch of stuff happens.

It seems the head Satan worshipper has vast if inconsistent powers. He can remotely hypnotize people, only sometimes it doesn’t work. And like all movie bad guys and monsters, his victims follow his nefarious instructions at differing rates of speed, depending on plot requirements. One of his followers picks up the hypnotism trick, too, although to what end, I’m not sure. She hypnotizes the guy who’s trying to save her through bondage (it makes sense in the movie), but spends the rest of the scene staring out the window at a storm. Awaiting further instructions, I suppose.

I confess there was a whole lot I did not pay attention to. For example, there is an outdoor worship fest that reminded me of the KKK rally in O Brother, Where Art Thou? I busied myself in the kitchen when I saw a goat and feared it would come to a bad end (there I go again with the Be Kind to Animals).

There is a little girl who is a pretty good actress, not too cute, not too bratty. Of course she is placed in grave danger. I blame Lee. He has the grown-ups (of the non-servant variety) upstairs in the middle of a fancy chalk circle with salt and holy water and whatnot. The kid is in bed being watched over by some old butler or caretaker. Not even a crucifix. Hello! What do you think is going to happen?

I don’t need a spoiler alert to tell you the movie ends with Satan’s followers vanquished (I’m sure the big buy survives to fight another day). Young Man says, “Thank God,” to which Lee piously agrees. You know, apart from the crucifix, there is very little reference to God. Shouldn’t He be the first one you call when you are fighting Satan? I’m just saying.

However, movies are more into the props and, as I mentioned earlier, maintaining the conflict to feature length. Speaking of length, this is getting to be one of my longer posts, so I’ll save the philosophical discussion for Lame Post Friday.

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I Declare a Day Off

Posted on October 28, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

So I was all apologetic about, what was is? five foolish posts last week. And here I am NOT writing a real post today. And I don’t care!

It is not Wrist to Forehead Sunday. I am actually having a pretty good day. I went running this morning and took Tabby for a walk (in addition to our usual cool-down)(yes, both potentially bloggable activities). I did the dishes (not so bloggable, but in a pinch…). I am cooking potato soup (definitely bloggable; I invented the recipe). Oh, and I watched not one but two cheesy movies yesterday. My possibilities are endless!

And I say to hell with it! I’m taking another day off! Just because I want to! And I’ll use just as many exclamation points as I feel like!

So go ahead, shake your finger at me or point and laugh, according to your inclination. I’m going back to stirring my soup and enjoying my day. I hope you are enjoying yours as well.

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Get On With The Creature!

Posted on October 13, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I had great hopes for Wasp Woman (1959). The title seemed to promise a monster. I knew they might slough me off with a big bunch of insects, but I was willing to take that chance. When I saw Roger Corman’s name in the credits, I felt certain I had made a wise decision.

Spoiler Alert! I will give away some plot developments, but not all. Still, more than I would want to know, so I warn you.

The movie opens with predators of a different kind, in a corporate board room. A hard-nosed businesswoman is putting her board through the wringer on declining sales. A good-looking young man jumps up and in arrogant leading-man fashion blames her. It is a cosmetics company, you see, and she has always been its “face.” Now that the face has changed, customers do not trust it.

Snap! Why didn’t you just say, “It’s your fault, because you got so old and ugly!” Incidentally, she’s neither. She’s not young and chipper, but I should look so good in my 40s (I’m still in my 40s for at least another month, so shut up!). Obviously the movie is setting her up to take extreme measures to look young and beautiful. Naturally this will lead to trouble.

I can’t help noticing that the quest to keep a woman young and beautiful forms the catalyst for a number of horror movies. I like best the ones where they have to kill authentically young and beautiful women to do it. Oh dear, that didn’t sound very nice. I only meant that those were the most horrifying and in general the cheesiest. I think woman’s quest for beauty and man’s role in aiding and abetting is a ripe topic for some serious commentary, if I was that sort of a blogger. Being the sort of blogger I am, I may mine the topic for some half-baked philosophy one Lame Post Friday.

Where was I? Ah yes, with Cosmetic CEO ready to fund some highly risky experiments involving wasps. They provide some background on what terrible creatures wasps are, especially the queen, and the supposed scientific basis for the experiments. I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention. You know in these pictures the science is going to be spurious; I say just get on to the creature.

It takes a while for the Wasp Woman to show up, and she’s a pretty good movie monster. I wish she had gotten more screen time. Before the creature shows up we have to go through the mad scientist (he is actually a rather sweet old man) convincing CEO to fund him, then watch him work, progressing too slowly to suit CEO. Of course she experiments by giving herself extra injections.

She doesn’t see a kitten, previously rejuvenated from an old tabby, go crazy and attack the mad scientist. He gets hit by a car and goes into a coma before he can either perfect the formula or warn anybody about what happened to the cat (he kills the cat, by the way; it might have been fun to have several wasp-infused creatures running around but I guess that’s just me, always wanting more).

The hero — remember, arrogant guy from scene 1? — and his love interest — CEO’s secretary — are, not surprisingly, pretty boring. There’s another guy who always has a pipe in his mouth and gets to have a little more character. My favorites were the two brassy secretaries. I was a little worried over who would end up being wasp food, but the body count wasn’t too high (which could be a good or a bad thing, depending).

It’s a pretty fun movie. I recommend it. If you watch it and have a discussion on the feminist implications, please let me know what conclusions you draw.

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Drop that Torch!

Posted on October 9, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I DVR’d The Night the World Exploded some weeks ago, when the pickings were slim (full disclosure: I did not make a note of the year and as I write this, I’m not even sure I’ve got the correct title) (further disclosure: the first draft read The Day the World Exploded; I had written the title but not the year in the TV Journal). I was not sure if it was the sort of cheesy horror movie I love to write about. Still, an old science fiction picture might not be too bad. Or, well, you know, too good. Last weekend, I finally got around to watching it.

Spoiler Alert: I’m probably going to give away everything but the ending, which I do not remember.

I don’t remember the beginning very well, either, but I did have a few minutes’ anxiety that the movie was going to turn out to be a precursor of the Irwin Allen disaster flicks of the ’70s. Of course those movies have a cheesy charm all their own. However, I felt fairly certain that a precursor made as a B feature in whatever year this was would not live up to the Allen opuses (can you use the word “opus” for movies or is it just for music?).

Having started right out with some earthquakes, the movie almost caught my interest when it was revealed that scientists did not know what was causing them. I right away thought subterranean monsters, maybe just woken up after vegetating in some tar pits or frozen during the ice age.

Um, no.

Before we find out the cause, we have to be introduced to the love story. This lady scientist named Hutch (honestly) is about to quit and get married. Some older guy advises her to don’t do that but continue to hold a torch for this other scientist. Sooner or later he’ll suddenly realize he’s in love with her.

Yeah, right. None of my crushes ever accommodated me that way, and I held a couple of torches for an embarrassingly long time. Actually, I don’t really feel too embarrassed about it, because so do a lot of people. One thing most of us do not need encouragement for is to continue to hold a torch, and Hutch is no exception.

(Two side notes: One, nobody in this movie uses the actual words “carry a torch.” That’s my embellishment. Two, anybody gearing up to tell us that they never have and never would carry a torch, don’t bother; none of us will believe you.) (At least, I imagine it must be true that SOME people never carry torches, but how obnoxious it would be to brag about such a thing.)

Where was I?

Ah yes, Hutch stays a scientist, the earthquake nicely providing her with justification for such doormat behavior. The object of her desires does not even treat her very well. When she gets hung up climbing down a loose ladder, he taunts her in an unkind fashion to goad her into continuing. Oh I know, taunting is a time-honored technique and I daresay it even works on occasion. However, I find it unbearably condescending, paternalistic and mean (so anybody thinking of using the taunting method on me the next time I have trouble writing a post, please do not).

So there they are, down a hole in the earth, looking for the cause of the earthquakes. And they find a rock which they say is a new element. Another disclosure: I don’t know from elements. I had to memorize the periodic table in eighth grade science, but all I remember is that Fe means iron and there are some numbers that mean something about electrons or something.

Pause for PSA: Remember, kids! Pay attention in science class! I wish I had!

Back to the blog: Even with my limited scientific knowledge, I think that you cannot just look at a rock and know it is a new element. Sometimes you can’t even look at a rock and know for sure what kind of a rock it is! Don’t they have scientific tests for these things?

But one guy gets all excited and takes the rock home with him (cue unkind jokes about science nerds not taking girls home). We see the rock — uh, element — burst into flames and explode. Cool. Apparently it is quite an explosion, because they never find the poor guy’s body.

The action pauses for a little more condescension toward Hutch from that guy (you know, the one who is GOING to realize he is in love with her SOMEDAY) when she feels sad over her friend, because, you know, a lot of people died in the earthquakes. Perhaps he was making some profound philosophical point. I sat there thinking, “There’s always someone.”

I lost track of the movie shortly after that, so I don’t know how they contained Element 112 or whatever they were calling it. I think Hutch finally got her man, though. I would only recommend this movie for fans of spurious science and condescending love stories. Or, to use another rating system I’ve toyed with: needs robot heads.

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Wrist to Forehead to Movies

Posted on October 7, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Welcome to Wrist to Forehead Sunday. I’m your host, Mohawk Valley Girl.

I think I ended yesterday’s post with a promise to talk more about the Superhero Sprint. In fact, I started to write that post yesterday. Today I pulled it out and wrote a little more on it. And then… Can’t call it Writer’s Blank, because I could think of a few more things to say. Can’t call it Writer’s Block, because, well, it didn’t feel blocked exactly. It was more along the lines of… Writer’s Petering Out.

Oh, it is SO much easier to write a post about Why I Can’t Write a Post!

I tell myself that I have all day to get the post written and typed in. However, I want to get it out of the way so I can get on to the movie watching portion of my Sunday. Perhaps I could say a few words about Movie Watching in October.

It’s no secret that I love Halloween movies all year long. My blog posts on cheesy horror movies prove that. It works, because, unlike Christmas movies, Halloween movies are not always about the holiday for which they are named (I said “not always.” Anybody taking a deep breath to holler at me about the Halloween series, just don’t bother). However, watching scary movies in the autumn has a particular feeling of being the Right Thing To Do.

I say “autumn” instead of “October,” because Steven and I start Halloween season after Labor Day.

We began our 2013 Halloween Movie Watching a few weeks ago with The Blair Witch Project, preceded by Curse of the Blair Witch. It is a perennial favorite of mine. I especially enjoy the alternate narrative technique. And I think it’s a terrific story about how the filmmakers used the Internet to make people believe, for a short time anyways, that the shit really happened.

Last Sunday we satisfied my yen for a monster movie with Tremors. The original, good movie. I never saw any of the sequels, which I heard were quite pathetic, and I never checked out the TV series either.

I had thought to do a full write up on those movies. For one reason, I think about doing a full write up on just about everything I do and see (hey, come on, give me a break, I like to post every day!). I may yet do it.

However, today is Wrist to Forehead Sunday and my brain is just not where I want it to be. Still, I’m over 400 words. How did that happen?

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I Can’t Phantom It

Posted on October 2, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I believe I mentioned watching a cheesy movie last weekend while I was suffering from a sinus problem. I was too fuzzy-headed to pay even my usual desultory attention to it, but I think I can come up with a paragraph or two.

Phantom from 10,000 Fathoms (1956) starts right out by showing you the monster, which looks a little like a low-rent Creature of the Black Lagoon. I don’t particularly mind low rent; it adds to the cheese quotient. Ah, but here’s the point: the title says “phantom” but, to me, that’s a monster. Perhaps the writers considered a phantom a kind of a monster. Or maybe they just like alliteration as much as I do. No matter.

A lone fisherman in a boat apparently does not see the monster, although we can look down into the water and see it perfectly well. I suppose it’s a little petty to carp about a thing like that in a movie like this. After all, we WANT to see the monster, and the writers of the movie wanted the fisherman to NOT see it. Call it dramatic license. After dispatching the poor fisherman, the monster disappears for what seems like a long time (ooh, could that be why they call it a phantom?).

I found the plot a little hard to follow. Nobody is what they seem, except maybe the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter (all your better mad scientists have one). Well, I guess he’s not really a mad scientist. He is an oceanographer. But he is working on something he is being awfully secretive about. His assistant, his secretary and his janitor are all trying to find out what it is.

The assistant is the most sinister of the bunch. He keeps sneaking around carrying a harpoon gun. I wasn’t clear on what exactly he does as an assistant, since it seems he’s not privy to the doctor’s actual work. Then again, I was not clear on a lot during this movie, most notably my sinuses (for once I have an excuse other than my usual “just not paying attention”).

I didn’t mind the assistant being sneaky; at least his motives were made clear later. I’m still puzzling over what the main guy is even doing there. He shows up when this federal (I think) guy is investigating the sailor we saw get whacked in the first scene. He says his name is Ted Baxter (did you all just flash on The Mary Tyler Moore Show? I did). We later find out he’s really Ted Stevens, a prominent oceanographer who wrote a book on which his picture is prominently displayed. Didn’t he think the guy he is going to see — the mad scientist/oceanographer — might possibly have a copy of his book? Perhaps modesty overcame him.

I got a little chuckle thinking that Ted’s fake name sounded more real than his real name. I read somewhere that when people come up with aliases, they often use their own first name for a last name. For example, in Tootsie, Michael Dorsey becomes Dorothy Michaels. It would not have surprised me to find out that Ted Stevens’ real name was Steven Tedford. But I digress.

As I was saying, I never did find out why Ted was masquerading as Ted Knight, but in any case, both Federal Guy and Mad Oceanographer find him out quite soon and with very little difficulty.

Every so often the Phantom Monster shows up again. We find out what Sneaky Assistant is up to, we watch Mad Oceanographer at work, and of course Ted romances Beautiful Daughter. I never really figured out the whole plot (blame my sinus infection), but I think it boiled down to the beware-of-science-there-are-things-we-aren’t-supposed-to-know paranoia that became so popular at the dawn of the atomic age.

I will have to watch this silly movie again when my head is less fuzzy.

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Don’t Swallow Your Oxygen Gum

Posted on September 24, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

In my ongoing quest to find cheesy movies to write about, I watch some pretty bad ones. I try to make it all the way through them, just on principle. However, I think it is OK to write about a movie I didn’t watch all the way through, as long as I make a full disclosure.

Full Disclosure: I did not watch all of Battle in Outer Space (sorry, didn’t write down the year) (I’m not even sure I wrote down the right title; I can’t find it in any of Steven’s movie books). I don’t think I even watched enough to warrant a spoiler alert.

Steven and I tried to watch the movie twice. The second time, we weren’t even sure we had tried it before. The title didn’t sound familiar (I think I have established that it is not very memorable). On consulting the TV Journal before writing this, I learned that it was two weeks between attempted viewings.

Once it started I said, “Oh, yes, we started to watch this. Remember, the credits are in Japanese.”

Steven asked, “Is this the one where the guy goes up in the air?”

The scene Steven referred to is pretty much all I remember from the movie, and it goes way beyond “Waaait a minute” and into “Huh?” or even more vulgar expressions. A group of men (no women in this movie, another thing to dislike about it) are walking through a space ship, in outer space. Suddenly one of them starts to float up to the ceiling. One of his colleagues pulls him back down.

“I forgot there’s no gravity here,” Floating Guy explains. And they continue to walk down the corridor. On the ground! As if there’s plenty of gravity!

Excuse me, what? Just by knowing there’s no gravity they can act as if there’s gravity? It’s never explained. Not even some bad science crap like, “Push the button on your belt to create your personal gravity field.” I suppose some people would have found that harder to swallow than force of mind overcoming all, but I like an explanation, however spurious.

For example, I don’t know if anybody remembers a cartoon from (I think) the 1960s (I saw it in the ’60s) called Marine Boy. Marine Boy could function perfectly well in the water because he had — I kid you not — Oxygen Gum. I was about three years old (don’t sit there doing the math and shake your finger at me like I’m pretending to be younger than what I am) (I’m 49). I took things at face value. The only thing I found odd about Oxygen Gum was that Marine Boy put it in his mouth, gave one chew and was done. I did not have gum very often, but I knew you were supposed to keep chewing it.

I did not spend much of my young life pondering the inconsistency. I suppose it wasn’t too many years later that I began to understand the limitations of animation.

I don’t intend to spend too much of my middle age wondering what the makers of Battle in Outer Space were thinking with that gravity thing. The movie was dull, and there were not enough scientific howlers to distract me from that.

Perhaps I could find some re-runs of Marine Boy on the Cartoon Network.

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