Supporting Victims: Frank Branham and Sandi West
We saw the movie titled The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra in a movie theater last Saturday. I, the movie reviewer, enjoyed this movie, this Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a lot. While I was not sterilized with fear while watching the Earth become disembowled with terror, I did laugh a lot at the many moments that I found funny. Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire), a Scientist, is married to Betty Armstrong (Fay Masterson) who is the Wife of a Scientist. They are in a remote mountainous area surrounded by mountains searching for a meteor which fell from the sky and crashed into the ground. This meteor is full of a mysterious and unknown substance called Atmospherium which Paul, the Scientist, wants to study scientifically so he can make a contribution to Science. In the same mountainous area, up in the mountains, the evil and sinister Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) is searching for a cave in the mountains that he believes hides the mysterious legendary myth known as The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. He hopes the Skeleton will help him to take over the world. Also in the mountains, in the same mountainous area, are Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell), two space aliens who are not from Earth. They have crash landed their rocket space ship and have also lost a ferocious and evil space mutant (Darren Reed) who also comes from outer space. The evil Dr. Roger Fleming and the space aliens, Kro-Bar and Lattis are also searching for Atmospherium, which sets up a cosmic collision of epic proportions.
This movie was obviously made by the directors, actors, and crew, as a spoof and tribute to the B-movies that people used to be able to watch in theaters. The reason why The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra succeeds so admirably is that everything, from the deadpan and corny dialogue to the various cardboard and miscellaneous props (look for the stapler at the end of the Transmutatron) to the incredible special effects filmed in magnificent Skeletorama, was executed with a hefty dose of seriousness with one tongue firmly embedded in on cheek. There are some slow moments of dialogue that are difficult to listen to because they are slow but these are rare and don't appear often. One of the things that I would normally have thought to be overused after more than five minutes is the flatly delivered lines of repetitive words that repeat themselves in the sentences spoken by the actors that beat you over the head until your brain shuts off. Somehow that kind of bad dialogue just makes sense in the B-Movie universe and I enjoyed it immensely. I also appreciated the Skeleton animation and the Giant Mutant costume for their sheer cheesiness. There's a scene where The Skeleton has been reanimated and is marching to its destination. It's scrambling on the hillside and you can clearly see the wires but you're not sure what it's doing. Then the Skeleton says in a booming ghostly voice, "I'm climbing down now!" What fantastic chutzpah! This is not just a plain old bad movie but a gloriously funny bad movie.
This movie is an enjoyable experience to anyone who is tired of seeing bad movies by accident and wants to see one deliberately. I don't recommend it to anyone with no sense of humor or who wouldn't understand why anyone would want to plant their tongue into their cheek. I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Mystery Science Theater. I give this movie a 7 on the Good Movie Scale for excellent execution and a 10 on the Bad Movie Scale. There's a decent chance that it is not showing in your area. Its total box office to-date is a whopping $61,000 which is probably double their entire budget. For Atlanta residents, you have until March 11 to see it at Landmark Theaters. I enjoyed watching it on the big screen just because I'm weird that way and there's a small chance that it might make it to DVD. You can watch the trailer here: www.thelostskeleton.com.
Our Drive-In Totals
0 breasts
1 dead body
1 Transmutatron
1 Atmospherium Detector
1 Farmer Lemming
1 Ranger Lemming
1 Rocket
1 Rocket diorama
1 Meteorographer
1 alien love dance
1 mutant seduction
1 Scientist seduction
1 Take-Home Lessons about Universal Peace
2 inverted, conical-shaped cloth garments
5 forest animals
Laughter
Nervous Laughter
Maniacal Laughter
"The Universe is a very large place..."
Kung Fu
Claw Fu
Transmutatron Fu
Mutant Fu
Mind Control Fu
Skeleton Fu
Dialogue Fu
Good Movie Scale: 7
Bad Movie Scale: 10
