The Beast of Yucca Flats

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Lordy, lordy......., 2008-12-11
I am a BIG fan of bad movies, and have often said that the worse a movie was, the better I liked it. But I now see that there is a point at which a movie can be so bad that even I cannot abide it. br / br /Well, lets first look at the positives. First, and thankfully, it was short. I can take being water-boarded for 54 minutes without spilling my guts so making it through this movie was a walk in the park. It really was over before the true awfulness of the movie had a chance to sink in. If it had been 90 minutes it would have been a different story, I probably would have had to commit suicide. Secondly, and here is the funny part, the transfer was EXTREMELY good. Flawless in fact, one of the best I have ever seen. Where did they find an original print of this movie in such good condition? Also, the quality of the DVD itself was really good, the thing is twice as thick as most DVDs. I guess in a pinch you could sharpen it up and use it like a shurekin. So it stands on technical merit if nothing else. And don't forget Jim's hot babe. She was sexy in a middle-aged trailer trashy sort of way. br / br /Ok, the bad part. Well, that was everything between the opening credits and the end. I put it that way because the opening scene before the credits rolled was pretty avant guarde for 1961. I did not know you could get away with displaying bare jugs on the silver screen in 1961, but there they were. It gets points (and they were a little pointy) for that. Two snaps up to Tony for having the huevos to pull that off. He showed a little streak of Russ Meyer there. But other than that it was just plain unvarnished cinematic awfulness. br / br /The "plot", a defecting scientist, was pretty stock those days, but the whole "wandering out on to Yucca Flats" thing?? I used to live not too far from there and I can assure you that a gnat cannot "wander out on to Yucca Flats" without having guys with machine guns come out of the woodwork. And the sign leading to Yucca Flats is not a piece of cardboard nailed to a tomato stake with "Yucca Flats" written on it with a crayon. As I recall there is mention of "Use of Deadly Force Authorized Beyond This Point" on that sign, which usually deters folks from "wandering" any further. br / br /Tor Johnson (RIP) was the selling point for this flick, but you can only stand so much of an overweight and pitifully out of shape Tor staggering around like a drunk strangling people. And that was pretty much all that happened after the pitiful "chase scene" culminating in his being scorched by a nuke test and degenerating into The Beast. And in the end, when the golden opportunity presented itself, Tor missed the chance to strangle that rabbit or bite it's head off or something. At least that would have had some shock value after those flaccid strangling scenes of his. br / br /The soundtrack......WHAT SOUNDTRACK??? This was essentially a silent movie with a narrative "soundtrack" plastered on it in post production, and everything else Foleyed in at some point. Even the voices of the "actors" were done in narrative style, I thought they stopped doing that after "The Jazz Singer" came out. Not that it really made the movie any harder to watch, it just added to it's overall terribleness. br / br /And that horrible scene where Jim flew around shooting at the wrong guy for half the movie. That went on for way too long, but provided you a nice little "intermission" to go get something to eat or take a dump or something without missing anything of note, as if there was anything to miss. br / br /OK, so why am I giving it three stars you might be thinking?? Well, you cannot give it less than one, and it earns a point for the unbelievably good video transfer, even if the transfer was wasted such a bad movie. That gets it up to two stars. It earns another star simply because it sets the bar to a new cinematic low. Fans of Ed Wood and Phil Tucker can sit back smugly, confident that NOBODY can watch "The Beast" and still think "Plan 9" or "Robot Monster" is the worst movie ever made. The bad movie category now has a new champion. br / br /So, if you are a real glutton for punishment, go ahead and drop the $4.99 for this one, just so you can say you saw it. Pull it out one night when you have some buddies over to watch some bad movies and astound them with your ability to sit through the worst of the lot.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Camp?, 2008-09-18
I watched the legendary The Beast Of Yucca Flats for the first time ever on one of those cheapo 50 movie pak DVDs, so there were no extras, save for chapter selection. Given my years of childhood staying awakings throughout the 1970s, and watching every film, it seemed, in the catalogs of such legendary shows as Chiller Theater and Creature Feature, how I missed this is beyond me; especially given that its lead star is the truly legendary Tor Johnson, of Plan 9 From Outer Space infamy. br / For those in the know, Johnson was a Swedish wrestler who played a ghoul in Ed Wood's great 1959 bad film, and, were that his only claim to- ok, let's call it `fame,' that would be enough. However, just a mere two years, and it seems 150 or more pounds heavier, Johnson turned in an even better, or badder, role in the 1961 black and white atrocity, The Beast Of Yucca Flats. Ok, perhaps atrocity is too strong, for this film does have a few of the `good' bad aspects that define Wood's film, as well as the classic Robot Monster. Better yet, it clocks in at a mere 54 minutes in length, showing a decency and consideration most bloated Hollywood bombs never show their viewers. However, it does not have enough of them that it can rank up there with such as the other aforementioned films. Mainly, this is because it lacks all humor....except for the narration (by the film's director, Coleman Francis), which is amongst the worst ever in film, save for its unintended humor. The cinematography, however, has no such caveat, as the poor framing, atrocious editing, and unsynched audio track- the film was filmed silently, then conversations were added in later, but it's a mess, nonetheless, as characters speak only when their faces are not visible, and gunshots ring out only when the pulled guns wander out of frame. Because the director did not care to even allow his actors to speak I don't think it's even necessary to delineate them nominally, so I won't. Besides, would you even watch this film is you knew it starred Bing Stafford as....? No, ain't gonna give you the name of the actor. The reason you're even reading this is because of Tor Johnson, anyway. Back to detailed criticism: even worse than the unsynched audio is the scoring, in which standard 1950s era television `exciting' music clues the viewer into the fact that something `exciting' is going on. Well, not really, but didacticism has its needs. No? Perhaps the worst aspect of the film, however, is the screenplay, written by the multitasking Francis, whose prescience in doing so, decades before the term multitasking was coined, is a marvel.... The Beast Of Yucca Flats is a bad film that is so nonsensical that to emphasize its badness is utterly beside the point, for anyone seeking sense in such a film should have his head examined. See, I can stoop to banality when needed. Oh, and before I forget, parts of the film are in nearly pristine condition, while other reels are streaked and blemished. I just decided to throw that factoid in. And this: the film is dull, unless one factors in the bad narration, which would then make the narration somehow redolent of something deeper, even if the onscreen action is still dull. br / But, then there's the (imagine a deep, rich manly voice bellowing) X FACTOR!!!! Tor Johnson, whose utter inability to emote, heroic resistance to gravity's pull on corpulence, and seeming unawareness to differentiate between real life and fiction make him utterly irresistible to the human eye. I challenge any film critic to watch this film, or any of his other classic B film appearances, and state that he dominates the screen like few cinema stars ever have. Granted, a month old festering corpse might attract the same sort of perverse voyeurism, but that's just details. Having seen this film now, I can honestly say I am content to lay down in a desert and have a wild hare nibble at my rotting remains. Although, I doubt I could master Johnson's moving corpse as well. Cue solemn Coleman Francis narration: br /

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Yucca, The Land of Progress!, 2008-05-15
Wow I didn't even know that Yucca Flats was such a progressive place, at least that's what the narrator/director keeps telling us over and over. I don't know about you but when did a desert become a place of progress!?! br / br /This has to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, that was not intentionally being funny! Everyone credits Plan 9 From Outer Space as being the worst film of all time but I have to say this movie makes Plan 9 look like a big budget motion picture. Everything about this film is just plain bad but that's what makes it so damn entertaining! I see that many people don't agree with me but where else can you watch a chase scene that is absolutely ridiculous? br / br /A Soviet scientist (Tor Johnson in his last starring role, thank god) is running from people that are shooting at him at point blank range but continue to miss him. You have to understand that Tor is a huge wrestler and is not that quick on his feet and is an EASY target but somehow he outruns these pursuers and ends up right next to the stock footage of a nuclear bomb going off! br / br /Well with a little bit of facial skin damage and a hand that has some peeling skin (he must have had a sunburn from all of the desert scenes and that's the extent of the effects) he is turned into THE BEAST! No he looks like the same guy but badly in need of sunscreen! Get this man some aloe pronto and he won't be so crazy. Well this sends him over the deep end as the announcer so kindly tells us. The narration is what makes this stinker so darn funny. It sounds sometimes like he is just reading some random words and it's all improvisation. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, like this classic line, "Children from New York, not exposed to progress" HUH? What? Are you telling me that there is more progress in the desert than in New York? What a mess this film is but that's what makes it so lovingly wonderful! br / br /Get a couple of kegs, invite some friends over and watch their faces turn to shock and horror when you put this stinker on! I'm not sure what you'll laugh at more, the horrified faces or the completely awful film that this is. Either way, it's guaranteed to make the party fun for you, I don't know what your guests will think though. Really build it up like it's the classic that it isn't or is. I don't know I just know I loved it for how horribly awful it was. I'm still laughing about this dreck.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I simply could not get thru it, 2008-03-21
This is yet another film that is so bad that you can't even enjoy it for camp value. It is just plain stupid, without humor, without acting, without a speck of plot beyond the crudest formula. Scientist gets exposed to radiation. Becomes killer zombie thingie. I did not watch what happened, though I did sit thru several poorly acted murders. br / br /Not recommended. There are infinitely better films you can get for the same price. If this film has the reputation of being one of the worst ever made, I am not surprised.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Some Things Were Not Meant to Be Seen by the Eyes of Man, 2007-09-18
I am unsure of why I gave this movie two stars instead of one. I think it might have been Tor Johnson's riveting performance. Well, maybe it was the scene where the sheriff shoots a guy running down the road because, (1) the guy was running down the road and (2) he could. Something about this movie just begs for a remake. Maybe they could use Tor Johnson again. Just because Johnson has been dead for more than 35 years would hardly be noticeable if the remake was anything like this movie. br / br /The really bad thing about this movie is that the opening scene is the best scene in the entire movie. The movie goes down hill from there. Tor Johnson is supposedly a scientist defecting to the U.S. I suppose the people chasing after Johnson are supposed to be KGB or spies. Regardless, the protection he got from his bodyguards was pitiful, but did give Johnson an excuse to wander off into the nearby desert, which also happens to be where nuclear testing regularly occurred. br / br /Now, you might wonder why this particular nuclear testing site was open to tourists. I am going to have to let you speculate on that one, because I have no good answers. The really unfortunate thing for Tor Johnson is that he missed the souvenir stand at the entrance to the site. You know, the one with the two-headed lizards and the replica giant Gila monsters known to have been created by nuclear radiation. I digress. br / br /The radiation turns Tor/the Soviet scientist into a mindless killing machine. Tor then stumbles about the desert silently. As it turns out, director Francis Coleman made the movie very silently because he filmed none of the movie with a soundtrack. Everything you hear, Coleman had dubbed later, which is why the little boys lost in the desert sound like they are talking from the bottom of a coffee can. Of course, the lack of sound meant that Tor Johnson could stumble about the desert without making a sound, sneaking up on people to attack them. Yeah, I know. But that statement makes about as much sense as the movie. br / br /The local sheriff decides that shooting anyone running about the desert is a sure-fire method of eliminating the killer, no matter how many innocent fathers he has to kill in the process. Of course, if you kill enough innocent people, eventually you have to get the killer through process of elimination. If you ever wondered why the desert is so empty... br / br /Anyway, by the time this movie is over I was scratching my head. I was wondering why I subject myself to these movies. I was wondering who gave Francis Coleman money to make this thing. I was wondering why Tor Johnson agreed to appear in this movie, which killed his career (it was the last movie Johnson ever made). On the other hand, you would have thought that "Plan 9 from Outer Space" would have killed Johnson's film career. You just never know, I guess. br / br /On the other hand, if you get all worked up about the sound and picture quality, I can tell you that both seem to replicate the inanity of the original film with too much accuracy. br / br /If you have to watch every awful science fiction movie ever made, you absolutely have to get this movie. Is it worse than "Plan 9 from Outer Space"? That is a hard call. However, this movie sure gives that movie a challenge as far as being the worst movie ever made. Just remember, there are some things that were not meant to be seen by the eyes of man, and this movie may be one of them. br / br /Good luck! br / br / br /