Tag Archives: radiation

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“Beast of Yucca Flats” (1961) – Oh, Sweet Brevity!

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This is a really short movie. A “quicky” if ever there were one. Not necessarily a bad thing is this case but if you can tolerate this mish mash, then you have earned a symbolic badge of honor for witnessing one of the worst films ever made!

Tor Johnson is a defecting Soviet scientist who relocates to the Southwestern Nevada region of Yucca Flat (s). The professor apparently is carrying secret documents that contain highly confidential information regarding Russia’s space plans for The Moon. Russian agents are sent to intercept Johnson and get the classified information back. A chase ensues and the scientist and his pursuers end up clashing right smack dab in the middle of the Yucca Flat test site, an area where atomic bomb testing takes place. Johnson manages to elude the agents/assassins but can’t get out of line of sight of a nearby atomic test. Johnson is slathered over with atomic radiation and transforms into a raging psychotic killer! The countryside is not safe.

Completely disjointed, ragged filmmaking effort. Probably a tax write off of some sort. Don’t miss the absurdist voice over narrator pontificate about the struggles of life and moral implications of this slice of storytelling sappiness.

Tor Johnson, a former wrestler, and he of gargantuan proportions, gives his usual somnambulist performance as a rampaging, twisted monster. (See “Plan 9 From Outer Space”).

Don’t expect to walk away from this one with anything more than loss of 70 minutes of your life that you will never get back.

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“Die, Monster, Die” (1965) – Even the best laid plans lay an egg.

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I have always personally enjoyed this Boris Karloff scare fest set in the English countryside, but it may not be your cup of Earl Grey. I think it is the atmospheric locales complete with swirling fog banks and the rustic British environs plus the deeply saturated colors that most appeals to me. Boris is his sinister best in one of his latter day horror roles. I guess you could call this a cosmic horror tale as it is loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” short tale.

American Nick Adams ventures to a distant estate to visit his fiance. Little does he realize that her father, Karloff, is engaged with an out of his control element that has rendered many in the household ill and dying. It seems that a great meteorite crashed in a field near the estate and at first exhibited properties that enabled plant and animal life to demonstrate exaggerated growth that might prove beneficial as food sources for an ever-hungry world. Alas, things took a turn for the worse and too much exposure to unknown properties of objects out in space can have adverse effects on the body over an extended period of time. Well, you see what is unfolding. Events go really badly. The ending of this thing is my favorite part. I guess the mutated, Super Chicken laid an egg. Watch out for The Silver Man!

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“Day The World Ended” (1955) – The Struggle Is Only Beginning

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Produced and directed by genre icon Roger Corman, this is an interesting premise of a group of survivors of a nuclear holocaust randomly seeking shelter from the toxic elements in a mountainside residence. The home is populated by a father and his daughter. He is ex-military and foresaw this day of calamity coming and stocked his place with weapons, food and water – for three people. The uninvited guests will prove to be a burden on the limited supplies. Along with the wandering humanity, the hills are populated with mutated monsters that were once men. None of the survivors is sure if the radiation is making them sick and shortening their lives or not. Doubt and paranoia run deep as the people in the house jockey for control and the mountain monsters start to stray close to the house looking for fresh meat.

This movie was remade in 1967 as “In The Year 2889”. I must say that I enjoyed the remake better. It is literally a note for note copy of the original but doesn’t seem as repetitive. I mean how times can the characters in “Day” talk about not going into the radioactive fog (The Light….Hehe!). At only 80 minutes in length, that topic seems to be done to death.

This is an otherwise good Corman production and is recommended.

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“The Horror Of Party Beach (1964) – The Mayhem Mash

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I have mixed emotions about this twisted little horror film. I remember watching it as a kid and being terrified of many parts of it. There is a lingering memory of the mutated bullfrog chants of the human/aquatic monstrosities created from a ruptured barrel of hazardous radiation waste. The warped soundtrack music careening between creepily plodding to crazed, primitive synthesizer driven fury. Meanwhile, you’ve got a bunch of blood thirsty, shabbily costumed creatures marauding around in the dark looking for unsuspecting human victims.

I think I covered my eyes more than once during this mayhem. I probably covered my ears as well. This is a movie that was created for the teenage movie going crowd so there is a surf band performing on Party Beach thrown in for good measure. Surf music was very much in vogue at the time. This band isn’t very good.

It’s all a very low budget affair but very entertaining! Watching it these days, it still holds some of its charms. But new fears arise: leaking, cannisters of radioactive waste dumped in the ocean really don’t benefit anyone except the movies’ producers.

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The Cyclops (1957) – EYE-YI-YI!!!!

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To be blunt about this mess of a film, save the 90 minutes of your time and skip this movie! This movie is very repetitive and follows a clueless group of four people trying to find a missing person who ended up lost in a valley that is highly irradiated. As a result of this radiation rich zone, animals have grown to enormous proportions. There are giant hawks, an enormous snake and a titanic lizard. Oh. There is also an unfortunate quasi-human who turns out to be the missing man who is now 20 or so feet tall and whose right eye is covered over by a curiously misaligned, through the course of this turkey, flap of skin. Yeah, not much happens in this film but scenes of characters tramping through the desert locale in search of an uncommunicative and grunting disfigured giant. Dreadful!

mysterious places, science fiction, science fiction films, suspense

IN THE YEAR 2889 – OVER 2 MILLION VIEWS!

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I like this talky, little tale of a group of characters trying to hole up in a cabin and ride out a nuclear holocaust.  We see some stock footage at the start of this thing that compiles various angles of mushroom clouds.  A prophetic voice over accompanies the footage.  Great start!  We get more rehashed, archive films of mountains, trees and the outdoors to enable the finishing up of the audio narrative.  The folks who end up reluctantly spending time together are running out of space and time.  Radioactive fallout may soon be encroaching onto their turf and the surrounding countryside is inhabited by unfortunate, radiation poisoned mutations who are hungry!  Still, there are folks who would rather venture outside the compound to take their chances somewhere else.   That’s what creates drama, after all!  This is a rather plodding flick but it has a quaint, amateurish style that I find attractive.  2 million YouTube viewers CANNOT be wrong!