November 4, 2009

Phil Tucker’s Robot Monster is, in a word, horrendous.  Really, I can’t remember the last time that a 62-minute movie felt so long (not to mention mind-numbingly boring).  To be fair, it does have that certain naive charm that characterizes so many “B” monster movies of the 50’s, but no matter which way you slice it this one has earned its spot in the annals of movie history as being a stinker for the ages.

The plot of Robot Monster will give you a splitting headache, but I’ve tasked myself with describing it in all of its nonsensical glory, so here we go.  Aliens known as the Ro-men have become fed-up with how fast mankind’s intelligence has evolved, so they’ve decided to take the only logical course of action.  That’s right–complete and total annihilation of the human species.  They decide that the best way to reach this goal is to release a cosmic “death ray”—yes, that’s really what it’s called—which inexplicably also causes giant lizards and legions of triceratops to appear and engage one another in epic battles.  It’s later revealed that in the initial Ro-man attack, humans launched hydrogen bombs to try and stop the invasion.  The end result is very much like what we see in the Terminator series—a nuclear (or is it hydrogen?) winter.  The only place to escape this destruction, however, appears to be a small sliver of desert somewhere in the western United States.  There, a professor and his family has managed to survive the attack of the Ro-men by injecting themselves with a serum that said professor had developed just before the attack.  This isn’t your run-of-the-mill vaccine, either; this stuff stops all human ailments.  That, as you’d imagine, includes cosmic death rays.

There’s not a whole lot else for me to say about Robot Monster that isn’t inferred by looking at the DVD cover.  The story is completely absurd and all of the action takes place in a dried up river bed.  The lone Ro-man who’s been sent to destroy the professor and his family engages in behavior that makes absolutely no-sense.  For one thing, he wears a space helmet but finds that, in the foreign atmosphere of Earth, he needs no other form of physical protection.  He’s essentially a giant gorilla with a 50s-era diving helmet placed on his head.  I feel sorry for the poor schmuck who had to run around the desert in that get-up for who knows how long.

But I digress—let’s get back to the Ro-man’s behavior.

With the technology available to this alien race, you think it’d be a piece of cake to wipe out the handful of people who have survived the Ro-attack.  As with Plan 9 from Outer Space, however, their technology seems limited to boxes with knobs placed atop wooden tables.  These boxes also occasionally spit out bubbles and sparks.  

Am I missing something here?  

And instead of having any sort of vehicle, the Ro-man is limited to walking around the immediate vicinity of the cave where his command station (I use that term loosely) is established.  And he eliminates the pesky humans by—what else?—gently smacking them around.  I must admit, though, that there is one unexpected (albeit disturbing) scenario that involves a little girl and our villainous gorilla-alien, but I’ll leave it at that.

I feel like this is somewhat of a low-blow given the release date of Robot Monster, but I absolutely have to comment on one particular effects sequence.  As we witness the destruction of a rocket traveling around in space—or is it the upper atmosphere?—we actually see the technician who’s moving the rocket around.  I’m not talking a brief glimpse here; this is a full-on view of the tech’s hand and arm.  Check out the visual aid below (which has been enlarged and labeled for your viewing convenience) if you don’t believe me.  An occasional boom dangling above an actor’s head isn’t all that surprising, but this is one of the laziest attempts at special effects creation that I’ve ever seen. 

In case you have some sort of insatiable desire to see this (and if you do, then I have no idea what’s wrong with you), then skip over this SPOILER: the entire plot turns out to be the dream of a young boy.  That’s right—Phil Tucker decided to pull the ole’ switch-a-roo in the very last seconds of the movie.

So, what’s my final rating of Phil Tucker’s monstrosity?  The best way to answer that is to directly quote Ro-man XJ2: “Negative! Negative! Negative!”

   out of 5

 –Chris Flowers

Check out a scene from the abysmal Robot Monster: