Robot Monster (1953)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex desperately wishes for an hour of his life back.

Yeah, because I was REALLY expecting quality from this, right?

Overview: Our tale begins with Johnny, an all-American youngster who loves science and loves to play space cops. Or something. He's out for a picnic with his annoying little sister, older sister, and mom, when suddenly the setting shifts to a post-apocalyptic world where the fearsome Ro-man has wiped out all other human life, and Johnny and co. are only alive thanks to SCIENCE!

By the way, this is what our antagonist looks like.

Yeah.

So, this fat man in a gorilla suit and spaceman helmet terrorizes our heroes until they come up with a complicated plan to call upon the soldiers in the space platform (which isn't mentioned until that point) who Ro-man hasn't killed because fuck you, that's why.

An offscreen Professor and assistant have also managed to invent a serum that prevents all diseases, and this also somehow guards against Ro-man's "death ray" that has wiped everyone else out.

Our heroes go to execute their daring plan to save the last bit of humanity! And everyone dies. Until the movie reveals that all this bullshit (95% of its running time) was a dream. There. Now you don't have to watch it. Augh this movie.

Notable moments/quotes: Much of the movie has what I can only describe as "jaunty horror music" laid over it, as though somebody said to the music guy, "Okay, we need a tense, scary theme for this movie about a kid's post-Apocalypse dream, but you can only use ragtime piano and a triangle. Go!" At best, it's jarring, and at worst it completely covers up the dialogue. Oh, and the movie likes to insert screen flashes and loud screeching noises every time Ro-man and his king/president/CO/something exchange exposition.

Johnny's little sister: "Am I dead?"
Johnny, wearing a Spaceman Spiff-esque outfit: "No, you're disintegrated!"
"Good, does that mean we can play house now, you promised."

Johnny, to dream dad, sounding as excited as the prospect of going to a ball game: "Maybe we could kill him, Pop-Pop!"

Robot leader, to Ro-man: "You sound like a hu-man, not a ro-man."

"Rule of Acquisition #482: Why have an original verbal tic when you can steal one?"

The dad draws a pistol when all seems lost and Ro-man is closing in.
His wife: "Even atomic guns couldn't stop him!"
Dad of the year: "It's not for him, it's for us."

Cocky assistant, to hot lady scientist: "You know something? You're either too beautiful to be smart or too smart to be beautiful." Since this was made in the 50s, this is treated as a compliment.

Ro-man, to our heroes after he blows up the space station (clearly a toy rocket on a string): "Calculate your chances? Negative. Negative. Negative."

Johnny's little sister, not long before Ro-man snaps her irritating neck off-screen: "Is Alice gonna have a date with Ro-man?"

Johnny, super cheerful, as he stands over his little sister's grave: "Gee, I wish I'd played house with her more often!"

My thoughts: First and foremost, fuck this movie. "All just a dream" was a cliche even back then, and there's maybe five minutes of this 66 minute snorefest that actually take place in reality. So most of the movie ends up having as much relevance as Sonic '06.

However, the real villain here isn't Ro-man but rather Johnny, who I am 90% sure grows up to be a serial killer. This creepy little bastard not only dreams of a world where nearly the entire human race is dead, but remains cheerful the whole way through even when his family members die around him. Hell, at one point he gleefully gives away the secret to his family's survival to Ro-man for no reason whatsoever. The movie would have us believe this small child is tricked by Ro-man, but I know better. Even when he's woken up, this hammy 50s movie doesn't give us overblown bits about Johnny having a nightmare; instead, he has more a "gee whiz, what a dream!" attitude.

Determination.

All I'm sayin' is that's one kid I wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley. There's something about an evil child that's far, far creepier than an evil adult, and this movie unintentionally hits a gold mine of darkness with its protagonist. You get just enough time to forget what an unsettling little brat he is, and then he'll be cheerfully talking about his dead sister or something while everyone else is weeping.

I know the movie is old, but the effects are universally terrible. Dinosaurs that are obviously plastic models duel in a choppy fashion. Rockets are on strings. Pictures of destroyed cities are obviously, well... pictures, rather than some kind of set or something more effort was put into. Ro-man is some guy in a gorilla suit, and his commander officer literally looks no different than him. Sounds the same, too. Sure, these are supposed to be a race of robots (yeah, don't bother trying to apply logic to that one), but one would think the leader would at least have a cape or a crown or... something.

Yeah! Super King's got the right idea.

In the end, I really don't have much to say about this movie. Apparently Mystery Science Theater 3000 did an episode on this, so I'd highly recommend going with that if you really want to watch this turkey. As it was, even a B movie veteran like myself barely extracted any enjoyment from this trash. There was one more thing I wanted to mention, however.

I came across this movie on someone's (maybe on Rotten Tomatoes? I just had to reformat my hard drive, so I lost a lot of material for this post which is why it's late) Top 50 Bad Movies list or something like that, and I decided to go with it for two reasons. First and foremost, this was made in the era for bad sci-fi, and several different people recommended it to me as one of the worst movies ever made. However, the second reason was due to a macabre story I heard about its director. I have no idea if it's true, but it's an interesting little tidbit and I don't do heavy research, so I'm including it here.

Supposedly, the director of this movie, the late Phil Tucker, had high hopes for its success. He was, therefore, devastated when this movie was a failure commercially and critically. As the story goes, depressed by his failure, he put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger... and missed. Now, I don't like to make fun of mental illness or suicide, but... good god, that's so fitting for this turkey of a film. I give movie a Nic Cage Praises the Lord out of five.

Speaking of turkeys, I'll be out of town most of next week for Thanksgiving, so Movie Russian Roulette will be taking a week off. I'll return on December 4th or 5th, raring to go with some fresh cinematic bile.

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