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The Beast of Yucca Flats

The Beast of Yucca Flats

List Price: $6.98
Your Price: $6.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bevare!
Review: Cool title, neat cover, Tor, looks like a winner, right? Don't be fooled. I love Robot Monster, Kronos, Colossal Man (BTW, why is this not on DVD?), etc., and truly believe that Ed Wood Jr. is a far superior filmmaker to Lucas, Speilberg, et al., but even for a fan of this kind of thing, this one is excruciating. By all means buy it for the cover so friends will think you're outre hip or whatever, but do not actually watch it or you will hate yourself. I'm writing this to help people. Ignore at your own risk!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bevare!
Review: Cool title, Tor, looks like a winner, right? Don't be fooled. I love Robot Monster, etc., and truly believe that Ed Wood Jr. is a far superior filmmaker to Lucas, Speilberg, et al., but even for a fan of this kind of thing, this one is excruciating. By all means buy it for the cover so friends will think you're outre hip or whatever, but do not actually watch it or you will hate yourself.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Painful...slow......badly editing......
Review: I've never seen this movie by itself,so I can't give a good review,except for when I seen it when MST3K did this back in early 90's..What they did was funny(as always)and made the movie more enjoyable.Coleman Francis is THE worst director there was and should have chosen a different occupation....Too much narration(just ramblings really),bad editing,no acting;and so on....By the way,who killed the woman at the beginning of the film anyway????..Tor??...Alot of it doesn't make sense??? The movie is too short as well.....Do yourself a favor and get the MST3K version instead and don't waste your time on just the movie itself!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: cool stuff here
Review: if you a fan of ed wood like movies then you will want this campy flick, tor johnson is at his beastly best, totaly hokey, b&w, hardly any talking at all its mostly voice overs, all in all i love it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Minimalist Genius
Review: Less is more. "The Beast" is a 54 minute movie, with no special features.

There are no special effects, sans stock footage of an atomic blast. (The blast is at dusk... while the surrounding action is in bright So Cal daylight :-). The atomic fallout turns Joseph Javorsky, "noted scientist," into a mutant zombie Beast. The rest of the story is... unpredictable. The Beast lives in a cave, amidst a vast distance... yet kids happen to bump into him, and posse pursuers go straight to him. At first glance, they know he must be a killer because a) he's big, b)he has a torn shirt, c) he has some white stuff on the side of his face, d) he moves stiffly. ( a) and d) were also true *before* the atomic blast:-). So the posse shoots this Beast, this casualty of scientific "progress." But then the atomic "Beast" comes back to life (sort of, it's hard to tell:-) to choke the life out of us... and to metaphorically choke our dreams of a brave new world! "The Beast of Yucca Flats" is a reflection of our nuclear age... and a haunting premonition of the future!!

The look of "Yucca" is black and white minimalist. There is no dialogue, minimal "action," and minimal story to get in the way of the awkward images. I really liked it, as a relaxing counterweight to all the overkill in movies since the blockbuster age (Jaws, Star Wars, late 70's and forward). And there is some kind of Ed Wood-esque grasping for larger themes; science and progress are dangerous, cold war paranoia, stamping out someone "different," decline of rugged individualism. "Yucca" is a slapdash "project" and/or odd visionary genius.... or just a blank 50's canvas that you can read a lot into....

And my favorite part was the (hilarious!) narrator -- with his Dragnet serious style voice and philosophical bent. Of the few lines the narrator says (usually to tell us what we already know, or what we just saw for ourselves!), he introduces three or four times: "Joseph Javorsky, noted scientist." Regarding a man standing by his car, he narrates, "caught in the gears of progress." (?!) Adding a twist for a badged posse guy, he states, "caught in the gears of justice." (?!) And for two posse guys climbing a (mild!) hill, "One slip, and it's a thousand feet to *nowhere*."

What does it all mean? I have no idea! But this is a very interesting and entertaining movie!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Minimalist Genius
Review: Less is more. "The Beast" is a 54 minute movie, with no special features.

There are no special effects, sans stock footage of an atomic blast. (The blast is at dusk... while the surrounding action is in bright So Cal daylight :-). The atomic fallout turns Joseph Javorsky, "noted scientist," into a mutant zombie Beast. The rest of the story is... unpredictable. The Beast lives in a cave, amidst a vast distance... yet kids happen to bump into him, and posse pursuers go straight to him. At first glance, they know he must be a killer because a) he's big, b)he has a torn shirt, c) he has some white stuff on the side of his face, d) he moves stiffly. ( a) and d) were also true *before* the atomic blast:-). So the posse shoots this Beast, this casualty of scientific "progress." But then the atomic "Beast" comes back to life (sort of, it's hard to tell:-) to choke the life out of us... and to metaphorically choke our dreams of a brave new world! "The Beast of Yucca Flats" is a reflection of our nuclear age... and a haunting premonition of the future!!

The look of "Yucca" is black and white minimalist. There is no dialogue, minimal "action," and minimal story to get in the way of the awkward images. I really liked it, as a relaxing counterweight to all the overkill in movies since the blockbuster age (Jaws, Star Wars, late 70's and forward). And there is some kind of Ed Wood-esque grasping for larger themes; science and progress are dangerous, cold war paranoia, stamping out someone "different," decline of rugged individualism. "Yucca" is a slapdash "project" and/or odd visionary genius.... or just a blank 50's canvas that you can read a lot into....

And my favorite part was the (hilarious!) narrator -- with his Dragnet serious style voice and philosophical bent. Of the few lines the narrator says (usually to tell us what we already know, or what we just saw for ourselves!), he introduces three or four times: "Joseph Javorsky, noted scientist." Regarding a man standing by his car, he narrates, "caught in the gears of progress." (?!) Adding a twist for a badged posse guy, he states, "caught in the gears of justice." (?!) And for two posse guys climbing a (mild!) hill, "One slip, and it's a thousand feet to *nowhere*."

What does it all mean? I have no idea! But this is a very interesting and entertaining movie!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The bar has been lowered.
Review: Move over Plan 9, THIS is the worst movie in the history of cinema. It's not even a movie, it looks and feels more like an hour of stock footage. Everything you've heard about this movie is true, but you must watch it to truly understand how bad this is.

This film was shot without sound for whatever reason. There is just some voice over hear and there. Our narrator sounds like your favorite high school teacher who spoke in monotone. I have not counted how many times he said the word 'progress', but whenever he spoke you knew it was coming.

There is no acting in this film at all except for people pretending to die. 99% of this movie is people walking around aimlessly. The housewife probably didn't even know she was being filmed half the time. People have asked about the rabbit at the end. Simple. Someone aimed in the camera on a rabbit running along. Someone thought it would be a good idea to get some interaction with Tor and the rabbit. Effective? Hardly. Thought provoking? Uh-uh. Pointless? Absolutly.

The 'Bad Movie Convention' of America should give out awards to anyone who can sit through this. It really is a tortutr. If it was 90 minutes, I don't think I could do it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not many like this one
Review: Now this a movie everyone should see at least once!

A Russian scientist, played by Tor Johnson, is chased into A-Bomb test area by agents when he defects to America. As a result of exposure to radiation, Johnson is turned into a fiend and goes on a rampage. After kidnapping and killing several residents, he is eventually killed.

Most of the movie is in narration which is an indication of the film's low, low budget.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So what's the deal with the freakin' rabbit?
Review: This is a 54 minute movie. I mean, that's about how long it took to make. This movie is so bad ("HOW BAD IS IT?") to refer it to Ed Wood is an insult to Ed. It's that bad. It is also hilarious. One of my fellow reviewers said to imagine it had been made by a 10 yr old. I don't think he's giving 10 yr olds enough credit.

I collect Ed Wood and various other really awful movies. This is without doubt the worst made of the entire bunch! In fact, I believe deep in my cold, cold heart, this is THE worst movie ever made. There are so many obvious mistakes that it is unsporting to even try pointing them out. The movie is a total hoot and well worth showing to a bunch of friends.

However, if you have even a hint of compassion you might consider getting them thoroughly drunk first. And even then I doubt any of them could figure out what the deal was with the rabbit!


Rating: 3 stars
Summary: man's inhumanity... to man
Review: This movie is almost, but not quite, bad enough to be good. The Beast of Yucca Flats is easily more inept than anything Ed Wood ever did (and, appropriately, one of the stars of Yucca Flats is Tor Johnson, who is better known as one of the monsters in Wood's legendary Plan 9 From Outer Space). But even though the movie is less than an hour long, it's staggeringly boring for most of that time, with only a few enjoyably awful things to keep the attention of the bad movie fan. One is that no microphones were used to make the movie -- all the soundtrack is done by voice-over, even the dialogue. Francis narrates the movie in a grim, ponderous monotone, repeatedly making random comments involving the word "progress". The most hilarious of these comes when two young boys "not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress, feed soda pop to [some] thirsty pigs" (I am not making this up). Francis also has a fascination with parachuting (a subject he explored in his next film, "The Skydivers"), despite the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Another fun touch is that because of the lack of microphones, whenever characters do speak to one another the camera studiously avoids looking at their faces. But in general, this movie is a waste of time for anyone who isn't a very hard-core bad movie fan. You have been warned.


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