(Review originally written at 8 December 2007)
How can you call this a movie? It hasn't even got a story.
Basically the movie is about Tor Johnson as a big, dumb, bald, once scientist (yeah, right)- now turned atomic monster (long live the atomic-age!), who is on a killing spree, even though he is perhaps only featured in about maybe one-third of the entire movie, at most.
The voice over (done by director Coleman Francis himself) is hilariously bad, due to the laughable dialogs that at times don't even seem to have anything to do what is happening on the screen. It's often hilarious because of its complete randomness. The entire movie itself was shot silent, with some later added sound and dialog, which provides some awkward and unusual moments in the movie. For instance you never see any of the characters talk on screen. This approach could had worked out if it had been done for artistic reason's but this was definitely not the case with this movie. At times I just couldn't believe how bad this movie was! Even more the amazing considering that this movie was made in the '60's and not the '50's, when Z-grade movies flourished. But this was 1961, the same year "El Cid", "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "The Guns of Navarone", "West Side Story", "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "The Hustler" all got made.
It's a slow moving movie that obviously isn't helped by its sloppy editing and bad dialog. There also isn't an awful lot happening in the movie itself and it definitely could had used some more action in it. Even the beastly Tor doesn't get an awful lot to do. Characters are constantly being introduced extensively throughout the entire movie, only to be killed off or disappear out of the story a couple of minutes later again. I mean, the narrator basically tells their entire life-story when they are being firstly introduced! What's up with that...
This was the movie that killed Tor Johnson's movie career and he never made a movie after this one again. Well, it's not as if he had an impressive career in the first place but he was a popular seen actor in Z-grade science-fiction and monster movies. He of course is best know for his work in the Ed Wood movies such as "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "Bride of the Monster". Besides Tor Johnson-, also other Ed Wood regular Conrad Brooks is in this movie, in a very small role.
Yes, the movie is definitely so bad that it becomes fun to watch. At times the movie became so bad that it really made me laugh out loud, such as the scene in which Tor chases the two boys with a stick. And well, it's only 54 minutes short so it doesn't take away too much time from your life that you'll never get back.
1/10
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