Did We Really See This Movie, Or Has the Cosmic Switch Been Pulled:
 "A film complete with a ten-foot tall creature guaranteed to give you the wim-wams!" Starring Phil Morton, June Travis, and George Perry Written by Jeff Smith, Dok Stanford, and Bill Rebane Directed by Bill Rebane, and later, Herschell Gordon Lewis American, 1965 This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Really, it's an awful film. It's so cool. Bill Rebane started this as a movie called Terror At Halfday in 1961, but never finished due to lack of funds. Then, Herschell Gordon Lewis took the film, mangled it up a little more by adding some narration and new scenes, retitled it, and then released it in some sort of drive-in theatre moneymaking scheme. Lewis claimed it was a parody, but there is no way in hell that I will ever believe that. This movie is way too pompous for that. We shall begin now. The movie opens with a picture of a galaxy and some muffled music. The whole movie is actually muffled sounding, especially the dialog. A badly superimposed pair of legs appears in front of the galaxy, and the legs are walking. The legs stagger away, and the title of the movie appears. Can someone tell me what "Monster a-Go Go" actually means? The credits roll by, and naturally, it's a list of complete nobodies. The Monster is credited as Henry Hite, a very tall guy. I hate gimmicky names like that. We get to hear the lyrics of the muffled music, and they're pretty stupid. Someday, I'll muster up the courage to transcribe them. We cut to a helicopter in flight over a lightly wooded field. Now, after watching the film, it's clear that heavy narration is necessary to guide the poor audience through this maze of unrelated scenes, so our Narrator begins almost immediately: "What you are about to see may not even be possible within the narrow limits of human understanding."Okay, so then is there any reason for us to watch this? "Case in point: a space capsule is rocketed into orbit, on schedule. Its mission, to observe new objects circling the Earth, satellites which no nation had launched."So far, so okay. We see an unmarked car drive through a field before coming to a stop. A man leaves the car, and he's in a military uniform. This is the first of many cardboard characters. "As the capsule reached its orbit, communications with it suddenly went silent. Several days passed. A search team headed by Colonel Steve Connors [we see Connors] began an intensive search of the entire area."Whoa, hold on. The entire area? What area? If Narrator means the entire surface area of the Earth, then this search is going to take an awfully long time. If one looks closely, Connors is not wearing a colonel's rank insignia on his uniform. He has the insignia of a captain. In the car, Connors and his unnamed military assistant listen to the radio as the helicopter pilot reports in. The pilot sees nothing on the ground. No capsule or anything. The dialog is very difficult to hear, and it sounds like Connors is talking into a tin can when he speaks. I guess neither Rebane nor Lewis believed in boom mikes. Wait, Narrator isn't finished: "In a wooded area, not far from the Space Agency's Astrophysical Laboratories in Chicago..."Forget it. Basically, Narrator tells us that some witnesses saw a "strange object" land in this field that the helicopter is circling. Eventually, the pilot radios in that he sees the capsule. He lands the helicopter. As we (barely) hear him on the radio, he's startled by something, and then we hear him scream in pain. There are no more sounds from the radio. Connors and his assistant are confused. We watch the car drive into the field where the capsule landed, and we hear the first instance of the bizarre music in this film. It consists of either synthesized electronic sounds, or near random keys and chords being pressed on a piano. Connors and his assistant get out of the car and look around, and the pilot is nowhere to be found. They walk off, and we get to see the capsule.  Fig. 1 - The capsule. Ah yes, this must be half the movie's budget. It's a very small capsule, with barely any standing room inside for a normal-sized human. It also looks suspiciously flat. However, before we can laugh at it, Narrator cuts in and says that this is the capsule, but astronaut Frank Douglas is missing. Finally, Connors and his assistant find the pilot lying in the field, dead. According to Narrator, the pilot's body is "horribly mangled in a way no one had ever seen before." We see Connors grimacing at the body, but we never get to see it. Okay, so after this stirring introduction, we cut to the interior of someone's house, tastefully decorated (I guess) in mid-60's furnishings. The doorbell rings, and a man and woman enter the house. These are our heroes for the first thirty minutes of the film: Carl Shriver and Nora Kramer, two scientists at the Space Agency's Astrophysical Labs (?) outside Chicago. They've come to visit the owner of the house, a woman named Ruth. Carl has some coffee, and we get to watch the three people stare at each other for too long. Finally, Ruth breaks down and worries about Frank. You see, after watching this movie a few times, I've concluded that Ruth is either the a) sister, b) girlfriend, c) wife, or d) close friend of Frank. Her exact relation to the astronaut is never made clear. Anyway, Ruth is very worried, and Carl tells her that they've found the capsule, but not Frank. Carl uses the word "success" to describe the situation of a missing astronaut. They don't know if the "radiation repellent" worked for Frank while he was in space. Yes, radiation repellent. With 10% DEET. Ruth's son Jimmy enters, and asks if Frank is back yet, but Ruth and Carl patronize him a little and Carl sends the kid away. Ruth is absolutely distraught, and Nora tries consoling her. Meanwhile, an EXTREMELY loud telephone rings, and Carl picks up. It's difficult to hear what Carl is saying to whoever has called, but we quickly learn that it was a man named Dr. Logan who phoned. The capsule has been found. Ruth insists on joining Carl and Nora, and together the trio heads out to inspect the capsule. We cut to the field again, and we see them drive in. Ruth stays at the car while Carl and Nora head to the capsule area. Everything in the movie is slow-paced, and in between the remote islands of action, there is usually complete silence. Each and every scene is like this. No dialog or music or anything. It really lulled me to sleep. The two military guys and Dr. Logan are looking over the helicopter pilot's body. We see the side of the face, which is described as looking like a "dried prune". Isn't that a raisin? Strangely enough, the remains that we see don't look that bad. Certainly not like a raisin, anyway. Carl says that the pilot looks burned, except for the hair and clothes, which are not burned. Carl is then shown two burn marks in the tall grass near the capsule. These marks are dismissed as a prank, but we know that they will be a pivotal piece of evidence later in the film. It's at this point in the movie that I realized Carl bears a resemblance to George W. Bush.  Fig. 2 - Carl and Bush. Carl wants the whole scene left undisturbed. You may want to call the authorities to guard the area, since you are the only five people I've seen there so far. He and Nora will head back to "the lab" for their work, whatever that may be. See, their positions and occupations are never made entirely clear. They've got something to do with the space program, I gather. They're both doctors of something. Carl, Nora, and Logan debate whether or not to tell Ruth that Frank is dead, since his body isn't there. Dr. Logan in particular thinks that Frank is still alive. Now we're at this lab everyone was talking about. It actually looks somewhat like a lab, if not a little bare. Colonel (or is it Captain?) Connors enters, and finds Dr. Logan working at the microscope.  Fig. 3 - The Space Agency's Astrophysical Lab. Logan invites Connors to look over a tissue sample from the dead pilot. It's been mutated or something, burned up by radiation, but the radiation didn't come from the capsule. Logan comes to the conclusion that whatever killed the pilot also burned the grass. The hatch of the capsule was open, so Logan assumes it's Frank somehow wandering around and spreading radiation. I wish the movie would spread some plausibility around. Connors, of course, is very skeptical of this idea, and it is quite a stupid idea. I mean, assuming that Frank could somehow survive being radioactive to spread it all around, why wouldn't the capsule be radioactive too? How do ordinary objects become radioactive anyway? Does that even happen in real life? Anyway, Connors wants to tell someone named Dr. Manning about this theory, but Logan wants it kept quiet for the moment. We now cut to an airstrip somewhere. An Air Force plane is landing, and a car is waiting for it. I can't believe this movie actually has a plane in it. It's not stock footage. Inside the car are Carl and Col. Connors. They're waiting for the plane's passengers, the previously mentioned Dr. Manning and a general, who are apparently the big honchos of this project... whatever this project may be. They meet outside the plane, shake hands, chat, and generally pad out what should be a short scene. During this scene, the general refers to Col. Connors as "Captain Connors". Hopefully the military's bureaucrats straightened out Narrator's mistake from the beginning of the movie. They take Manning to see the helicopter pilot's body. After a long flight, who wouldn't want to see a corpse? The four men drive away, taking their time as we see them enter the car, slowly accelerate, and leave the scene. Now, we see a dance party in someone's house. A bunch of young(ish) people are dancing around, doing the twist or something. The music is lame, and there's no dialog in this scene. Instead, we have to watch for body language, which is hard to pick out from the twisting and writhing. A girl starts dancing with a boy, but a second boy who has been drinking enters and pushes the first guy away. The same sort of thing you'd see on a PBS documentary on apes. He then drags the girl out of the party. Damn jocks. We get to watch this for 85 very slow seconds. With silence that speaks volumes of the film's budget, they get into the boy's car and drive off. They drive for a bit, then stop, and park. They then proceed to make out. Before we can kill ourselves, Narrator begins: "What changes the delicate interlocking of fates that determine life or death? A series of 'ifs'; if the girlfriend had danced with her boyfriend instead of the other boy, and had stayed later; if the two of them hadn't parked to kiss and make up. But that is not what happened, and fate and history never deal in ifs."They're continuing to make out, and it starts getting relatively raunchy for the period, with the guy getting more and more aggressive. The only sound we hear during this is a dog barking in the background for no apparent reason. Eventually, the girl starts pushing him away from her and runs from the car. Maybe some dialog between these two would... oh, never mind. Nothing can help this movie. We get a very brief glimpse of a very tall man staggering behind the car. The girl screams, and... Now Connors, the general, and Manning are at the car, looking at the boyfriend's body on the ground outside the car. It's still nighttime. The body has a sheet over it, so the cops and emergency services were there, but for some reason they've left the body there. The boyfriend has been shriveled up too, just like the pilot. Suddenly, they hear the still-living girlfriend moaning off-camera. They pick her up and rush her into their car so they can take her to the lab. I think perhaps the hospital would be better, but that's just me. There's some really irritating "music", and they drive off. The whole time, that dog is barking in the background. I was giggling at the movie now. Still with me? Now it's daytime, and Narrator is helping us through. We see Dr. Logan getting out of his car and walking through the field where the capsule crashed with a Geiger counter. Narrator tells us that Logan's theory is correct, and he will die because he is correct... or something like that. Either way, Narrator just ruined the scene. The only sound we hear in this scene, aside from Narrator's loud voice, is a lone bird singing. The movie is making sure we understand the sound was indeed recorded outside and not on some soundstage, which is what I suspect for a lot of the movie. Logan walks through the tall grass, looks around, walks a bit more, looks around, checks his counter, walks, walks, walks into some thicker brush, and continues on. Suddenly, we hear a high-pitch ringing sound, getting louder and exponentially more annoying. Logan must hear it too, and get nervous. He walks backwards, right into the waiting hands of the creature, who for an unknown reason strangles Logan. We get a nice close up of Logan's mouth, wide open as he screams. Finally, we get a good look at the monster, a giant balding man with a long face and really bad skin.  Fig. 4 - Frank Douglas mutated. Logan dies, and the monster stumbles away. Why did the monster kill Logan? Is it just me, or does the monster (or Frank, as he was once called) have no reason to kill all these people? Now we're in what seems to be some sort of restaurant in the evening. Ruth and Manning are sitting at a table, chatting about nothing: Chris: "You remember that song?"You see what I mean when I say this movie is really vacuous? They then chat about how long it's been since they've had martinis together. Ah, soon Jimmy will have a NEW uncle. Ruth tells us that she has a bad feeling (she calls it "feminine intuition") about everything. She was sort of expecting Frank to never return. Suddenly, Manning is called away by the telephone, and Ruth is left alone with her martini. To make sure we fully understand that she is in fact sitting with her martini, we get a nice close-up of her martini for 10 seconds. She eats the olive and stirs her drink around a bit. Why am I seeing this? Is this relevant somehow? Manning comes back, says there's been another "strange accident". They both leave the restaurant. I guess this is because Ruth has now invited herself to join the investigation. We cut to the field where the capsule landed. It's daytime, so my presumption about the restaurant scene taking place in the evening was wrong. The general and Carl are already there. Their voices all have a strange, somewhat pronounced echo to them. It's quite distracting to listen to. They find Dr. Logan's Geiger counter laying in the grass, and head on over to the body. Now it's nighttime. Was Ed Wood involved with this movie at any point? Logan is dead, and we see a close-up of his face. His mouth is stuck open, and his skin looks a little odd, dry and lumpy or something. Almost as if it's covered with cheap makeup. Ruth is horrified and turns away, while Manning notes that Logan is in worse shape than the other two bodies so far found. Manning then takes his flashlight, and scouts around the nearby bushes for 24 seconds, finding nothing. Yes, these are the methods of a crack investigation team. Manning finds nothing, and returns to the others. He wonders why Logan came to the field.  We quickly see a small plane landing. A man climbs out with his briefcase. Yes. Is this movie starting to disintegrate, or has the Cosmic Switch been pulled? We cut to an office, where an unidentified doctor is briefing another doctor, Dr. Brent. According to the unidentified doctor, it's been eight weeks since the death of Dr. Logan, and nothing new has happened. Well, thanks for the information. From the abruptness of the cut, I never would have known that eight weeks had passed, let alone one day. Now, Dr. Brent is being put in charge of the investigation from Chris. He wants to speak with Nora, who is now working for Dr. Logan's brother Conrad, who also happens to be a doctor. I've never seen such a high concentration of doctors with unidentifiable degrees. Brent and Nora are introduced (and speak stupid lines while they're at it), and get to the investigation. Nora tells us that the pilot's blood was dried up into a powder by whatever killed him. Dr. Brent suspects some kind of radiation did it, and wonders what the source could be. The capsule is arbitrarily ruled out for some reason, so that leaves Frank. Brent mentions that Frank was given injections of something called "Antidium 50", which is supposed to repel radiation. In a long, tedious scene, we get to watch Brent check Nora's and Conrad's workbooks, where all their notes are kept. Brent finds a discrepancy between the notes. According to Conrad, they switched the injections to "Antidium 51" a few months prior to Frank's trip, and according to Nora's log, they gave him a larger-than-normal dose, which wasn't recorded in Conrad's log. Nora is frustrated, says she doesn't know a thing about it, and the unidentified doctor with Brent is mad too because he wasn't told. Brent is really mad, so he leaves to confront Dr. Logan. Uh oh, a showdown. I... can't... wait. So now the tedium moves to the office of Conrad Logan. In a movie with no clear protagonist/antagonist, I think Conrad is one of the bad guys. Basically, we learn that Antidium 51 is better than 50, but in animal tests, 51 caused strange side effects not dissimilar from what Frank is doing to his victims now. Conrad also confirms that he gave Frank a large dose of Antidium 51 before the trip, for added protection. So, knowing of these bad side effects, you gave Frank an overdose anyway? What kind of scientist are you? Conrad's late brother created an antidote to the side effects of Antidium 51, but unfortunately the antidote killed the animal. Is that an antidote? Now we're in the lab. Conrad and Nora are working late in mindnumbingly boring silence. Nora is curious about Dr. Brent, about his "exactness". It's good for scientists to be precise. Anyway, the monster has apparently disappeared and there haven't been any murders in weeks, so Nora feels Dr. Brent's presence isn't exactly necessary. We hear a single telephone ring. There is no telephone in the scene, and neither of the actors reacts to the sound. WTF?! Has this movie made me so incredibly bored that I'm hallucinating? Did a telephone really ring, or has the Cosmic Switch been pulled? (you'll find out what that means later on.) Nora is making more Antidium 51 antidote. They work in total silence for 17 seconds, and we get to see every painful second.  Fig. 5 - Nora and Conrad working. The entire movie is pockmarked with these voids, where nothing is said and little is done. Nora decides to go home, and we watch her take off her labcoat and put on her jacket, and finally leave Conrad in the lab. Conrad gets up and starts going through a drawer. He retrieves the antidote, and Narrator explains. Narrator informs us that Conrad is, in fact, hiding Frank in the basement, and keeping him full of antidote and tranquilizers, thus removing the danger from the public. Conrad must be lonely or something. How did he catch Frank? Narrator tells us that Conrad is too late with the latest antidote/tranquilizer delivery, and so is in a hurry: "Like his brother, the scientist had an intuitive knowledge of the situation, thus, an extraordinarily bad sense of timing."What does this mean? Please, does anyone know? We cut to a dark hallway, with some more of that awful piano music playing. Conrad walks down, thick glasses, labcoat, and all. Because he's lit from below, we are to think that he's sinister. It's such a cheesy scene, it's so cool. We hear an early form of synthesized music in the form of weird sounds that belong on the Bladerunner soundtrack. He walks through more hallways and slips into a room for a moment before exiting. This scene lasts 72 seconds. Conrad returns to the lab, but everything is smashed. Narrator tells us that Frank escaped, and during his unseen rampage, destroyed any chance of making significant quantities of antidote. Great, we didn't get to see what could have been the most exciting part of this entire movie. Conrad picks up the phone (I guess I was wrong earlier about the lack of telephone in the lab) and calls Dr. Brent in the other lab. We cut to the other lab. Conrad enters and confesses what he's done to Dr. Brent, who's working away there. Conrad blames his behaviour on shock and confusion. A sustained shock and confusion that lasted eight weeks? He reports the success of the antidote, but says that he could only record it in his log without telling anyone that he actually had Frank in the basement. Again, he had eight weeks to think the situation through. Dr. Brent is pretty mad: Conrad: "What the hell do you want from me, Doctor Brent? I don't have a precision mind like yours! All right, I made a mistake! But the fact is Frank Douglas is gone with the antidote!"I'd do more than that. I'd chalk you up as criminally negligent, but never mind. Brent forgives Conrad. I wish the movie would end... but we're down to the final third of it or so. We cut to a clearing in a wooded area. A handful of fully-clothed women are laying on the grass on towels, sunning themselves. An overly-loud bird sings on the soundtrack. It's such a contrived looking scene. Naturally, Frank approaches, making that high-pitched ringing sound as he draws closer. We see a shot of the women filmed from Frank's perspective as he staggers toward them. They don't notice him at first, but they eventually sit up, spot Frank, and scream and run away into the trees. Frank very slowly walks after them. How does he manage to kill anyone? He's so slow!  Fig. 6 - Do they not look drag queen-ish? It's night now. The army has been deployed all around Chicago to defend the public against the radioactive ex-astronaut. This is like martial law without the tension. They're patrolling. Narrator says the soldiers are nervous, and anything will set them off. We witness Jimmy sneaking out of Ruth's house, and being spotted by a soldier, who then shoots blindly into the dark, setting everyone into a short-lived panic. Very unnecessary footage. During the panic, the soldier drops his rifle and shortly after, falls on his bottom. Yes, this is a military that can function under pressure. Back at the office, Connors says the whole "area" is surrounded. Again, I ask What Area? I feel very secure with these jokers in charge. They will wait an hour before acting. More waiting? Now, we shall see the most bewildering and baffling scene in the movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say it contributes NOTHING to the film. It introduces two completely inconsequential and irrelevant characters, an unnamed woman and a man named Kelly. The woman's car is stalled on a dark road, and she apparently doesn't know what to do about it. Kelly pulls up in his truck, and is irritated at this roadblock. She's surprised by how rude Kelly seems, noting that "truck drivers [are] the gentlemen of the road." What truck drivers are you talking about? The ones who drive side-by-side, thus blocking the road, or the ones who aggressively change lanes on the highway, threatening to crush you? He gets out, and starts helping with her car trouble. It turns out that it has run out of gas. I guess women can't read the fuel gauge when driving. What misogynist wrote this scene? She rubs her pointy breasts into his shoulder.  Fig. 7 - Kelly and the unnamed woman. To tell you the truth, when I was watching the movie, and this scene began, I thought there was something wrong with my copy of the movie. I feared a portion of another movie had transposed itself onto Monster A-Go Go. Anyway, we briefly see (and hear) the feet of Frank staggering nearby. However, he never comes near the woman or her car, and nothing happens. Finally, Kelly finishes fuelling the car, and reminds the woman to always drive on a full tank of gas. This has been a Public Service Announcement from the Ministry of Transportation. She tries paying him for his trouble, but he refuses. She kisses him instead, and the scene ends. We have just wasted 3 minutes and 20 seconds. It sure felt a lot longer. Okay, back to the real movie. An hour has elapsed (and it really feels like it after that last scene). The soldiers with their Geiger counters haven't picked Frank up, which is frustrating the situation. They decide to warn the public about the menace. We even get to hear the warning they play on the radio, interrupting a man reading a pornographic magazine, two men playing pool, and a woman at a typewriter. An air raid siren goes off, and there's an agonizingly long pan across the nighttime Chicago skyline. A truck drives through the city, in a road tunnel or something. It comes to a stop, and we see the driver fall out and die. You know what? I think I understand what's going on here! The driver watched Monster A-Go Go! No, actually, I think this is supposed to be Kelly dying because Frank walked by and poisoned him with radiation. So that apparently unrelated scene from before actually is related to the movie. If this is the case, then the woman will die too. In true Monster A-Go Go fashion, we don't see what becomes of her. So Kelly is dead. We see Frank's boots, still stumbling around and spewing radiation. Back in the lab, reports come in, saying that Frank is in the city. His danger zone is calculated to have a radius of twenty to twenty-five feet. Connors orders Nora, who's been sitting around not doing much, to prepare more antidote. How will you get close enough to deliver it? Connors is briefly confused about their inability to track Frank's movements through the city. However, he strikes upon what seems to be a brilliant idea. Brilliant, that is, if you're a ten year old. He wants all the Geiger counters set up in "strategic" spots throughout the city and connected to a "central oscilloscope", which I guess would collate the information and tell the authorities where Frank is wandering around. Conrad theorizes that in an hour, Frank's radioactive radius will expand to a hundred feet. He then takes 13 seconds to calculate the radius, only to confirm his guess. So tedious. Just wait, it's only going to get worse. The tedium climax (and unfortunately, the climax of the film) begins now. Civil Defense trucks and police motorcycles drive by in Chicago. We hear no dialog, only distant sirens and the scratches on the film. We see firemen winding out cables, setting up oscilloscopes and Geiger counters with soldiers, and connecting it all together. There's no real point in watching any of this; it's celluloid sedative. Finally, before I can drown myself in my glass of water, Narrator tells us what's happening, how Civil Defense units have "swung into action". We see more trucks, and a generally calm hubub taking place around these trucks. Narrator says that "the long wait began." You mean... we haven't seen the long wait yet? This whole movie has been a long wait!
GOOD GRAVY! SOMEBODY KILL ME OR KILL THE MOVIE!! SOMEBODY SAVE ME!!
Okay, take a deep breath. I can handle this. We see firemen leaving firetrucks, working away, setting up more oscilloscopes and winding out more cables. I initially thought this was stock footage, but I'm not entirely sure that it is. The footage has the same appearance (film grain and quality) as the rest of the movie, which suggests it was filmed on the same camera and with the same film. The panning technique (or lack thereof) matches the other pans we've seen in this movie. Also, the soldiers and firemen that we see are indeed handling Geiger counters and winding out cables. I doubt this is stock footage. I also doubt that the movie "rented" firetrucks and stuff given the budget, so maybe Mr. Rebane/Mr. Lewis got lucky and filmed firemen and Civil Defense workers on some exercise. So many questions. Maybe I'm wrong about all this. Some soldiers are standing at the central oscilloscope, talking. Then there's 19 seconds of silence while they stare at the screen. We cut to a set of spiral stairs. Frank slowly and clumsily walks downwards. Having survived the stairs, he walks off. The soldiers spot the radiation trail on the oscilloscope, and report it. Help is on the way, in the form of a fire truck, a police car, and a military jeep. Then we see more trucks, police cars, and other miscellaneous vehicles. Again, there is a long stretch of no dialog. This whole scene of vehicles lasts 1 minute and 28 seconds. The soldiers report Frank's position, but then they lose his signal. This is because Frank has opened a manhole cover and gone down into the sewers. Colonel Connors arrives, fearless leader. He takes a Geiger counter and sets off in pursuit of Frank. He walks about slowly, waving the counter around. According to some highly muffled dialog, the sewer will be sealed off. At another Civil Defense truck, some soldiers help Connors and Dr. Brent get inside some special lead-lined radiation suits. Okay, two of this movie's actors are seen in conjunction with one of the trucks. This movie had to have a fairly decent budget if they had a truck specially painted with Civil Defense insignia and everything. We watch them get dressed for 1 minute and 27 seconds. Armed with counters, they head to the sewer entrance. Narrator informs us on Civil Defense's latest anti-radiation treatment: a decontaminating spray, which we see in use on Connors and Brent. The only thing we hear aside from Narrator is a distant train whistle. The decontaminating spray is one example of the many new and untested kinds of equipment CD had to use to combat Frank. Oy. Now this movie is turning into informative propaganda. The door is opened, and our dynamic duo enters the sewer. We see Frank's shadow inside the brightly lit sewer. We get a shot of his face, which doesn't look as crusty as it did earlier. Radiation has wonderful skin-clearing properties that we don't know about. Connors and Brent follow with their counters. What do they expect to do, confront Frank and ask him nicely to stop killing people? They'd better have a good gun to shoot him with since they can't go right up to him. The pulsing whistling sound that accompanied Frank wherever he went suddenly fades away into silence as Frank walks off. Then Connors and Brent stop walking and look at their counter. Well, what's happening now? Narrator cuts in: "As if a switch had been turned, as if an eye had been blinked, as if some phantom force in the universe had made a move eons beyond our comprehension, suddenly, there was no trail. There was no giant, no monster, no thing called Douglas to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness."Excuse me? Well, this shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Recall that at the start of the film, Narrator warned us that all this might "not even be possible...." I guess Narrator was right. We've just been ripped off. The eye has been blinked (?) after all. Is this some attempt at some deeply philosophical twist in the ending? How can a movie just stop like this? This isn't possible within the narrow limits of filmmaking! I'm in a daze unlike anything I've ever felt when watching a movie. Really, I'm euphoric. Connors and Brent emerge from the sewer empty handed. Conrad enters the scene and hands Connors a telegram. We get a nice close up of the telegram while Narrator effectively reads it to us:  Fig. 8 - The telegram. "With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas rescued, alive, well, and of normal size, some eight thousand miles away in a lifeboat,"We cut back to the image of the galaxy from the start of the film, "with no memory of where he has been, or how he was separated from his capsule."Now we see the Monster's feet superimposed on the galaxy again. But there is no monster, so they must be Frank's feet. "Then who, or what, has landed here?"By your own statement, Narrator, the only thing that's landed here is Frank Douglas. No monster, remember? "Is it here yet, or has the Cosmic Switch been pulled? Case in point: the line between science fiction and science fact is microscopically thin. You have witnessed the line being shaved even thinner. But is the menace with us, or is the monster gone?"Well, Narrator, this question is a moot point since THERE IS NO MONSTER!!! Or maybe there IS a monster. The eye has been blinked, after all. All I know is that the Cosmic Sledgehammer has pounded my skull and given me a Cosmic Headache. I want my money back now. The line between Really Bad Movies and unwatchable dredge is microscopically thin, and Monster A-Go Go has shaved it even thinner. No time to complain. That's because it's
THE END!!!
What discussion is necessary? This is one of the worst movies I've seen yet. Not quite as bad as, say, "Manos" the Hands of Fate or as laughable as Blood Red Planet, but really bad. Any movie with a major discontinuity half way through, and which lacks a climax and ending isn't a movie, is it? Thanks to the clearly different directing styles of the two directors, we can say that Lewis relies on Narrator to tell the story, and likes to reeeeeaaaaaaaaallllllyyyyy paaaaaaad thhhhiiiiiinngggggs ouuuuuuuuuut. If you like audible radioactivity, 2-dimensional spacecraft, or anchovy olives, you're sure to enjoy Monster A-Go Go. Otherwise, STEER CLEAR! January 5, 2005 Back to main site? |
