Sunday, November 27, 2011

Film Review: Robot Monster

This film appears on many worst movies of all times type lists. It's a fairly preposterous film. In that I'm trapped in this situation in which only horror film reviews and metal reviews I write get many hits, I'd choose this one as being noteworthy. This is primarily for the very curious costume that was used for the villain. This consisted of a gorilla suit, except for the head, which appears to be a diving helmet. The film was originally in 3-D and released in the early 50's. The basic idea of the film is that this one family is left surviving on planet Earth after Ro-Man, the gorilla with a diving mask, has killed them all off with a death ray, because the scientist father has developed an antidote serum. For some reason the machines Ro-man uses to communicate spits bubbles. Ro-man is left to kill off the remaining humans. He's about to kill the eldest daughter in the family, but he develops feelings for her illogically. His superior kills him, and then it ends with little Johnny waking up after having hit his head. It has a big "it was all a dream…or was it?" kind of ending. Human Centipede 2 also has that kind of an ending unfortunately, but it was all so beautifully offensive that I forgive Tom Six. Robot Monster has a lot of footage of the man in the gorilla suit and diving mask walking through some empty desert, probably outside of Los Angeles. It's kind of hot when Ro-Man ties up the eldest daughter. I got a good chuckle at the costume but this is film is only at all remarkable for the very odd costume that was used. It's not unlike other 50's science fiction flicks. That costume though has become semi-iconic an image of b-films. Does Ro-man represent the machine? The atom bomb?The communist threat? The Freudian punishing father? Little Johnny's own repressed sexual drives? All of these things? None of these things? He's sort of curious in that he's a composite of the animal and the machine. He's laughable to anyone but a small child though, that much is sure. Here are some images I've attached from the film. You can take a look at them and ponder the curious nature of Ro-Man.

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