HackArtober #25 (Belated, Scanned On The Moon)

Jeeeebers Christ. This fucking movie.

"The Beast of Yucca Flats" was a title that stuck in my kid brain, injected via Famous Monster of Filmland. It conjured up images of a lizard like The Giant Gila Monster, or a Tarantula or Black Scorpion desert bit. Or maybe a hairy biped, not that I would have used the phrase back then. Or a Hideous Sun Beast kind of thing. 

Over the years I still wondered about this one, because that title...it's hard to forget. Specifically "Yucca Flats". Not the scariest-sounding location for a movie, like, say, Beast From The Haunted Cave (still unseen to this day, but that's a good creature feature title, whether or not the movie's a stinker). In fact, quite the opposite. Yucca? Yucca Flats? Come on, now. That's not scary. That's a Bugs Bunny bit, like Pismo Beach. Not scary at all. 

Yuck-A. Ha ha ha. 

Well, as I'm sure you folks now in the days of the internet and MST3K, the Beast in question roaming Yucca Flats (ha ha) is neither an oversized, rear-projected lizard or bug or a stuntman in a rubber or altered gorilla suit. It's poor ol' Tor Johnson shambling around hills and scrublands sporting torn clothing and some piss-poor scar makeup. Oh, Tor. Poor, poor Tor, he looks so sad. According to the film lore, Tor was so heavy and out of shape that he needed assistance to get him to the top of hills and rises. He looks terrible in this terrible, terrible movie. 

I watch a lot of garbage monster and horror movies. I enjoy them for various reasons that have nothing to do with quality. You know what I'm talking about. The worst they can be is boring. The Beast of Yucca Flats is really fucking boring. I wasn't prepared for how dismal it would be when I finally caught up with it on Youtube last year (or the year before, the movie clouds the mind, like Lamont Cranston). It's shot silent, and narrated, always a sign of cinematic WTF. The narration is largely of the Ed Wood Jr. school of bad writing. Sometimes funny, usually cringey, always lousy. Nothing really happens. It's just shambling Tor and narration and a there's a plane flying around and a family and people in cars and the Flats. The Yucca Fucking Flats. 

So, yeah, it's a complete slog. The so-bad-it's-good moments are few and far-between. Tor playing a scientists is ridiculous as hell, but that sparkling bit of stupidity tarnishes quickly. The Beast of Yucca Flats (ha ha) is something to watch so you can tag it and bag it for your bad movie bucket list and then shake your head is disbelief before moving on to Giant From The Unknown or The Astro Zombies or whatever's next to endure. It's not fun, it's not a get-together or party bad flick. It's probably the rare film -- for me, I'm saying -- that works best and perhaps only as joke fodder. I haven't seen the MST3K version, I'm just guessing it makes it bearable. But I don't want to watch this rotten thing again, even if the robot's jokes are gold. This thing is awful. Pure chloroform. 

Poor Tor.