Hacktober #21 (Scanned With Enzymes Extracted From Royal Jelly)

The Wasp Woman is a Roger Corman cheapie directed by the man himself. I'm not much of a Corman fan, to be honest. I do like his Poe (and Poe-adjacent) movies, i like a bunch of his old unpretentious cheapies. He's responsible for a lot of careers, but also for a shitload of pure calculated horseshit that flooded cable, video stores, TV and now the internet streaming services. I find him terribly cynical, requesting added rape scenes to movies like it was the same as tossing in another murder set piece. Cynical and kind of fucking gross. There's ripping off Star Wars and Seven Samurai in a good-natured  way and then there's ubiquitous rape and pregnant women bursting in the stirrups. Corman's a cold operator given a lot of leeway for his legendary status, grooming of so many actors and filmmakers, and being well-spoken and intelligent (and incredibly boring in interviews). He gets a lot of passes for some of his work and choices. And I admit that sometimes bugs the hell out of me.

Oh, hey, look at that, a not-so-clever segue. The original version of The Wasp Woman (Corman produced different but equally crappy remakes of a lot of his 50's schlock in the 1980s, I prefer the old crap to the lifeless, technically better crap, for the most part, but I'm also the idiot typing about The Wasp Woman, so feel free to ignore my opinions, I wouldn't blame you) is pretty much what you'd expect. It's short, cheap, dumb and silly. Harmless, unpretentious 1950's monster stuff. The plight of an aging businesswoman struggling to stay on top of her cosmetics empire as well as her own physical looks certainly gives food for thought in terms of the male-dominated business world, the male gaze, capitalism, sexism, feminism. Someone could write a paper, I'm sure. I can barely write this kind of thing, so, that someone wouldn't be me. 

It's mostly quick and cheap filler, allowing several attractive woman to galavant around three or four sets before the main attractive woman (Susan Cabot) is forced to wear a goofy monster bug suit. Or maybe they have a double for her to do the wasp woman stuff, I dunno. It's only a mask and a pair of hairy claw gloves, no big deal, really. We're not talking Lon Chaney applications here. And the monster scenes are filmed so you can't see just how shitty the costume is (or even draw a hack version of the outfit). It's nowhere close to a show-me insect suit like Al "David" Hedison wore in "The Fly" (which this clearly bites on). Unless Hedison had a double for the suit scenes. Say, speaking of which, why couldn't the producers of The Incredible Melting Man get a body double for chickenshit Alex Rebar when he (allegedly) wouldn't go for some of the melting man make-up (see previous post/complaining)? Fascinating, no?

No. I agree. A big no, there. Sorry.

So, yeah. Wasp Woman. It's a cheap-ass drive-in movie made as product. Kind of dull. Dopey monster outfit. Kind of watchable, if I remember correctly, I guess. Kind of like a kitschy Outer Limits episode. 

Dick Miller isn't in it, so deduct points. Bruno VeSota is in it, no points added there. Corman has a cameo. Your call.