I can’t resist giant monster movies. I can’t. Seriously, it must be an illness of some kind. Despite the fact that practically every giant monster movie of recent vintage has sucked – especially the direct-to-video ones – I get sweaty palms whenever another specimen raises its head. Now, I happened to have liked Anaconda rather more than many others. I didn’t love it, but it was OK. That movie’s modest financial success triggered a continuing chain of DTV giant killer snake movies. Apparently I’m not the only one who watches these things.

Of the three such samples I’ve in the last couple of years, Python was the best. And what a sad statement that is. King Cobra, meanwhile, was the most boring. Considering the lackluster quality of our subject today, that’s an impressive statement. Yet it’s not unwarranted. Despite performances by such veteran hams as Pat Morita and Erik Estrada, King Cobra was so dull that I couldn’t even focus my attention on it enough to whip out a review.

Anyway, when I heard this current effort was set in a prison – the original title of the film being New Alcatraz -- I decided to drop a line to The Warden over at the Prison Flicks site. (If you haven’t visited there, for shame. It’s quite simply a great site.) Killer snakes movies I can do. Moreover, there were some elements of the prison set-up here so obviously stupid that even I was able to discern them. Even so, I thought his trained eye could reap more out of the milieu than could I. So we’re going to both review it; a link to his article is included at the end of this piece. As for the Warden, I have a vivid image of him, cursing me at some length when he realizes what I’ve gotten him into.

We open with the logo for UFO films. (Unified Film Organization.) Uh oh. I’ve seen this image before and little good has yet come of it. We open with a text crawl. I’ve noted before, on numerous occasions, that these are seldom a favorable sign. This one reads:

Somewhere in the Antartic [sic!]
a new super-max prison is
being built.

Secretly funded by the world’s
leaders, its intent is to contain
the most dangerous criminals
of the modern age.

With a highly advanced design
and the brutal nature of the
surroundings, it is considered
the ultimate in prison design…

and completely escape proof.

I’m sure the Warden will go into this, but there’s a reason the prison here is called New Alcatraz. As with the 'old' one, the natural surrounding environment is meant to discourage escape attempts. The real prison, off the shore of San Francisco, sat on an island. The waters around this are brutally cold, and with the strong local currents would almost certainly kill anyone attempting to swim to their freedom. (Sharks are also a frequently mentioned hazard, but this is largely apocryphal. The specimens found in those waters are seldom of the man-eating variety.) In 'New Alcatraz,' of course, the frigid wastes of the "Antartic" would certainly ensure death to anyone long exposed to them.

Ripping off the title credit sequence of Sam Raimi’s Darkman, the film proper commences. The musical score also has a Danny Elfman-esque lilt to it, and that works for me as well. Our star here proves to be the sadly fallen Dean Cain, once the star of TV’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Sadly, his former co-star currently has a better career, doing Radio Shack commercials with Howie Long.

To discurse even further, let me mention Cain’s long-ago appearance on a celebrity edition of American Gladiators. Cain came off as both a quite solid athlete and, even more impressively, a genuinely nice guy. His opponent, on the other hand, was a colossal jerk. This was actor John C. McGinley, famous in Jabootu circles for his appearance in On Deadly Ground. McGinley was such an ass that I was quite pleased that Cain not only beat him, but also was a more successful actor. Now, ironically, Cain is starring in Boa and McGinley is Emmy bait for his work on my favorite new sitcom, Scrubs. It’s a weird world.

We approach the less than utterly convincing CGI animation representing the exposed parts of the prison. It’s clearly supposed to be a massive structure, although, naturally, we won’t be seeing that much of it. Meanwhile, we learn that The Warden – the one in the movie, not the webmaster – is being played by Craig Wasson. Wasson once starred in real movies, like Body Double, and one imagines he’s about as pleased to be here as Cain must be. I’ll call the movie's Warden "WW," for Warden Wasson, so as to reduce confusion.

Inside, we cut to a sight that I’m all too familiar with: An industrial facility of some sort being used to represent a prison or the bowels of a ship or the interiors of a spacecraft or a secret dinosaur-breeding facility or whatever. Man, these modern DTV pieces are really starting to get me down. As is seemingly mandatory, the characters will traverse these environs in golf carts.

The current cart occupants are WW and his chief of security, Quinn. Quinn sports one of those headsets like Madonna wears during her concerts. They are traveling down in the maintenance levels of the edifice. Per tradition these passageways are wet, mysteriously foggy and haphazardly lit. The men have come down to check things out with Poluso, the engineer tasked with getting the place up and running. WW is annoyed that things are behind schedule. "We’re drilling through 12,000 feet of ice," Poluso retorts. Isn’t 12,000 feet over two miles?! What the heck?

"My boys have been without heat for the last six nights," Quinn complains. Without heat, he says. In the Antarctic. This from a guy attired in a thin jumpsuit. Anyway, Poluso explains that they’ve hit a hollow rock shelf where "there shouldn’t be one." Warden Wasson asks why they don’t just drill through it. Poluso calls over Goodman, causing WW to groan in dismay. Apparently Goodman will be the Common Sense Guy that the Impatient Authority Figure will choose to ignore, leading to catastrophe. All this, by the way, is shot in an extremely leisurely – and none too expert – fashion. Presumably the tepid pace is meant to eat up some of the hour and a half of running time.

Goodman gives forth with some gobbledygook like how "a high-pressure release…could cause head shearing detonation, depending on the consistency of the gas within the structural formation." Despite their concerns, WW orders the drilling to proceed. Of course, this is meant to make him look bad. Yet if the operation of this all-but-otherwise completed massive project is at stake, what’s he supposed to say? Let’s just close down and start over somewhere else? The real problem, of course, is that they "somehow" missed the rock formation when the site was scoped out. Which only seems to have happened because it was necessary to the plot.

The drilling commences, with dramatic music letting us know that this is suspenseful. The immense CGI drill quickly punctures the CGI obstruction. This results in an earthquake as pressurized gas rushes up the immense shaft. 

WW is amazed at the scale of the effect, which seems to threaten the entire complex. Poluso and Goodman are provided with angry "We warned you!" dialog, apparently meant to make WW look like a dangerously incompetent martinet. However, this represents some degree of Designated Villain-ness. The engineers did indeed warn that there was risk attached to drilling through the rock. However, they might have wanted to emphasize that they were discussing a risk that the entire complex would be destroyed and they'd all be killed. You’re probably better off spelling out stuff like that, rather than glossing over it so as to create an opportunity to display your self-righteousness. Quinn indeed raises this point, to which Goodwin responds, "I told you exactly [what might happen]!" This, however, remains a gross exaggeration on his part.

By the way, you might be thinking that the devastation featured here is intended to introduce further plot ramifications. For instance, we might later learn that the explosion has compromised the security systems. This, after all, would set up a situation wherein the prisoners would have an increased chance of either escaping or gaining control of the facility. However, such a level of sophistication remains largely beyond the screenplay. Other than providing the explanation for the title menace’s appearance, the sequence seems included purely to give the proceedings a modest dash of spectacle. We never get any indication that the damage has had an effect on the prison’s operational integrity.

The idea is that the rock formation contained an atmosphere of virtually pure nitrogen. This supposedly explains why the presumably prehistoric titular creature is still extant, although we’re sort of getting ahead of the movie here. Still, anyone with a modicum of B-movie experience can see the pieces falling into place. The notion, however, that this field of nitrogen means that "anything inside [the formation] probably hasn’t aged a day" in ten millions years (!) remains patently ridiculous. The basis for this, as Goodman explains, is that nitrogen is an inert gas. "They use it at the Smithsonian to seal old documents, to keep them from aging." Needless to say, retarding the degradation of inanimate objects is a long way from completely arresting the aging of complex biological life forms. Otherwise, one could achieve immortality by creating a biosphere filled with nitrogen gas.

Oddly, this set-up seems to correspond almost exactly with the plot for the as-yet unreleased Megalodon. The trailer for that film portrays a massive underwater oil-drilling platform. In the course of its exploration, the drill pierces a substrata shelf. This causes an earthquake that damages the facility, while releasing a number of preserved antediluvian sea creatures, including the title predator. Sound familiar?

We cut to Princeton University, or at least an establishing shot of it. Here we meet young Dr. Robert Trenton, who’s currently conducting a lecture on, coincidentally enough, Antarctic paleontology. This sequence gets the Cliché-O-Meter clicking wildly, as we learn that:

• Trenton’s wife is his colleague Dr. Jessica Platt-Trenton.
• Reflecting more recent character trends, Jessica will be a hot dog, riot grrrrl sort of scientist.
• Trenton is a bit of a maverick, believing that the Antarctic was once the tropical home of "reptiles that could be found nowhere else in the world." This radical theory has earned the scorn of the Scientific Community.

Let me give a nod to Cain. He’s about as convincing with this stuff as you could probably be, given the circumstances. If his believability factor decreases later on, it’s largely because the film itself keeps whittling away at our ability to suspend disbelief. Actually, he hits a sticky patch pretty quickly. This results from the script assigning him and actress Elizabeth Lackey (Jessica) some rather treacly "We Are So In Love!" banter.

Then, having established that They Are Deeply In Love, the film can move to introducing The Fly In Their Romantic Ointment. See, Jessica wants to do Science Stuff. She’s convinced that if they have a kid, as Robert wishes, she’ll be stuck playing mom instead of doing Something Important. As the commentary track to Python delineates, UFO productions – yes, Python was also one of theirs -- generally feature women who end up being with child. Here the pregnancy subplot seems especially shoehorned in. (Especially since it isn't resolved at the end of the movie.)  Presumably this is because students in Script School are taught to insert Character Conflict into their screenplays.

Despite their intentions, however, these perfunctory attempts to lend the characters ‘depth’ remain unsuccessful. In fact, they’re more annoying than anything. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: One of the reasons fans remain enamored of ‘50s cheese sci-fi movies is that they generally ran between 60 and 80 minutes. Today such films are inevitably bloated. Even the shorter ones, like Boa, run at least an hour and a half. Admittedly, it’s possible that modern audiences would feel ripped-off if provided with pictures of such a truncated length. For myself, however, I’d love to see most junk movies today shaved of another twenty or thirty minutes. At least they would move faster.

My personal problem is my annoyance with both of our leads. Why are they married? Robert really wants kids, Jessica doesn’t. Isn’t this the sort of thing that should be hashed out before the wedding? Hell, before the engagement? I guess they just figured if anything major came up, they could always get divorced.

We cut to a CGI airliner. This is the private conveyance of Yuri Brescov, a Chechnyan leader. Yuri has purchased nuclear missiles from North Korea, so as to help muscle his country’s independence from the Russians. Yuri and his henchman Yuvol engage in some expository dialog on this. Yuri is less worried about the Russian reaction, we learn, than the American one. There’s actually a grain of some interesting and nuanced political background here, but it naturally will go unexplored as the film progresses. Sure enough, their plane is intercepted by apparently American fighter jets. Yuri’s purchase of the nukes has earned him a place in the still secret international prison. (At which everyone on the staff is American. Whatever.)

Two things. First, the CGI work in this sequence, with the fighter jets forcing down the airliner, is probably the film’s best. The animation is quite good and the direction is handled with some amount of flair. Second, there’s the very weird fact that this film is apparently supposed to be taking place in the (near) future, although this mysteriously is never explicitly mentioned. For instance, the fighters launch an air-to-air missile. Rather than a normal missile, however, it appears to generate a short-range EMP burst. This disables many of the controls on Yuri’s plane and they are forced to land. Such a device, as far as I know, doesn’t currently exist. You really have to wonder why they didn’t just state in the opening crawl that the film was taking place in 2009 or something.

Yuri and Yuvol arrive at New Alcatraz. Wearing prison-issued jumpsuits, they are taken to their cells. These sport those transparent Plexiglas doors with air holes de rigueur in movie prisons since Silence of the Lambs. As he marches down the hallway we see a few other prisoners, including the obligatory feral female. The cells are actually fairly lavish, coming complete with self-contained bathroom facilities.

Yuri, sitting in an obligatory Hannibal Lector-esque pose, is greeted by WW. There’s some stuff about the major powers setting up New Alcatraz to hold dangerous political prisoners. Tried in absentia by an "international protective council," Yuri and other threats to the status quo are to be captured and sentenced to life sentences. This, as you’d imagine, is apparently done in contravention of all recognized international law. Again, though, this is all touched upon but taken little further. There’s meat for a really interesting movie here, or even better a TV series. We are, after all, talking about moving towards a one-world governmental body that’s been created to stabilize the status quo. (For one point amongst many, we aren't told if the facility is meant to be a secret one, or if it’s existence just hasn’t been announced yet.) In the right hands, this could be fascinating material. Here, however, it’s all just background filler while we wait for the killer snake to show up.

Which we start getting to now. WW and Quinn are called downstairs by Poluso and Scott. The concrete wall and the numerous yards of ice that separate the prison from the ice shaft, the one created by the drill seen earlier, have been hugely and mysteriously tunneled through. (I personally found it a tad unlikely that WW would perch on the very rim of this presumably slippery tunnel, overlooking as it does a two-mile plunge straight down. I also found the existence of a presumably equally long metal ladder leading down into the shaft a bit farcical.) Here we finally learn the purpose of the tunnel, which is to eventually tap geothermal heat to power the prison.

Anyway, here’s our first problem with the snake. For instance, that it could maneuver its way up a two-mile ice shaft. That doesn’t seem very likely. I guess it could have wrapped its way around the heat exchange pipe. Yet the snake we see later would weight tens of tons – these things seem to get bigger in every movie -- and you have to doubt that a two-mile long hanging pipe could sustain that kind of stress. Even so, we’d then have to believe that this snake could, presumably with it’s head, smash a tunnel through about fifty feet of solid ice. I’m not buying it.

We next see the prisoners taken to a common mess room. I’m not sure that they’d want them to congregate, but there you go. (Nor are any guards stationed there.) We learn that there are currently only six prisoners in the facility, although more are scheduled to arrive on a monthly basis. This is a point in the film’s favor, that the prison population will grown slowly, allowing for proper integration of the new fish. (Future Ken:  Actually, that not strictly true.  Here we're told that prisoners will be arriving in groups of roughly twenty a month.  Later we'll be told that the facilities meant to hold many thousands of inmates.  At twenty a month, it's going to take a while to get there!)

Even given the current paucity of detainees, however, the mess room is extremely small. This could indicate that prisoners are intended to be segregated in myriad small cellblocks, so as to limit the opportunity for mass uprisings. However, this is all supposition. More likely, the producers just couldn’t afford to rent and deck out a larger room.

We meet Our Cast of Ne’er-do-wells. Aside from Yuri and Yuvol, there’s Kelly Mitich. He’s the sarcastic slacker computer hacker. "Twelve countries had me on retainer to hack the United States government," he boasts. "One time I shut down four defense networks in one day." That seems like a pretty big deal, but we don’t hear of anything that resulted from it. In any case, Kelly’s credentials as a superstud of modern computer systems are soon somewhat diminished. This occurs when Yuri has to point out the fact that the table they’re sitting at sports an obvious listening device. Freaked at the possibility that they’re being monitored, Mitich scoots off. At which the remaining characters have a laugh at the fact that the table really isn’t bugged. First, why wouldn’t it be? Second, how did Mitich shut down secure defense networks if he can’t even identify a simple bugging device (or the lack thereof)?

We’re next introduced to Patricia O’Boyle (!!), who is, are you sitting down, an IRA terrorist. The actress playing her exhibits one of the funniest brogues I’ve heard in a long time. It’s thicker than that ice the snake came through. Anyway, Mitich is always trying to get into her pants, while she can barely restrain herself from killing him. Please, lady, don’t resist on my count. The picture will be better off the sooner that guy’s out of it. The two other inmates turn out to be rather more minor characters. There’s Jose, apparently another terrorist. Finally there’s Ben Shad, a bald Iraqi with a walrus mustache who engineered that country’s chemical weapons.

Again, this selection raises more questions than it answers. Obviously America, Britain and Russia are among the "thirty-five countries" that are sponsoring the prison. But who are the others? What are the criteria by which these nations decide who will be interned there? It’s difficult to imagine any radical Islamic nations being on the roster. How about Cuba, though? Or China? Hell, what about France?

Being about a third of the way through things, it’s time to get our main plot device going. So the guard watching over the tunnel to the ice shaft hole hears something. He radios Quinn for backup. Quinn, by the way, is currently in the film’s most laughable element, at least as far as the prison is concerned. That being the facility’s security monitoring room.

This is a round chamber with a chair in the middle of it, surrounded by banks of six monitors spaced out along the curved walls. There are, if I’m not miscounting, twenty-one such groupings ranged all over the room.  This represents a total of well over a hundred rather dinky monitor screens. What makes this so amusing is that the guy in the chair is supposed to swivel around this way and that in order to see the different monitor banks. Which means that the fellow stationed there can watch maybe twenty percent of the monitors at any one time. This is extremely stupid. You’ve got this massive prison complex, and you can’t afford four to six guys at a time to watch over all the monitors? You can’t even argue that they are just currently understaffed, because the room is designed to hold only the one chair. You can tell this set was designed to look ‘neat,’ and that its basic functionality was never even considered. Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more inane design.

Anyway, Quinn replies that nothing is happening and the guard should pull himself together. Let me mention the differences between the CGI and the practical parts of the film. Again, the ability to portray almost anything with CGI is bound to become an increasing issue in DTV in the foreseeable future. Here, though, it’s to the detriment of the film that the computer f/x have written a check the rest of the picture can’t cash.

For instance, again, this prison is supposed to be a mammoth undertaking. Moreover, the staff would of necessity have to be stationed here. Nobody’s driving home from the South Pole at the end of their shift. Moreover, think of the differences between a normal prison and this one. This is not a holding facility, and the concept of rehabilitation is theoretically out the window. Once incarcerated here, you’re here for life. Plus, we’re not talking your usual prison population. This facility is meant to contain the world’s most dangerous people.

By point being that this would result in, you’d have to think, some rather rigorous security protocols. Which is why I don’t believe the tunnel would be guarded by one guy. In fact, I’d think that guards would never do anything alone. Given the threat level represented by the inmates, you’d probably want to have the guards working, at the very least, in pairs. The tunnel, as WW noted before, now represents an alternate way to exit the prison. Until it’s repaired the tunnel should be much better guarded than it is here.

Then there’s the professionalism issue, which I’ll get into more later. Here, my question is why Quinn would be so dismissive of his man’s concerns. Again, the security protocols here should be of the highest standard. When a guard – presumably highly trained, since he’s working in this shiny new super-prison – formally requests back up, it should automatically be given. If the guy turns out to merely be jumpy that can be addressed afterwards. Quinn’s actions here just don’t sit right.

Also, I love the fact that the guard is armed with an automatic weapon equipped with a mounted flashlight attachment. These, of course, have been standard in monster movies since Aliens. Even when they make no sense whatsoever. Good grief, doesn’t anybody put lights in their facilities anymore? Even if the backup systems can’t light the entire magilla until the geothermic power comes on line, are you’re telling me they can’t light individual sections of the place? And, yes, I realize the low lighting isn’t meant to be internally consistent. Instead, it’s supposed to provide some spooky atmosphere. That’s why, I suppose, you’ve got to make your movie exciting enough that the viewer doesn’t have time to think about all this stuff.

This thing’s getting a lot longer than I intended, so let’s just hit the high points:

• Just to end the suspense, the aforementioned guard is killed by the snake. Poluso and Goodman quickly follow.
• As mentioned before, the snake is both much too huge – probably eighty feet in length or more – and, as all such creatures since Anaconda, way, way too fast. This is one reason CGI monsters tend not to fool the eye as much as less sophisticated practical ones. They move too easily, as if they lack mass. (Which, in fact, they do.) Here, though, there might be another reason. We never see the snake in very long looks. I think suspect could only afford so many exact minutes of CGI work, and so the snake moves fast so as to accomplish more while it’s onscreen.
• With the guard at the opposite end, Quinn elliptically sees the tail of the creature entering the other side of the tunnel. However, the snake is probably longer than the tunnel is, meaning that there’s no way it could have be in there and not been seen by the guard yet. Good continuity there. By the way, the security monitors don’t seem to have a memory capability (!!), so Quinn can’t play back the image.
• Quinn not only doesn’t warn Poluso and Goodman that something appears to have happened to the guard, but he tells them to go into the tunnel. I don’t know if Quinn’s just supposed to be dangerously incompetent or just downright murderous. In fact, at this point Quinn still hasn’t started rousing any of the other guards yet. I find the idea that this guy is head of security at this complex to be utterly beyond credibility.
• Things I Learned™ [trademark of Andrew Borntreger]: Giant snakes both growl and roar.
• We cut to a dig (helpfully identified by onscreen text as "excavation site") where Robert and Jessica are working. They get a visit from some military guys requesting their presence on n expedition. Little detail is provided other than about the whole preserved-nitrogen-chamber thing. OK, I get that they are the world’s only ‘experts’ on prehistoric Antarctic snakes. But first, what does that mean exactly? In movies like this, such scientists are always assumed to be incredibly knowledgeable on whatever is the subject of their weird theories. However, there’s so little physical evidence of the Antarctic reptiles they’ve written a paper on that no one even believes they exist. So how much hard data would they actually be able to bring to bear, here? (As we’ll see, surprisingly, quite a lot.)
• Second, who needs ‘experts’ on prehistoric snakes in this situation? Bring in troops and kill the thing. After all, it’s just a big snake. Hell, just evacuate the lower sections of the prison – there are airtight doors at regular intervals to contain prisoners, wouldn’t you think? – and gas the thing to death. Of course, nobody ever suggests this plan.
• Aside from Robert and Jessica their plane carries a handful of your usually inept movie Special Forces guys. All of who have flashlights attached to the standard military rifles they intend to hunt the snake with. I don’t know, you’d probably want to bring something with a tad more punch to bring down an eighty-foot long snake. I’ll give them this, though, at least no one is suggesting the snake be caught for scientific research. The guys are here to kill it, even if they are patently too incompetent to get the job done. Also, couldn’t they spare more than a total of five guys?
• Oh, and the prison is indeed meant to remain a secret. How that would work isn’t gone into, probably because the whole idea is stupid.
• Apparently the prison is facing some hardships, since there’s a lack of radio contact, landing lights or signal beacons to greet the incoming plane. (Wouldn’t the beacons at least be automatic and have their own power sources?) However, since the plane is "flying on fumes" (!!) they have to try to land it. Again, how about we skip the ‘drama’ of the forced plane landing, which we can pretty well figure out isn’t going to kill the film’s two lead characters forty minutes into the movie, and hack down the running time?
• Things I Learned: Special Forces guys, when engaged in a forced aircraft landing, don’t secure their rifles but instead hold them in their hands. Luckily, the impact doesn’t jar them loose, causing the weapons to fly around the compartment and probably kill somebody.
• The pilot warns them that once the plane is refueled, it must lift off within twelve hours. (??) He explains that the fuel will freeze solid otherwise. So that would take exactly twelve hours? And is this sort of thing would be a problem, why wouldn’t the prison be equipped with aircraft hangers? Also, the idea that there’s no way to leave the complex in case of an emergency seems sort of silly.
• By the way, who’s going to refuel the plane? There wasn’t even a guy on radio duty. And what, the pilot’s staying with the plane for twelve hours, in the Antarctic in winter, rather than entering the complex? I don’t think so.
• Things I Learned: When walking around in –70° weather, you wear parkas but don’t bother covering up your face with anything.
• Things I Learned: When leaving a plane to walk through a blinding blizzard, looking for an unseen building, you’d don’t tie a line back to the plane so that you can find it if you need to return to it.
• Things I Learned: To enter the most secure prison facility in human history, all you only require a five-digit key code.
• I’ve been underestimating how big this complex is. We’re told that when it’s fully operational, it’s intended to warehouse 25,000 prisoners. That’s like five aircraft carriers, not even counting the guards and staff. Even so, the whole thing currently seems to be run by two guys, a Warden and a security chief, who can’t even spare two guys at once to guard an possible escape route from the prison.
• The plot seems pretty loosey-goosey on which systems are functioning and which aren’t. It mostly seems to be based on what’s convenient to the script.
• Proving again the gross incompetence of the staff here, Quinn and some of his men greet the team with raised guns, threatening to fire upon them. (Maybe they think they’re the snake in some sort of elaborate disguise.) Then Quinn, who seems oddly prone to panic, giving his job, suggests "we all get back on your plane and fly as far away from this place as we can." Since the plane could hold, tops, maybe a dozen people, this is a notably moronic suggestion. First, even suggesting this represents a gross dereliction of duty on Quinn’s part. Second, unless the base has a staff numbering less than half a dozen – which, sadly, seems to be the case – they couldn’t possibly get everyone out. And that’s assuming the prisoners are left to rot away in their cells.
• For the second time in twenty seconds, the guards and the soldiers draw weapons on each other. This occurs when Quinn tries to force his way out onto the plane. (!!) However, only Major Larsten, the Special Forces leader – of all four of the rest of them – has the cardkey necessary to leave the base. That’s right, even the Warden can’t get out of the prison unless someone from the once-a-month delivery flight is on hand. This is so dumb that I can’t even begin to raise the energy to point out how many ways it’s stupid.
• Oh, we finally learn that – after fifty minutes -- the Warden’s name is Ryan. Well, I’m too lazy to go back and change all the earlier references to ‘WW.’ So we’ll let them stand.
• Robert, seeing an image of the snake, tells Jessica that it could be "the missing link." To what?!
• The snake is assumed to be around the heat exchange pipe because it needs warmth. (So shut it down and freeze it to death.) Remember that for later.
• Oops, there we go. Robert and Jessica ask if there isn’t some way to ‘capture’ the snake. The eighty-foot long one that’s so far eaten six people. What a pair of maroons.
• Komedy Klassics: Following obligatory bad scripting traditions, Major Larsten’s plan for killing the giant snake involves splitting up his forces. All four of them. Well, five, if he includes himself.
• Here comes the big ‘action’ set piece. Warden Ryan sits in the spinning chair, rotating around so that he can try to track things on the zillions of little TV monitors in the security room. (Please ignore the similarities to Lt. Gorman’s monitoring of his attacked group of Marines in Aliens. Actually, considering how slow and boring this sequence is, that might not be a problem.) He whips back and forth, accompanied by much frenetic camera work, watching as the military guys get killed. (Oops, sorry.)
• I still can’t get over the fact that five guys are supposed to be hunting this massive creature while armed with M16s. They might as well be using pistols, why they’re at it.
• After sending off two of his men, Larsten radios them to split up again, sending each guy off on his own. This is so dumb that even his men question it.
• You know, as soon as that lone soldier entered that hallway filled with much atmospheric fog (?!), I pretty much knew he was toast. And I was right!
• The Major tells his guys to make sure to acquire a target before firing, because the place is filled with "exposed gas lines." (!!) Who the hell designed this place? And if there are natural gas lines down here, again, why not simply fumigate the area. And finally, if he sees the gas lines, how about asking Warden Ryan to shut them down so that they don’t explode if a bullet hits them?
• Things I Learned: 80-foot long snakes are as stealthy as ninjas.
• OK, I realize that the facility is not fully up and running yet. But a place designed to hold 25,000 prisoners currently has a total of six guards on hand?! Because that’s what we’re told here.
• Quinn balks at bringing his guards down to help out the soldiers. (Too bad they didn’t bring more than five troops, huh?) He argues that this isn’t their job. Technically, that might be true. Still, given the circumstances that seems a pretty stupid position to take. And again, Quinn seems incredibly inept and panicky for somebody responsible for overseeing security in a complex meant to hold the world’s 25,000 most dangerous individuals. Actually, Warden Ryan seems fairly inept for his position too, given his proclivity to go off on shouting rants at the drop of a hat. Still, compared to Quinn he’s a model of professionalism.
• By the way, why does the head of security for a 25,000 inmate facility have the rank of "Sergeant"? Wouldn’t he (ultimately) have thousands of men working under his command?
• Quinn doesn’t want the armed guards going down to confront the snake, but when Robert asks to come along, his wife doesn’t bat an eye. Shouldn’t she at least tell him to be careful or something? Oh, wait, it’s because she’s demanding to go with too.
• After warning his men to only fire upon the snake after seeing it, Larsten and his two men begin blindly shooting at the shouted commands of Warden Ryan. By the way, Ryan can’t see the snake on any of his hundred-plus camera monitors, but only on a motion detector screen like the one they tracked Dallas with in Alien. Cripes, somebody, come up with some new stuff, would you?
• In a moment of pathos, it turns out that the Warden wasn’t tracking the motions of the snake, but of the only sole soldier. He’s been hit (once) by the fusillade and is dead. Gee, too bad that the motion detectors are so poorly designed that one man registers the same as a semi-truck sized monster. And too bad the passageways are filled with fog, so that Larsten couldn’t see his man. And too bad the dead guy never bothered to answer Larsten’s repeated radio calls, so that he could have given his location. Man, this is sloppy writing.
• Robert suggests abandoning the golf carts, since their vibrations might attract the snake. Quinn, ever the utter jackass, refuses to follow this advise. "I’m not walking through this tunnel with that snake on the loose," he sneers. "I want to get in and out of here as fast as possible!" Let me repeat: The vehicle he refuses to leave behind is a golf cart. It appears to have a top speed of, maybe, two or three miles an hour. In other words, a fairly fit man could easily outrun it on foot. Seriously, a skateboard would outdistance these things in a minute flat. You know, there comes a point where you actually start getting angry at how stupid a movie is, and I think I’m there.
• Next the loudly giant hissing snake manages to sneak up on the remaining three soldiers. Really. Larsten opens fire and, yep, sets off a tremendous gas explosion. This kills him, Quinn and all the other guards – who manage to appear at just the wrong moment -- but not the snake. First of all, there’s still a half hour of movie left. Second, in modern movies, you have to kill the monster at least three times before it’s really dead.
• Things I Learned: A burst pipe can gush a large stream of natural gas into a big open flame but won’t cause an explosion for a couple of minutes.
• Things I Learned: Six guys can approach a length of concrete tunnel flooding with natural gas but won’t smell anything.
• Things I Learned: Radio headsets will never function correctly at crucial moments.
• Ok, at this point we’ve got Warden Ryan, Robert and Jessica, and the six prisoners left on hand. Oh, yeah, the prisoners. I guess we were bound to get back to them at some point.
• Things I Learned: Movie scientists will always be so fascinated by the ‘scientific importance’ of monsters that they will act in ways seemingly designed to get themselves killed.
• Boy, Robert and Jessica definitely took advantage of the Hero’s Death Battle Exemption there. And it wasn’t even a death battle! But now they’re split up. Gee, I wonder if they’ll ever see each other again. (Cough, cough.)
• Did somebody consult my list of problems with Lost World: Jurassic Park before writing this script? Because many of the same stupid plot elements are on display here. For instance, again, the people with by far the most meager survival skills will be the only survivors (oops, sorry), despite also being the only ones not to be armed.
• Believing Jessica dead, Robert returns to speak with Warden Ryan. It’s time to get to the plane – four hours until it must leave – but first Robert demands that the free the prisoners. He is, supposedly, operating under the premise that it’s only with their help that they can get out of here. Why would you think that? You got me. Yeah, I’m going to free a bunch of the world’s most vicious killers in order to increase my chances of getting out of here alive. That sure makes sense. Also, they earlier established that only Larsten could get them out of the complex. Stupid movie.
• Needless to say, Warden Ryan goes along with the scheme. Because that’s what the entire script has been leading to. Of course, if I were the Warden here the last thing I’d want to do is let the prisoners out. Even if they didn’t kill Robert – seemingly a slim hope – you’d have to think they’d ice him, just on general principles. Oh, but Yuri gives them his word they won’t be harmed. Since this is a movie, that’s good enough, I guess.
• Once armed, the group gathers in a map room to figure out a way out of the prison. This room is lit with a red klieg light. Why? I guess because it looks ‘cool.’
• Oh, wait, no it doesn’t. It looks stupid. Never mind.
• Yuri, being from Eastern Europe, of course drops his pronouns when speaking English. "Snake breaks in through heat exchange," is one typical sentence. I’m quite sure they wouldn’t have a Chinese character speaking this pigeon stuff anymore, so why is it OK with a European guy?
• There are only two ways to get from one side of the facility to the other. Again, who designed this place.
• Anyhoo, the plan is to get to the ice tunnel, climb up to top of the heat exchange shaft, and blow through the few feet of ice between the shaft and the surface. Leaving the question of why such an obviously vulnerable route out of the prison would be allowed to exist.
• Of course, they decide to…that’s right…split into two groups. (At least there’s a modicum of sense, here. If the snake manages to kill one group, the other should be able to escape.) The most laughable part is that Mitich and O’Boyle are put in one group. She wanting to kill him, if you can remember that far back. They try to explain this, but it still doesn’t wash.
• Man, O’Boyle’s Irish accent ain’t gettin’ any better.
• First Ben gets whacked by the Ninja Giant Snake. Then Mitich gets into a golf cart and rides off, leaving the others behind. (Where, exactly, does he think he’s going?) Now, you may have noticed earlier that Quinn didn’t die because he ignored Robert’s advise about the carts. Instead, Mitich will.
• Watch the actors run at quarter speed as Mitich makes his ‘escape’ in the golf cart.
• Mitich sees the snakes hanging from the ceiling, but rather counterintuitively tries to snail his way past it in the cart. Needless to say, he’s toast. His cart hits a gas pipe, and Warden Ryan, shooting at the snake, sets it off and is killed also. OK, first, we already did the accidental-death-by-gas thing. Second, the snake should be at least severely burned, since it was right in the midst of the flashpoint. (Actually, it should rationally be dead, either from the explosion, the heat, or asphyxiation from having the oxygen in the area burned off.)
• Yuri, Yuvol and Silent Jose walk through a huge chamber full of what I guess are support pillars. Or something. The whole idea of splitting the groups up was because the snake couldn’t be everywhere at once and so kill all of them. Of course, they didn’t count on its Offscreen Teleportation abilities. In fact, the snake not only manages to attack one group and still get to the other, but it bounces back and forth, killing a guy here and a guy there and back again.
• Oh, the gigantic pillar chamber is a "storage" area. Uh, yeah.
• Hey, look, it’s Jessica! She’s alive! Who’d thought.
• Suddenly it’s revealed that Patty has a fear of snakes. (!!) "There are no snakes in Ireland," she explains. "They’re evil creatures." Lady, I hope you realized you just cut your own throat.
• By the way, they must have massive amounts of food and stuff stored away. Why didn’t they all just barricade themselves somewhere and wait for help. You’d have to think they’re be areas this massive snake couldn’t get in to. And if their plane returns without any of them aboard, wouldn’t the authorities send reinforcements back immediately?
• The snake’s down in the ‘storage’ area now. Soon it will be where Robert and Patty are. So much for the "it can’t be in two places at once" idea.
• There goes Jose and Yuvol.
• Yuri and Jessica blow the ice cap, escaping outside to hunt for the plane. Since they’d probably freeze to death in about two minutes, they better hurry.
• The snake gets Patty. Big surprise. Unlike everyone else, though, she death takes a while. This allows Robert to shoot her. See, he promised he wouldn’t let the snake kill her. It’s a tragic character moment, you see. One that doesn’t exactly seem to scar him for life, but there you go.
• So Robert makes it outside. He collapses, but is saved by Good Guy Villain Yuri, who has returned for him.
• The plane takes off. Yuri is given a big character moment where he explains that his wife perished in the war. You know, there are political fighters who are actually driven by ideology and don’t need to have a personal Tragic History. I guess that’s too subtle, though. Anyway, Robert and Jessica are properly saddened by the tale. Not that stops them from making out in front of the guy directly afterwards!
• I’m always amazed when I have to write this sentence when reviewing such a moronic movie, but here we go: This is where things start getting silly. Now, as I’ve noted, this film heavily rips-off Aliens. Plus there’s still running time left, and the snake wasn’t killed. So, unless you just really don’t watch monster movies, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that the plane has somehow taken off with the 80-foot, multi-ton snake wrapped around it. Personally, I’d have imagined that the cold alone would have killed it by now, but there you go.
• Oh, and it somehow, from the cargo hold, manages to impale the co-pilot with it’s tail. (??) Hey, that’s just what happened to Bishop in Aliens!!
• So it goes smashing it’s way through the skin of the plane before Yuri dies a tragic, redemptive death saving the others. Didn’t see that coming, eh? Oh, the snake is knocked out of the plane via the airlock. Er, cargo door. Yes, that’s very original. Meanwhile, in the silliest moment in the whole film, Yuri struggles to keep a handhold with Robert, even though he’s being dragged down the weight of the 80-foot snake!! Needless to say, after about thirty seconds of this gravity wins and he takes his leave.
• Then the plane, miraculously still functional, takes Our Heroes to safety. Even though it much be bitchin’ cold in there. Goodbye, giant Boa. I’m signing off until the inevitable giant diamondback snake movie comes out.
• Great Minds Dept: The tagline for this film is "100 feet of Prehistoric Terror." As opposed to "Sixty Feet of Prehistoric Terror", the tagline for both Beneath Loch Ness and Megalodon.

As a side note, I want to mention one interesting thing about these modern CGI-enhanced cheapies. The thing that catches your notice is that the CGI sets tend to be massive, because there’s no fiscal reason to limit their scale. So stuff like the exteriors of the prison, the ice shaft and the humungous drill are presented in vast panoramas. However, this ironically tends to make the actual sets the actors are shot, which patently are constrained by budgetary factors, all the more shabby looking. Here watch for the supposedly colossal CGI drill, and compare it to the hilariously shoestring ‘control room’ from which it is supposedly operated.

We open on a cargo ship, riding through a gale in the Northwestern part of the Atlantic. I had a comparatively good vibe here, for the very first shot wasn’t laughable. (Believe me, I’ve seen more than my share of really bad sea craft shots.) Perhaps the shot is stock footage, or maybe a pretty good model, or whatever, but at least it doesn’t suck. A man, speaking a foreign language (French?) is hiding in a room, sweating and clutching at his torso. Suddenly we hear shouting coming from the passageway, and the secured hatch to the chamber is quickly under assault. Faceless figures run in once the hatch is beaten down. The man is bound and gagged with duct tape and taken topside, where he is unceremoniously tossed into the ocean.

We cut to a hospital in Boston. We get a little ER stuff with our opening credits (the latter portrayed with more flair than the former, which isn’t really meant as an insult). An emergency patient is wheeled in, but the attending physician, Dr. Ben Cahill, has a spell of some sort and can’t bring himself to cut into the man. He turns the patient over to another doctor and leaves the room. We learn that he’s had drinking problems in the past. Following this incident he’s put on involuntary leave.

Ben is next seen on the ferry to scenic Orr’s Island (or something), a small island community in Maine. It’s the sort of remote New England town familiar to Stephen King fans. Here I got my first small snorting reaction to the film. This occurs when a pair of obligatory crusty old fishermen looks askance at Ben after his beeper goes off. We don’t hold with them newfangled gadgets, Mistah Fancypants. OK, it’s an insular place, but c’mon, even folks in a place like Orr’s Island would have cell phones and such in the year 2000. Even so, realizing that he’s come here to get away from the Big City Life, Ben responds to their reaction by tossing his beeper into the drink. (!)

Now we meet salty local Jack, played by John Savage. It’s always good to see veteran character actors in these things. (Jack’s equally askance reaction to Ben, upon learning that he doesn’t drink, struck me as a little more realistic.) Steve is the island’s electric company worker, which I imagine will come into play later. It turns out that he’s also the son of the folks who built the house Ben’s bought, and he still thinks it rightfully belongs to him. This would be a pretty big lump ‘o coincidence to swallow, if it weren’t for the fact that such an island probably only numbers its residence in the low hundreds of people. Since Ben’s just talked about what a pigsty the place is, well, he’s not off to the best start.

As drives off the ferry in his fancy SUV, the camera pans to reveals the body of the man thrown off the ship earlier. The tape placed over his mouth has been breached, and we see a pair of insect antennae pop up through the hole… An Evil Dead cam shot subsequently heads towards a man working on his truck, but it’s Ye Olde False Scare. The man isn’t accosted by bugs, but by Jack. The fellow is Jack’s older and somewhat more levelheaded brother, Eamon. Jack obviously isn’t taking the house situation well.

We cut to Ben in his new house, which is indeed pretty run down and currently sans electricity (‘currently,’ get it?) and heat. He lights the sort of magic candle that gives off like ten times the lighting power it should and opens a bottle of liquor he’s found in the cabinet. He almost takes a drink, but instead ends up dumping the booze down the sink. Here he finds that the plumbing is bad, too. In a bit that strained my credulity somewhat, the water pressure kicks in just as the power belatedly comes on. He must have one of those electrical plumbing systems you hear so much about. (Actually, the plumbing does prove to run on the generator. I’ve never heard of that.)

Things build from here about as you’d expect, albeit in a pleasingly professional manner. The island, like many traditional fishing communities, is suffering severe economic hardships. Therefore the blue collar resentment against Ben, a wealthy (by Horse Island standards, anyway) city dweller, is a comparatively realistic plot device. Not only is he an outsider to a markedly insular community, but one who’s procured his place there due to one of the island family’s penury. Also credible are the frequent power outages Ben experiences at his house. It’s not that we don’t see where they’re going with this stuff, just that it seems fairly organic to the overall setting. An especially nice tough, I thought, was the barroom bitching about the lack of fish. One blowhard loudly acclaims global warming to be the cause of the fish shortages. While some viewers might nod their head at this, the guy’s ultimately speaking out of his hat as much as his forefathers would have been by placing the blame on sea monsters or witchcraft.

What I especially like is the fact that none of the characters are *gasp* Right or Wrong, Good or Bad. The economic situation of the town isn’t Ben fault. Nor is he responsible for the fact that he’s more educated and successful than the locals. And if he hadn’t bought the house, somebody else would of. On the other hand, if Jack’s ire at Ben is mostly the result of having a convenient target for his rage, Ben doesn’t exactly help the situation. He’s seemingly tone deaf to the local’s plight.

The scene where he barges into the town bar – the very heart of the island’s male community – and arrogantly demands that Jack do something about his electrical problems reveal him to be a rather giant ass. Yes, Ben is paying his bills, and he has every right to demand service. There are times, though, when the assertion of rights is counterproductive. Ben’s being in the right here doesn’t count for much. Moreover, he lets his anger get the better of him. Making a very bad choice, he insults Jack not only to his face, but in front of his peers as well. At this point he might as well pack up and leave the island. (That he, a recovering alcoholic, chooses to make an issue of Jack’s drinking is a nice touch. Ex-drinkers, like ex-smokers, can be the most militantly intolerant about their former vices.)

Around here we meet the town Sheriff, played by Dean Stockwell. Always a pleasure, Mr. Stockwell. In an inevitable bit, we also are soon introduced to Nell, the local woman instantly identifiable as Ben’s Prospective Love Interest. (One can only hope she’s not Jack’s old girlfriend. That would certainly be possible in such a small community, but a bit much from a scripting standpoint.) Frankly, I could have done without a romantic subplot, although that’s probably a bit much to hope for.

With our cast – what, no entomologist? -- and our setting now provided, we can get into things. The first deaths occur and are written off. Tensions between Jack and Ben mount, the Sheriff and Nell try to keep them cool, humorous interactions with the locals occur, etc. However, I must mention one really neat bit, which involves the town school’s classroom pet hamster. The hamster, seemingly authentically panicked, is seen one night racing through the maze he lives in. Sure enough, he’s being pursued by the roaches and is inevitably cornered, with predictable results. (Yes, happily, the sequence concludes off-camera.) This is a quite witty little sequence, and the camera work, racing right down in the maze, is marvelous. It’s amazing how an animal in peril seems so much more nerve-wracking than a person in a similar fix.

While the film never gets as insultingly stupid as many others of recent vintage, it does become increasingly ludicrous as things progress. Like action movies, horror movies now seem addicted to have a ‘top this’ sort of attitude. This tendency is abetted by the improvement in special effects technology, which allows a small film like this to do more than ever before. However, bigger doesn’t mean better. The more modest scenes early on are much more suspenseful than the full-blown swarming sequences we’re treated to near the end. After all, you don’t need huge swarm of cockroaches to be made uneasy, one will generally do the job. Meanwhile, while I was glad to be spared the seemingly inevitable government/military/corporate conspiracy angle, the equally uninspired "It’s not over yet!" coda left me weary.

The film’s director and producer, Ellory Elkayem and Eric d’Arbeloff, respectively, provide a commentary track on the DVD. (Elkayem is apparently the helmer of this summer’s upcoming big spider movie Eight Legged Freaks, a fact I find moderately promising.) Stupidly, the commentary isn’t mentioned on the disc’s "Special Features" menu, and I’d have missed it entirely had I not just stumbled upon it. Those looking can access it through the "Set-Up" menu – and even then it’s almost buried, as if they were trying to hide it -- or with the Audio button on your DVD player’s remote. (You should also avoid watching the trailer before the movie, a wise choice in most cases.) Anyway, the commentary’s not a knock-out, but might be worth a listen for fans of such tracts.

Oh, during the roaches-in-the-refrigerator bit, notice the Chinese take-out container in the background. Chinese take-out on Orr’s Island?!

READERS RESPOND:

Within 24 hours of this piece going up, two readers, Ciaran Conliffe and Arthur Lueck, wrote to inform me that some plumbing systems do indeed require electricity to run water.  Mr. Lueck even referred to me as "Mistah Fancypants" to chastise my presumptions on this.  Hoisted on my own petard!  For the record, Mr. Conliffe also confirmed that some other rivers are called the "River 'blank'".  Perhaps its more of a UK thing.  

I don’t know what my problem is. I’ve got literally hundreds of videocassettes sitting around my house, the majority of which I’ve never watched. Chances are by the time I get to many of them, they’ll no longer be playable. Then there’s all the DVDs I continue to buy – on top of the ones I rent – of which, again, I probably watch one for every five I add to my collection. What I really need is a year off to help catch up. Where’s that damn MacArthur genius grant?

One thing’s gotten better in this regard. With the advent of DVD, I’ve come close to ceasing entirely my buying of video tapes. They take up more room. They weigh more. The picture and the sound quality are markedly inferior, especially the LP and EP transfers. (Something all the more apparent when watching a cassette after viewing mainly discs for a while.) They eventually lose their magnetic charge and become unwatchable. Then there’s all the extra crap you often get on DVDs, even the ones for really weird movies.

Even so, I’ve got an itchy buying finger. (The only good trait I have in this regard is that I’m extremely debt phobic.) And so, when I saw that the good folks at Sinister Cinema -- perhaps America’s premier purveyor of public domain video titles -- were having one of their occasional sales, I couldn’t resist. After all, these are the fine folks who provided me with my first copy of The Brainiac all those years ago.

Unfortunately, a change in copyright laws has caused SC to pull the bulk of their K. Gordon Murray-dubbed Mexican films off the market. Even so, they’ve got a lot of good weirdness to offer the connoisseur of crap, classics and cult movies. So their recent (and at this date still extant) eight titles for $99 sale – don’t hurt yourself, it’s $12.50 a tape – sucked me in. And so I ordered myself twenty movies, all of which, happily, I haven’t seen before. A few are obscurities whose catalog descriptions intrigued me. (See 2 + 5: Mission Hydra below.)  Mostly, they're European movies.  I especially invested in films from the ‘60s Dr. Mabuse series and some of those West German Edgar Wallace adaptations I’ve long wanted to see.  This being one of those.)

So if I’m going to spend two and half Cs, I might as well get some articles out of it. Plus, that actually motivates me to *gasp* watch some of these the movies I just bought.

Edgar Wallace was a massively successful thriller writer back in the early part of the century. He wrote creaky, gothic-type novels filled with locked-room mysteries, family legacies that inspire dastardly murder plots, secret panels, dark and stormy nights, that sort of thing. His numerous books inspired a series of movies in England back in the ‘30s, such as Chambers of Horrors and the Bela Lugosi picture Dark Eyes of London, aka The Human Monster. The latter film, a version of Wallace’s The Gaunt Stranger, had been filmed four times previously, thrice in Britain. A more recent version had been produced in in 1953, with Herbert Lom as the detective hero and featuring Denholm Elliott in support.

In the ’60s, a taste for campy entertainment hit continental Europe. There were films featuring Bondian spies, space operas and superheroes.  Also popular were films built around supervillains, including Hammer’s Fu Manchu films but primarily those built around the aforementioned Dr. Mabuse.

The great German director Fritz Lang had directed the first Mabuse movies back in the ‘20s. Eventually, though, he fled his homeland to escape the Nazi government, ending up here in America. In 1960 he finally returned to Germany and directed his last film, The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. (Which is available on a simply must-buy DVD from the good folks at Allday Entertainment.)

With a taste for supervillains and unbelievably elaborate criminal schemes back in vogue, West Germany produced what seem like dozens of Edgar Wallace-inspired films. Many of these featured Euro-schlock king Klaus Kinski playing one of his patented weirdoes. As well, the director of The Mysterious Magician, Alfred Vohrer, spent much of his career making them.

I have some extremely vague memories of these films.  As a child, I had watched dubbed versions of some of them on Chicago’s then junky UHF TV station Channel 32. Flickers of images involving hooded, bullwhip-wielding killers and acid-filled squirt guns are all I have kept of them. Lately I’ve been getting an itch to watch some of these again and see what they’re actually like. This impulse is a large part of why I ordered this particular shipment of tapes. 

By the way, would somebody write a book on these films, or start a website dedicated to them, or put out a DVD or two (or a dozen) with commentary tracks by some film historians? I’d love to know more about these movies.

My first thought when beginning this tape was surprise that the film was in black and white. I don’t know why I remembered them being in color. Upon reflection I realize I had watched them on a black & white TV set anyway. (Yes, children, there a was a day when all television programming was in black & white.) Maybe they were so colorful in subject matter that I instinctively misremembered them that way.

We open on a secretary passing a phone call on to her boss, who looks rather like a Teutonic Wilford Brimley. After hanging up she hurriedly attaches a listening device to the phone and begins to write down the conversation. Here we cut to the door handle to her office slowly, ominously turning. A mysterious man enters – in a Doris Wishman-esque shot we’re only shown the guy’s shoes -- and approaches her. She turns and screams, but it's too late.

We cut to the woman, dead, inside of a double-cockpit mini-submarine. (!!) The pilot takes the craft out into some large body of water and ejects her corpse. [Future Ken: Said waterway proves to be the river Thames. Why is Thames the only one where you say ‘river’ first, anyway? Anyway, this made me wonder if a mini-sub was the easiest or most efficient way to get a body into a river that runs right through the middle of London.]

During this latter bit we hear a machine gun on the soundtrack. Animated ‘blood’ spatters appear on the screen.  There's a splatter for each letter in Edgar Wallace’s name – that’s the kind of draw he was – and his name is the superimposed over them. This introduces the opening credits, which are accompanied by that sort of trademark European jazzy la-la-la-la music, accentuated with dubbed-in screams. Boy, this is great stuff.

We cut to Elisa, a hot blond (as defined by the tastes of the time), entering an office at Scotland Yard headquarters. She cattily greets Jean, a heavily-bosomed brunette secretary wearing a very tight dress that showcases much décolletage. It’s obvious the women's relationship is a snippy one. The blond is looking for Inspector Higgins. Jean reports that he’s developing crime scene photos.

We cut to Higgins, examining the fresh photograph with an appreciative whistle. He runs it into Jean’s office and begins flirting with her, not seeing Elisa behind him. She demands to see the photo. Her reaction is quite angry and she shouts "Jerk!" This is pretty funny, considering the forcefulness of her facial reaction. One suspects a dubbed-in "Bastard!" might have more closely approximated the original German dialog. Elisa tosses the picture to the ground and stalks out. Before Higgins can reclaim it, Sir John, his very proper boss, enters the room and picks it up. It proves to be a nearly naked cheesecake photo of Jean, posed with her hands over her breasts. Wha-wha-whaaaa!!

Sir John calls Higgins into his office, then slides Jean’s picture into his own suit jacket. Man, that’s comedy. What’s really funny is the picture of Queen Elizabeth on the wall, which completely fails to sell the idea that this is taking place in England. (The fact that the dubbed version fails to use actors with British accents doesn't help any either.) There follows a briefing on the dead secretary.

We cut to Elisa and Higgins supposedly driving around in her roadster, an effect hilariously undermined by some of the most obvious bluescreen work I’ve ever seen. Higgins is soon interviewing the lawyer Mr. Messer, the victim’s boss. Higgins informs him that the secretary’s brother is Arthur Milton, aka The Ringer. Messer’s shocked expression and a somewhat unsubtle Ominous Music Cue inform us this is big news. (The Ringer was apparently a former English cop who was exiled [!] after allowing some suspects to commit suicide.) Messer is obviously not pleased with this knowledge, nor with Higgins’ prediction that Milton will appear in England, exiled or not.

Messer meets with Father Hopkins, who was earlier seen, sans clerical collar, *gasp* pushing off the mini-submarine. Two other henchmen are also present, one of which has a very fakey voice. In other words, he was probably dubbed by an actor doing a number of the vocalizations here. Such usage of the vocal talent on hand was a common money-saving technique for B-movie distributors and in radio shows as well. Presumably this fellow chose to employ one of his less expert ‘voices’ for this minor character. Anyway, Messer’s associates are equally aghast at the news about The Ringer.

Messer and the others turn out to be running a (what else?) white slavery ring. Higgins, for his part, not only has to solve the murder but is attempting to arrest The Ringer, who he’s sure is in the country. Also on the scene is The Ringer’s wife Cora. Of course, she can move around the country legally. Higgins is not much aided in these tasks by the comically – well, you know – pompous and clueless Sir John. The Ringer does in fact make his scheduled appearance, pursuing his own agenda. Naturally the villains of the piece want him eliminated. One of their assassination attempts involves luring him into a large house and then blowing up the entire building. Wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot him? Meanwhile, someone tries to kill Higgins and his partner by slipping poisonous snakes into the pockets of their trenchcoats. (!!)

• Things I Learned: Revolvers are quite plentiful in England. Aside from the criminal element, Scotland Yard Inspectors routinely carry them. Even the retired ones

• Things I Learned: If a Scotland Yard Inspector loses his driver’s license for speeding, he’ll have his girlfriend drive him around on his cases.

• Things I Learned: Ordinary leather gloves are proof against snakebites.

• Things I Learned: Pretty much everybody in England smokes.

The Movie: Goofy fun with ornate action, sudden violence, broad comic relief, booby traps, secret panels, spies, double crosses, sword canes, killer priests, lots of – as the film calls them – pretty girls, and a hero who routinely gets himself beaten up. A very stylish effort. I especially liked the shot from ‘inside’ a phone, with the camera looking out at the guy placing a call through the rotary dial holes. (!!) I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before.

The Tape: The image is a bit dark, there’s spotting and some visible wear lines, but it remains quite watchable. Portions of the film feature some visible jumping. Presumably the spindle holes on the print used by Sinister Cinema to make their video master were eroded. There’s occasionally some evident splicing. In a perfect world the print would be letterboxed, as it’s obvious the film was shot in widescreen. The print wasn’t pan and scanned, either, it just stays in the middle of the image. In other words, when two people are conversing across the desk, you might just see bits of them on either side of the screen. The sound quality’s pretty good. I’d call this about a B-, based on what you expect from a ‘bootlegged’ tape.

"One night, during the latter part of the 20^th Century," a narrator narrates, "on a small planet called Earth, the third from the Sun, in the solar system of the Milky Way, a strange occurrence took place on the island of Sardinia." This is said over footage of a Ringo Starr-ish looking guy on horseback (?). Riding through a rural village, or an unreasonable facsimile thereof, he sees what looks like a (very cheap) spaceship landing in the distance. This cataclysmic event is marked by a nearby pile of rocks falling over. Meanwhile the camera is shaken in an economical attempt to simulate a ground tremor.

We cut to the learned Professor Solmi lecturing a class of college students, albeit not on Antarctic Paleontology. His speech is somewhat incoherent, but it's something about how Science can be dangerous. Then he departs in a car driven by his extremely mod, devil-may-care daughter Louisa. Solmi’s studly assistant Paulo is in the backseat. Which is kind of weird, because Louisa’s driving the sort of sports car that just barely has a backseat. Especially for a guy of Paulo’s manly proportions. Luckily, the car seems somehow bigger when the camera is inside rather than outside of it.

Although unaware of the situation, they’re being followed by a Sinister Black Sedan. In case we fail to notice the numerous hints to this, the film cuts to the car while Louisa notes, "Look at that funny car! Isn’t that an old Chrysler?" The audience thus alerted, the three subsequently ignore the vehicle.  They eventually arrive at some center of Geologic Science or other. The Professor is soon looking at photos of a patch of ground covered with an odd white stain of some sort. The mark, he’s told, is growing larger each day. Meanwhile, Louisa sees the car again, but her suspicions are discounted. She is, after all, a girl. (To be fair, she actually is a bit scatterbrained on occasion, so their ignoring of her isn't entirely unwarranted.)

Later, Paulo is driving the car and Louisa’s in the backseat. Given their comparative sizes, this makes a bit more sense. (For a while.) Louisa complains about Paulo’s conservative driving. Because she’s so devil-may-care, you know. Did I explain that Paulo and Louisa are a couple? I guess I figured you’d just assume that, given the circumstances. This triangle of characters – learned scientist, his beauteous daughter/niece and his straight-laced hunky assistant, the latter two romantically involved – was a fairly standard template in sci-fi movies of this period.  (Future Ken:  Actually, they don't end up together.  See further on.)

After more comical hectoring, they stop to take an injured man to the hospital. Hilariously, he’s supposed to be lying in the backseat, which again, is barely extant. Especially since Louisa is still using it as well. She’s shown sitting in the regular three-shots of her, Solmi and Paulo. Then we’ll occasionally cut to shots of the guy. He's clearly lying in the seat of another car, although he’s supposed to be in this one. The TARDIS-like dimensions of this automobile are perhaps the film’s most fantastical science fiction component. Anyway, only Louisa suspects that the ‘accident’ in which the man was hurt was staged. Again her companions laugh her off, although obviously we'll later learn that she’s right.

After dropping the spuriously injured man off, the three take a helicopter to the site of the tainted ground. First they fly over stock footage of Rome, though. At one point Louisa playfully wraps her arms around the pilot’s head. This might help explain why Solmi and Paulo don’t listen to her very much. The 'injured' man, however, heard them mention their destination. He jumps off the examination table, is picked up by the Sinister Black Sedan and off he goes.

At the camp, we learn that the two on-site workers and Solmi’s office secretary all know Morse Code. They use this to transmit bad jokes over the phone, although I suspect that their now established knowledge might be a plot point of some sort. Later the team examines the whitened area. Paulo runs a giant directional microphone over it (??). I guess it’s because they’re scientists. Over the loud speakers they suddenly hear what sounds like amplified breathing. This is probably the film’s most effective bit, and in a better movie might have really been something.

The Professor’s theory, expounded on that night, is that there is a cavity of some sort under the target area. Louisa appears, clad in a tight sweater and even tighter slacks and leaning over a lot so as to emphasize her shapely rear end. Needless to say, she begins serving the men coffee, leading to this somewhat mysterious exchange.

Louisa: "Hey, Pop, you want coffee, too?"
Solmi: "Yes, dear."
Louisa: "But it’s a bit late [for you to be drinking coffee], isn’t it?"
Solmi: "Well, I guess so. Forget it."

Later that night, there’s an earth tremor. Everyone runs into the common room. Lousia is dressed, for our edification, in a loosely secured shirt and some panties. The shirt is fastened with one button, the one between her breasts.  This allows her to spotlight said panties when she twirls around, but without risking any actual nudity. This was made in 1965, after all. The ladies’ get theirs, too, for Paulo runs out shirtless. Since he’s played by Kirk Morris, a veteran of numerous Italian Sand ‘n Sandals epics – he played in his time Hercules, Samson and Maciste – he’s unsurprisingly surprisingly buff for a scientist. Although he probably isn’t at his hugest here.

The tremor occurred because the land over the cavity has caved in. Learning this, the team goes to investigate the now exposed cavern. Louisa, of course, insists on accompanying them. (Bad movie vets., meanwhile, will enjoy observing how the spotlights used to indicate the beams of their flashlights utterly fail to line up with their supposed sources.) They follow a wildly clicking Geiger Counter – everybody who appears in one of these movies later dies of cancer, right? – to a seemingly blank wall. Solmi orders the men to dig with the picks they brought. Always good to be prepared.

Hours of effort, however, bring little result. Other than oiling up Paulo’s manly torso, that is. However, a convenient rockslide that occurs just as they give up reveals a metal wall with a hatchway. This opens, leading them into a huge, albeit empty, control room. Only Louisa, however, figures out that they’re on a spaceship. The men laugh at this ludicrous notion, even after she says she read an article on such things. "In a woman’s magazine!" one worker quips, resulting in much sniggering. Only Solmi refuses to make light of her suggestion.

The group is being covertly observed via camera by Phena, a beauteous, red headed alien woman. Amazingly, she looks entirely human. What are the odds? She wears a semi see-through lace body suit equipped with a transparent plastic circle over her cleavage (!!) and accessorized with a high collar and black leather gloves and boots. She receives a vocal transmission from her superiors. "We have transmitted to your psycho-receivers the structure matrixes for the Earth language." (Apparently they mean Dubbed English.) Conveniently, she’s ordered to respond in this. We learn that she had two male associates who are presently being removed form their hibernation chambers. Presumably the woman got up first so as to greet them with coffee when they awaken.

The Professor, Louisa and Paulo attempt to leave the next day, but find that their Jeep mysteriously won’t start. Then the phone turns out to be dead. *Gasp* Seems like something’s going on, eh?

Meanwhile, Phena is explaining to her defrosted associates that the humans will be made to repair their spaceship. (Why the heck do they need humans to do this? Damn snooty aliens.) Then they will be brought back with them to the "Hydra galaxy," to be used for some no-doubt nefarious research purposes say. Pointing to a guy in a less than utterly convincing costume, Phena identifies him as the "only robot to survive hibernation." I have no idea what that means. Why would a robot need to ‘hibernate’? On the other hand, she also calls him a "member of an inferior race" (?), so you got me. Phena, for the record, is no longer wearing the outfit with the plastic cleavage panel. Instead, she’s modeling one sporting a miniskirt. The guys, meanwhile, are clad in the sort of black leather neo-fascist garb traditional in all ‘60s Italian space pictures.

The Professor and the others are soon captured by the pistol-wielding occupants of the Sinister Black Sedan. "Make no mistake," their leader inscrutably explains. "We’re Oriental, not Chinese." Sporting a hideously broad ‘Asian’ accent, he gives with some bewildering exposition. Apparently the fact that they’re not Chinese is important because the People’s Republic, we’re told, is in league with America (?!!), and these, uh, Orientals are very much not so. Anywoo, the Orientals believe the buried spaceship is some sort of superweapon project the Professor’s been working on. Which, if I’m following this, they fear the Chinese and American axis will use to overpower the, er, Oriental nation(s). They intend to make Solmi explain on the weapon functions. If he doesn’t? "[You’ll] be sorry, as I will kill you!"

Inside the cave, they come across the ‘robot’ – I think he’s a slave of some sort, actually – and the Orientals kill him. Paulo and the Two Assistant Guys jump the three Orientals. Although trained in Karate, and perhaps Judo (I think), the wily Orientals are no match for some good old-fashioned haymakers delivered by the towering Occidentals.

Phena, watching this on a bluescreen monitor, sends the two Guy Aliens out with spaceguns. Which is lucky, since an Oriental guy manages to reclaim his pistol. Although Paulo manages to evade five bullets by rolling on the ground (a technique I perhaps wouldn’t advocate myself), the guy is finally zeroing in when Space Guy shows up and kills him. Via Astro-film-composite technology, the victim turns into a flaming skeleton. "Look at that!" Louisa somewhat unnecessarily exclaims. Lady, you’re in a cave. Exactly what else would anybody being looking at? A really neat-o geode? An intriguing vein of magnesite? A stalagmite that resembles a gnome?

Soon it appears that a tragic conclusion will be the order of the day. (In a Eurpean film. Go figure.) I got this impression after watching Louisa exchange Significant Heated Glances with alien crewman Artie (!) and Paulo with Phena. (Phena isn’t the name she gives here. However, that’s how she’s listed on the IMDB, so I’m sticking with it.) The humans are given their assignments – why would they be better at fixing the spaceship’s engines than the actual aliens, again? – and told of dire consequences should they failed. Oh, and one of the "Orientals" is explicitly called "Chang." Strange moniker for a not-Chinese guy, you’d think.

Since they are being monitored, the Professor, Paulo and the two sidekick guys are released to work on the engine module. Or whatever the MacGuffin is being called. The Not-Chinese fellows are to stay and do manual chores, replacing the ‘robot’ they killed. Louisa is also kept aboard, for hostage purposes and so as to give her and Artie a chance to fall in love. (Oops, sorry.) Artie tries to ignore the impulsive Louisa’s charms -- which currently are boldly thrusting from her sweater -- but it’s obvious his icy exterior is starting to thaw.

Oh, and Louisa is provided food in the form of, three guesses, pills. Gee, there’s a fresh science-fictional concept. She balks, however, and the Sidekick Guys are told to bring her some Earth Food. Soon all the aliens, Louisa and the Oriental Duo are eating in the communal dining room. (Is a dining room really necessary for a race that subsists on pills?) The Orientals, having learned of Phena’s plans to kidnap them, have passed word on to the Sidekicks. They attempt to call the authorities, eventually passing their message on via Morse Code. Hmm, good thing their knowledge of that was established earlier. However, one guy panics and is remote-control killed by the aliens. The other is ordered to return to the ship.

However, the message has been received and a convoy of vehicles is on its way. (By the way, Phena now refers to the Orientals as "your Chinese friends," so I really have no frickin’ idea what’s going on there.) Soon soldiers are fanning out over the area. They are too late, however, and the spaceship takes off. So I guess Solmi succeeded in fixing the engines, although apparently I missed that part. We’re now treated to some exceedingly lame special effects to enhance our viewing enjoyment. Zero gravity is indicated when Louisa’s arms start lifting up. (!!) Then she falls to the floor, er, ceiling, and rolls around, a course of events primarily utilized to generate glimpses at her stockings and garters. "You forgot to restore the girl’s simulated weight," Phena exclaims.

Further stuff occurs. For instance, Artie exits the ship to effect some sort of repair. His face is exposed directly to vacuum and the cold of space, but it’s OK, because he’s got a breathing tube in his mouth. Oh, and he ‘falls’ to the lower part of the ship, where he hangs from a strut. We humans have much to learn about space travel. Soon Artie’s fixed the ship’s Space Transmission antennia (!!) and they are able to receive transmissions from their home world. Via the viewscreen we meet Murdu, their boss. Murdu is played by veteran Italian thespian Gordon Mitchell. He, like Morris, played in sand and sandle pictures – they both played Maciste, for example -- before moving on to mostly Spaghetti Westerns. Morris is probably one of few actors able to boast of working for both Fellini (Satyricon) and Fred Olen Ray (Bikini Drive-In.)

Learning of their eventual fate – largely because the aliens are morons – the humans are soon revolting. (Insert joke here.) See, now that they’ve been on the ship for half a day they can pilot it themselves. And why not? After all, they can fix it better than their alien hosts. So another brawl breaks out, as the film further comes to resemble an El Santo movie.

One aliens is knocked into a candy glass whatsit on the ship’s control panel and the toy spaceship is seen bucking around. Then we see what I assume is supposed to be an Earth spaceship and various space stations. This seems to be stock footage taken from some Japanese sci-fier. In any case, I recognized much of it as being footage later inserted into Doomsday Machine!! (Some of this also seems to have been originated with that film, especially the stuff with Casey Kasem) For the record, I have no idea what’s going on here. For one brief, shining moment, this movie actually becomes as totally confusing as Doomsday Machine itself was. Which is saying something.

The two space guys get shot. They will need operations to remove the bullets. (!) Meanwhile, Phena reports that she must go to the control room. "Our rotor blades have been throw out of rhythm," she explains. This is bad, I guess. Louisa follows her to watch over things, allowing Phena to spout some particularly silly technobabble. Here they cut in footage that’s definitely from Doomsday Machine, as it features Bobby Van and Grant Williams. This has been re-dubbed and is utterly nonsensical and confusing, a fitting tribute to the film they took it from.

Following the operation, Louisa is seen tending to Artie. Meanwhile, Phena bandages Paulo, who with Sidekick Guy gave blood (!) to the aliens. This leads to the following exchange of IMMORTAL DIALOG:

Smitten Phena: "After giving so much blood, I wonder you don’t feel tired."
Manly Paulo: "The transfusion’s good for me. I’ll grow new cells, new energy."

Then there’s this:

Phena: "Did you know we’ve been caught in a photon shower and can’t get out?"
Solmi: "Where is it taking us?!"
Phena: "We’re in a spiral orbit around a planet that doesn’t appear on our Astral Charts. We’re bound to crash on it, there isn’t anyway out. Except one."
Louisa: "But how?!"
Phena: "By shutting off the fuel supply to the propulsors in a rotating order, we could."

This scheme will require all the humans to follow Phena’s orders. Even the Chinese-or-Whatever Guys, who were tied up after they shot Artie and the other Space Guy. "Don’t try anything funny," Paulo and Sidekick Guy warn them. "We’ve still got plenty of blood left!"

For little apparent reason, Louisa is stationed at a window to watch the stock footage, er, planet they’re approaching. Meanwhile, Phena spits out a stream of gobbledygook that doesn’t even deserve to be called ‘technobabble.’ This generally consists of sentences containing some random number or other. The camera tilts back and forth to indicate the ship moving about wildly, and there’s stuff, and I guess the ship lands down on said planet. "Go and strap yourself in," Phena tells Lousia – apparently her looking-out-the-window duties are over – and the ship lands on said planet. When this is accomplished, Phena is suddenly seen wearing an entirely different outfit. (!)

Paulo appears on the bridge for an update. "It’s quite probably that there’s already an atmosphere on this planet," Phena notes. "And if not, we’ll create one." (!) As captain, it’s Phena’s job to explore the planet, so she heads outside in her rather flimsy spacesuit. She looks at her Space Compact and, to my lack of amazement, immediately removes her helmet. By gum, the atmosphere’s almost exactly like Earth’s!! (The papier-mâché boulders, however, suggest that the Jupiter Two is sitting around somewhere on the same planet.)

There’s a splice on my copy of this (I assume) and we suddenly cut to Louisa, clad in a black fishnet bodysuit adorned with a red fur fringe over her essential bits, yakking with Artie. When they head back to the rocket she runs ahead giggling, the universal sign for "Artie’s gonna get some." Then, just to confuse the audience further, the other alien guy, still outside, is called "Artie." Good dubbing job, whoever did this. Wait, now the guy who’s Louisa’s Space Beau is being called by the other guy’s name. I swear they’ve transposed these from before, but I’m far too tired to bother going back to check.

Anyway, there’s a debate. The humans, outnumbering the aliens by a six-to-three margin, assume they should head back to Earth. Solmi, however, thinks that they shouldn’t do anything that isn’t a unanimous decision amongst all nine of them. (!!) Yes, that’s often how I feel about aliens who have murdered some of my friends and abducted me into space so as to use me in their experiments. But, hey, let’s let bygones be bygones.

Paulo is off with Phena, who’s wearing a black wig of Louisa’s. (!!) She’s wearing one of her bodysuits, only now she’s adorned it with a red boa. She’s obviously falling for him, despite the fact, as she explains, "We don’t believe in emotions like laughter." And, she muses as well, "perhaps the one you Terrestrials refer to as…Love." (Wow!) Meanwhile, on the ship’s televiewer, Artie – I’m still calling him that, dammit – notes in confusion that the cheesy tabletop model, er, vast metropolis of Hydra Central has seemingly been abandoned. "Does it really matter much?" Louisa husks, leaning in for a passionate smooth. Ah, to live like the Hu-Man, eh, buddy?

Back on the surface, Paulo’s getting some sugar as well. However, from behind a rock two shaggy black Space Ape Men are seen. At this juncture I actually thought, "Now, that’s just silly." Which, given the proceedings to date, says something. Soon a whole herd of these creatures leap out, many of them brandishing Space Twigs. The two lovers run off, while back on board Artie asks, "What’s that noise?" Like he could hear this from inside their space ship! The two remaining Chinese Guys, being expendable, are dragged off to their evident dooms. The others, however, grab their own Space Twigs and engage in battle with their hirsute foes. They break for the ship while Artie and Louisa lay down a covering fire with their Space Guns. Then they hurriedly take off from the planet’s surface, because…I don’t know. They just do.

Out in space they find themselves approaching another spacecraft. It turns out to be a Russian rocketship. (??) Where the hell are they, anyway? The message the ship is repeatedly broadcasting seems to be incomplete, however. "But it just needs another word," a confused Phena announces. "Probably it’s an adjective." (!!) For some reason, the lack of an ultimate word seems to be extremely worrisome to our protagonists. They also theorize that its propulsors are burned out. How do they know this? Got me. "It’s moving under magnetic attraction," the Professor declares. Uh…OK.

They decide to intercept the rocket. Why? Because it’s there, I guess. I mean, they probably wouldn’t have written it into the movie if it didn’t serve any purpose. Of course, that purpose may be merely to eat up another five or ten minutes of running time, like their ‘adventure’ on the Ape-Guy Planet. Phena climbs out of a hatch, breathing tube in her mouth. She’s joined by Paulo, proving that humans can perform surprisingly well in space sans helmet. Then they jump down – that’s right, they jump down – to the Russian craft. Paulo then pulls open the outside hatch on the rocket, despite the lack of a latch or handle. Good spaceship design there, I’m thinking.

They climb aboard. "We can remove our Space Respirators now," Phena explains. Actually, I had figured that out, since she already removed hers to make that very statement. Presumably that means there’s air in the rocket. Which I found a tad odd, given that their opening of the hatch didn’t result in explosive decompression from the exposed interior. "There’s plenty of air in here and the cabin is pressurized," Phena explains next. Well, that answers that question. However, the seated Cosmonauts are seen, through their faceplates, to be *gasp* skeletons. Paulo wonders what went wrong, given that all the equipment seems fine. "I’m certain there’s some explanation for it," Phena replies. Yes, well, when you put it like that…

(By the way, the ghost spaceship is yet another plot element also featured in Doomsday Machine. If I had to pick a film to emulate, that wouldn’t have been it.)

Paulo takes some notes for the Professor to examine, and then the two climb back out into ‘space.’ After some further unconvincing – to say the least – wirework, they make their way back inside their own craft and continue on. Solmi can’t translate the words Paulo copied on the other ship though. Here they sort of explain the concept of Relativity. "As far as we’re concerned, at the velocity at which we’re traveling, a few days have passed by," he explains. "But on the Earth its entirely different. It could be weeks, months, years, even decades. And probably all our various languages have undergone change." Yes, I see what you’re getting at, Professor. It’d be like me attempting to decipher a note written by an American in the 1960’s. Hey, maybe that’s why I can’t understand this movie! Yes, now it all makes sense!!

Phena, however, doesn’t like to be condescended to. "Professor," she huffs, "we’re quite familiar with the principles of Einstein’s theory." I guess that what the alien scientists of the Hydra Galaxy call the concept of Relativity. "Einstein’s Theory." Quite a coincidence, really. Suspecting that the Professor is hiding some Awful Truth, Phena, the lone holdout on the Return-to-Earth thing, gives in. Hearing this, Solmi gives in. The spools on the Russian craft will tell the tale, he conjectures. And sure enough, they do. In fact, they show the same scenes of mass destruction (of tabletop models) seen in…Doomsday Machine. Yep, it’s Ye Olde Nuclear Holocaust. Hey, is it possible that this is taking place in the same universe?! Actually, that doesn’t quite work, but it’s an amusing idea.

Later we see the mixed human/alien crew reading and playing checkers and such. Seems like they’re taking the destruction of Earth pretty well, on the whole. However, to the accompaniment of some pretty familiar classical music – although I’m not knowledgeable enough to place it – Phena gasses all of them and lands the rocket on an Earth-like planet. Then she exits the ship to do a little exploring. To her horror, she sees a futuristic tabletop model, er, city, abandoned and choked with vegetation. It’s Hydra Central. Meanwhile, Louisa, who was in her room, finds the recovering men. Why did Phena gas them? We never find out. My head hurts.

They all head outside, joining the quietly weeping Phena. Paulo looks around for two seconds and identifies their location. "No doubt it’s the center of the constellation Hydra," he declares. Well, yes, where else in the universe could it possibly be? Then they notice a nearby massive concrete obelisk (!!). Uh…

OK, the IMDB say this movie was made in 1965. Yet Doomsday Machine was released in 1967 and this picture features footage unmistakably shot for that movie. Despite this, I thought the seeming discrepancy might be explainable. Given the patently bizarre production history of Doomsday Machine, I theorized the footage was shot and then sat around for a couple of years before being Frankensteined together into its patchwork final form.

Now I must reexamine that premise. For 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968. And the obelisk here, although gray and with writing on it, seems oddly familiar. So maybe the IMDB was wrong, and our feature presentation today was actually made in 1969 or later. However, the costuming seems to place the film in the mid-‘60s. I think. And it is possible that the obelisk idea was stolen from Arthur C. Clark’s book, and not Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of same. But then how to explain the equally familiar image of Phena, who’s shown on her knees on a beach, weeping for her ravaged home world? Especially since Planet of the Apes was also released in 1968. I have to admit, I’m sort of intrigued.

Anyway. The Professor examines the obelisk, and is able to decipher the alien text. (??) I think. This is what it supposedly says: "In the third rotation of the eighth phase of the one thousandth and second cycle, Hydra Central has registered rapidly increasing nuclear pollution." As the camera lingers on the pristine natural glory of the local surroundings, a devastated Phena queries, "Was it the effect of atomic explosions?" Well, that’s not what it say, but sure, why not? Then Space Guy #2 speaks up. "We, having no wish to suffer the consequences of mutations we think are inevitable," he avers, "have taken to our space fleet to travel to a distant planet, where we can construct anew the perfect civilization." Huh? Say again? And abruptly our movie cuts to the end credits.

Oh, by the way, I've no idea what the "2 + 5" in the title means.

Man, I’ve got to send this one to Freeman.  

The Tape: This was, unsurprisingly, another of the aforementioned Sinister Cinema buys. The print is heavily weathered, and often marred by lines and dirt and such. People expecting anything near a pristine transfer would be well advised to skip it. Still, it’s watchable, and with an oddity like this you take what you can get.