The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)
Reviews
This movie is awful. This movie will give you eye
cramps. The only parts of this movie that aren't bad are the parts
that are worse. I'm not trying to pique your curiosity, I'm trying
to tell you that this movie stinks.
For those of you who can't take a hint and are still
thinking about watching this silver screen skidmark, let me try a little
harder. It was written and directed by Coleman Francis and stars
Tor Johnson (it was his final film). Anything that looks like a plot
was stolen from "The Amazing Colossal Man". The main difference is
that instead of the atomic blast causing a normal man to become colossal,
the producer started with a colossally fat man and put scar makeup on him.
Tor Johnson as the beast appears to weigh between 350-400 pounds, and is
one cheeseburger away from a heart attack. It is sad to watch him
shuffle from scene to scene, huffing and puffing under the desert sun.
It was pure cruelty for the director to make Johnson carry his victims
back to his lair. He can barely walk under his own power, yet manages
to sneak up behind several people and strangle them. He even magically
sneaks into the back seat of an occupied two door compact car in broad
daylight and chokes the woman in the front seat. The only people
more dull-witted than the beast's victims are the officers who are tying
to stop him. Their strategy to end the killing is to use high power
rifles to shoot the next person who appears on the horizon - no matter
who it is - because it could only be the strangler.
Even when reviewing bad films, I usually try to point
out the positives. There are two: this movie is short (54 grueling
minutes), and it is slightly less offensive than Coleman Francis' ultimate
insult "Red Zone Cuba".
Hold your nose, brush the flies away, and you'll see
that this waste of time rates a one out of ten.









Spoiler
