AIRPLANE meets GODZILLA on an Ed Wood budget as a giant three-eyed alien lizard threatens civilization. Crusty monster fighter Kenneth Tobey (THE THING) teams with a sultry scientist (cult scream queen Brinke Stevens) to battle the dreaded Creaturesaurus Erectus. There's eye-poppingly bad special effects, sight gags, and an all-star cast of B-movie sci fi legends.
"I never flirt with second leads--they get killed-off in the fourth reel."
Allow me a flashback: when I originally screened ED WOOD, the film's historical distortions turned me off (a despondent Wood was pumped by an accidental encounter with Orson Welles? The debut of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was applauded by a packed house of juveniles?). Upon second and third viewings, I fell in love with the movie; I warmed-up to its sweet sentimentality, its love story (Wood and Bela Lugosi) and its deference to Hollywood's Grade-C denizens. The conclusion of the film, an epilogue that discloses the fate of its principal players, still evokes the same reaction: I simultaneously laugh and cry. Literally. I laugh because, in spite of the futility of their inflexible, poverty-row environment, the bravura of Wood's cronies survive (they've already forfeited dignity and have nothing else to lose). I cry because, somehow, their lack of achievement appears to turn triumphant (it's not that they didn't try, you gotta admire their chutzpah). Jump cut to the present--
NAKED MONSTER, one of the genre's equally poignant movies, is ostensibly an AIRPLANE-type farce. The film affectionately skewers 1950's "monster movie" cliches but cameo appearances--by actors who routinely fraternized with cheesy aliens and oversized critters--sometimes subvert the farcical milieu. Yeah, the jokes are funny (even the hoary chestnuts, e.g. "Erectus? He nearly killed us!") but there's an emotional core to the film. Did I laugh/cry at the conclusion? You bet your ass I did! The movie chronicles the final hurrah of veteran B-movie icons, many of whom have passed away since wrapping NAKED MONSTER: Robert Clarke (THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON). John Agar (THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS), Robert Shayne (INVADERS FROM MARS), Kenneth Tobey and Robert Cornthwaite (both incongruously best remembered for an A-film, THE THING), Gloria Talbott (I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE), Les Tremayne (ANGRY RED PLANET), Paul Marco (reprising his PLAN 9 role as Kelton the Cop), et al. And it appears the actors loved delivering the groan-inducing puns and punch lines. Co-director/writer Ted Newsom, who assembled the talent, has created something precious: a shrine whose inhabitants have been warmly eulogized because they yield to their drive-in turf.
 
Mr. Newsom devoted over ten years of his life into this low-budget production and the investment is more lucrative-and a hell of a lot more significant-than the extravagance wasted in corporate Hollywood's commerce. Newsom spoofs the staples of another generation's sci-fi (including the surplus of "disaster" stock footage which padded the likes of INVISIBLE INVADERS, one of Mr. Agar's films): but it's Newsom's love of these films, and especially the actors, that's especially infectious. It's likely that Newson made NAKED MONSTER as an uncompromising confection of '50 nostalgia, entirely resistant to the Jason/Freddy camp. It's obvious from the overture--a parody of William Castle's hucksterism (think MACABRE and THE TINGLER)--that Newsom focused on patronage appreciative of the 50s legacy (apparently, gorehounds haven't developed much of a tolerance for black and white film). One of his very few concessions to the venue is a cameo by '90s horror hotty Michelle Bauer (a wonderful, underrated comedienne. I only wish she would have had the opportunity to mix it up with Tobey or Agar).
NAKED MONSTER may be translated into a sort of SCARY MOVIE but this description underestimates the passion that kindled its decade-long production. The Tarantino films recount the '70s by facetiously flashing some sort of minor icon as an in-joke; Newson wears his heart on his sleeve, deflecting the "wink" for an embrace. It's my privilege to acknowledge his work as one of the most consequential movies of the new millennium; while today's splatter films compete for the continental marketing, the soul of THE NAKED MONSTER is comfortably lodged somewhere in Bronson Canyon (you gotta love a film with a SLIME PEOPLE gag; "I know how to stop your monster," insists Les Tremayne who starred in the '63 release, "--Poke sticks at it!").
Footnote: The DVD includes a TV interview with the late Kenneth Tobey; I wish he would have decked the geeky moderator but Tobey manages to recount behind-the-scenes vignettes that are worthy of preservation.
By Alexxus Young
Back to Horror Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Wayne Berwick, Ted Newsom
WRITING CREDITS: Ted Newsom
GENRE: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
CAST: Kenneth Tobey, Bob Burns, Brinke Stevens
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 96 min
RATING: 10/10
Naked Monster, The Website/IMDB Click here
Naked Monster, The Trailer Click here
|
