FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER
"we won the war, but we have no women"- Princess Marcuzan "the lucky ones are dead"-Dr. Nadir
It rarely happens but occasionally the perfect combination of trash pop culture elements come together and something like FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER is born. It's got a bald, effeminate alien, a mutant, a cyborg astronaut, Puerto Rico, rock 'n roll, girls in bikinis, dominatrix alien lady, well just about everything. Some aliens have come to Earth for breeding stock. They won a nuclear war but need Earth babes to repopulate. I assume the Martian guys on the ship are good to go as far as knocking up earth chicks. Their leader is the lovely Princess Marcuzan who is assisted by the bald, dwarfish lisping Dr. Nadir. Nadir has some awesome Spock like ears that look to be putty. At the same time NASA is sending up cyborg astronaut Frank Saunders. We meet Frank at a pretty funny news conference where his gears seize up, which is accomplished by a freeze frame.. Check out the odd seating in the car ride to the meeting. For some unknown reason, everyone appears to be crammed in the back seat. The Martians( I think they're Martians) think they are under attack so they shoot Frank down. He crashes ,his face melts and his programming goes wrong. Frank goes on a rampage and the Martians start grabbing earth girls. Unforeseen circumstances force the Martians into "Phase Two" quicker than planned. I'm not sure why but the martians brought their mutant monster named Mull who also seems to dish out punishment to slacker Martians. James Karen plays Dr. Adam Steele, Frank's creator, who with his hot girlfriend go looking for the cyborg. Eventually, Frank saves the day, but not before knocking some Martian skull and mixing it up with Mull, the ferocious mutant monster. Yeah, it's not exactly plot heavy but it moves and is vastly entertaining. You hardly notice the ample stock footage or the plot filling scooter ride through Puerto Rico. Man I gotta say some of the Earth chicks don't seem too freaked out about being nabbed for breeding stock. There's a great moment where the Princess looks over one of the Earth chicks, makes her turn around, raise her arms, everything but check her teeth. This could have made a good nudie film too or the best porno film ever. The pool invasion scene is also a blast especially when the Martians start vaporizing the dudes. The ship appears to have been made out of plywood but it works. For exterior shots they built a pretty good mock up ship which strangely enough doesn't appear to big enough to hold all those Martians. Lou Cutell(Seinfeld) steals the show as Dr. Nadir, giving a performance that reminds me of Jon Lovitz. Bruce Glover plays a Martian as well as Mull. The Mull costume is great, actually kind of scary. Mull has a head similar to the alien from IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE but with a shaggy body. The final fight between Frank and Mull is awesome, it even has ray guns. There's a couple of great rock songs "To Have and to Hold" by The Distant Cousins and "that's the Way it's Got to Be" by The Poets. I know a lot of the time theses flicks don't live up to their great premises but this is one of the best of the no budget trash horror flicks. The new DVD by Dark Sky is perfect and all a fan could ask for.
