Roger Corman was once asked why he made movies. He answered “Because that’s where the money is.” Actually, that’s what bankrobber Willie Sutton said about banks, but that way the quote doesn’t have anything to do with Roger Corman, so it would be pretty silly to even bring it up.

Because I couldn’t think of anything better to do, I mused upon Corman’s career as a director and producer, then looked at Swamp Women, one of the first films he directed, and then finally turned my gaze upon Avalanche, one of the man’s few real turkeys. It was a turkey that made money, though, and for Oscar winner Roger Corman, that was the sweetest award of them all.

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If there’s such a thing as “a typical Roger Corman film”, this might well be it: a low budget, a game cast, a clever concept, and some ludicrously adorable monsters.

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957)

Following the disappearance of a team of scientists from a small Pacific island, where they were investigating the effects of nuclear fall-out, a second team arrives to find no clue to their predecessors’ fate, beyond some mysterious notes in a journal. But as gruesome accident piles on top of gruesome accident, the researchers realise that a terrible force has been unleashed on the island – a force intent on revenging itself upon any human being who ever tied on a bib and went for the finger bowl…

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I mean, sure I’ve been busy all through November with NaNoWriMo (and find myself slipping toward failure at the end — or, at best, non-success), but even such commitments have to take a back seat to a roundtable honoring our patron saint.

Although with the movie I chose at random, “honoring” might be an overly strong word…

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF (1958)

I know that after that avalanche of Roger Corman reviews, you seriously need a dose of good taste. That explains why I am reviewing the Richard Chamberlain-starring adaptation of The Count Of Monte Cristo, which also stars Tony Curtis, Trevor Howard, and Donald Pleasence. Never say that The Unknown Movies doesn’t look out for readers of The B-Masters Cabal page.

MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE

Once more, I delve into a place where man should not go, and it’s full of ponies.

Why do all of the ponies have tramp stamps? Why do I care if the Smooze gives them PMS? WTF is up with the Bushwoolies? Why am I watching this?

Review Snippet:
One of my biggest complaints about the ponies is that all of them have tramp stamps. No, I’m not kidding. Each and every My Little Pony has a design on both sides of their hindquarters that corresponds to their name. So, the name and tramp stamp are connected. North Star has a compass rose on each cheek, Shady has sunglasses for a tramp stamp, and Sweet Stuff has muffins tattooed all over her butt. What would you think of a girl with muffins on her fanny who wants you to call her “Sweet Stuff?” I’ll tell you what you’d think, and it involves sneaking out before she wakes up and never calling her again.

Lesson Learned:
I need to watch more movies with radioactive mutants, killer robots, and RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOTS.

DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955)

The first science fiction film directed wholly and declaredly by Roger Corman opens with the inevitable happening – what was inevitable for 1955, anyway.

In the wake of nuclear war, a handful of survivors hole up in a house huddled in some lead-containing Californian hills, where they ride out the apocalypse by talking, arguing, talking, contemplating reproduction, talking, fighting, talking, swimming, talking, drinking, talking, mock-stripping, talking, murdering, talking, smoking, talking, mutating, and talking.

I’d like to say that from time to time a hideous atomic mutation wanders in to liven up the proceedings, but that would only be a half-truth.

WILD WILD PLANET

One of the most frequently seen of Wild Wild Planet‘s design elements is the sprawling model that stands in for Gamma City, the futuristic Earth metropolis that the Gamma One crew calls home. Again, the model fails completely to trick the eye, looking more like a space age train set, or a high school science fair diorama depicting a city of the future, than the awe inspiring super city it’s meant to represent. But nonetheless, Marghereti’s insistent employment of it as a means of orienting us within the story (he seems to cut to a lingering establishing shot of the model between almost every scene) combines with the complimentary, set-bound artificiality of the actors’ environments to successfully envelop us within the film’s quirky enclosed reality, thus making us that much more receptive to the various and sundry eccentricities of the story itself. In this way, the feel of the movie overall struck me as being not unlike that of the sci-fi marionette adventures of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, which similarly disarm skepticism by drawing their viewer into a meticulously constructed, Santa’s toy shop version of reality.

CIRCADIAN RHYTHM

The incompetence in Circadian Rhythm is present on just about every level, but in a way that is…professional? Maybe? Some of the direction is actually inventive and eye-catching. Like, it’s not incompetent in the same way as a shot on video micro-budget horror film made by stoned horror fans. It’s be better if it was. It’s more like a really tedious, over indulgent, pretentious film school student’s final project. Maybe that’s why even places that specialize in reviewing obscure and ignored no-budget movies seem completely mum on the existence of Circadian Rhythm. Nothing works, nothing comes together, and none of it fails in a way that generates any interest even as an enjoyable train wreck.