The Atomic Brain

Actors: Marjorie Eaton, Frank Gerstle, Frank Fowler, Erika Peters, Judy Bamber,  Lisa Lang Rating: 1 out of 10, The next in my exploration of Bad Cinema and a return to truly terrible writing, acting and staging. An unintentional comedy content through the roof as a mad scientist working for an aging lady is charged with transferring her brain into the bodies of one of three foreign maids imported for that purpose. There’s also wolf/dogman haunting the presence as well as a zombie like nubile failure of earlier experiments. Cats brains into humans, vice versa and the insanity just keeps coming. The failed attempt as a British accent by one of the gals had me laughing out loud. Also released titled as Monstrosity which is a much more apt description of this gloriously bad film.

MVP: Erika Peters as Nina the lone survivor

The Amazing Transparent Man

Actors: Marguerite Chapman, Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith, Ivan Triesault, Boyd 'Red' Morgan

Rating: 3 out of 10, The next in my exploration of Bad Cinema made in that up and coming rival to Hollywood – Dallas, Texas. This one actually wasn’t over the top terrible which is saying something considering the company it keeps in the collection I found it in. The big difference here are the actors, all of which were pretty good despite the ludicrous plot and chintzy sets/effects. A stalwart anti-war and anti-nuclear missive this involves an escaped convict used by an evil ex-Army major as the test subject for an invisibility ray. What could go wrong? Predictably everything.

MVP: Douglas Kennedy as Joey Faust, the semi-invisible man

She Gods of Shark Reef

Actors: Bill Cord, Don Durant, Lisa Montell, Jeanne Gerson, Carol Lindsay

Rating: 2 out of 10, The next in my exploration of Bad Cinema. I didn’t realize until this was over that B-Master guru Roger Corman directed. I’m still trying to figure out why thus was included in a sci fi movie collection. Two well-built young men are marooned on a late 1950’s Polynesian island inhabited by only women pearl divers and hungry sharks. You would think – SCORE (well except for the sharks), but they spend the mercifully short movie prancing around in Hawaiian loin clothes trying to escape. There is no understanding the 1950s. Truly bad and very un-Corman like in that there’s more beefcake for the ladies than vice versa.

MVP: Lisa Montell as Mahia, a Polish actress as the Polynesian love interest

Moon of the Wolf.

Actors: David Janssen, Barbara Rush, Geoffrey Lewis, Bradford Dillman,

Rating: 2 out of 10, The next in my exploration of Bad Cinema. This one features the ex-fugitive as the town sheriff of a sleepy Louisiana bayou town suddenly attacked by a werewolf. After they eventually figure out that’s what a demented old Cajon had been trying to warn them about in increasingly frustrating fashion. The sheriff has to track down the wolf even though he’s being distracted by the grown up version of his junior high crush. She of course has to be connected to the wolf. This was obviously a made for TV movie and the best that can be said is its not beyond horrible.

MVP: Janssen still had presence as Sherriff Whitaker

Queen of the Amazons

Actors: Patricia Morison, Robert Lowery, Bruce Edwards, John Miljan, Keith Richards, Wilson Benge, J. Edward Bromberg, Amira Moustafa

Rating: 1 out of 10, The next in my exploration of just how bad B-movies can sink to. A lady is determined to find her fiancé who went on a safari only to disappear. She assembles a group of guys to track him through India but a soon to be assassinated informant sends them on to Africa. While on the track of her missing beau she falls for the woman hating safari guide. That turns out to be a good thing because the long missing fiancé is found in the arms of the Amazon queen, fully coiffed and presiding over a barnyard in the jungle. I guess animal attacks were high theater in the late 1940s because there were some well-fed lions and tigers, no bears though. Bad cinema – but laugh out loud unintentional comedy

MVP: Morrison as the very focused fiancé

The Incredible Petrified World

Actors: John Carradine, Allen Windsor, Robert Clarke, Sheila Noonan, Phyllis Coates

Rating: 2 out of 10, A dive into the past of Hollywood schlock with a truly bad movie which didn’t spend any of an apparently miniscule budget on special effects or settings. Somehow a fight between an octopus and a shark leads off the movie for no discernible reason because neither creature plays any part in the movie. John Carradaine with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek plays an oceanographer (yup) who wants to send a diving bell to the bottom of the sea. The crew of four crash and then have to escape up through some caves inhabited by an old dude with possibly the worst fake beard is movie history. So bad it was a lot of fun to watch.

MVP: John Carradine as Millard Wyman, clearly smirking throughout

Baywatch

Actors: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass.

Rating: 7 out of 10, I always wondered why the original TV show lasted and the movie begs the same question. There should be warning signs at the door to the theater to leave whatever intellectual capacity you possess behind but if you need that warning you’re probably not going to see it anyway. The movie honors the slow motion pneumatic recoiling that the show was famous for along with a nonsensical insipid plot. There are some very funny moments mainly involving the Rock teasing pretty boy Zac Effron, who looks to have ascribed to the Rock’s own chemically induced physique. The pneumatics are provided by Alexandria Daddario and Kelly Rohrback and while they do not disappoint I could have done without the lengthy examination of cadaver penis (you had to be there). In the end I enjoyed the movie because the Rock makes anything watchable but if asked I will deny it.

MVP: The Rock as lifeguard Mitch, because, why not?