5. The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

A guy is broken out of prison by some other dude that he doesn’t even know. It turns out that the dude who was broken out of prison is an expert lock-pick and then the dude who broke him out is some sort of ex-military dude who likes taking advantage of weak-minded individuals and who happens to be holding a scientist prisoner who built him some sort of radioactive invisible ray. So the military dude wants to turn the other dude invisible so that he can robe some vault containing nuclear material. The ex-military dude has this elaborate laboratory set up in his attic where his scientist-hostage performs the experiments for him. So the one dude is turned invisible and naturally he starts to beat up the ex-military dude and then he demands that he gets paid twenty-five thousand dollars for his services as opposed to the original one thousand. The ex-military dude also has a female prisoner-servant lady who falls in love with the invisible man just because he talked to her. Then there is this other guard guy who we find out (in just about the last scene) was being tricked by the ex-military guy because he told him that his son was alive when he was actually dead. I think it was supposed to be a plot twist but considering that there was absolutely no mentioning of the guard-dude’s son or his personal life all together up until that point it really wasn’t that great of a twist. . . So anyway, something goes wrong and the amazing transparent man becomes visible as he is robbing a bank. In the end he gets in a fight with the ex-military dude. The one lady gets shot in the back. Then the two dudes get killed as the house blows up in a nuclear explosion. In the last scene, the scientist is talking to a police officer about the morality of being able to turn invisible and then he looks at the camera and asks the viewer “What would you do?” as if the debate concerning the morality of turning invisible was a real ethical concern! This bold movie dared to tread the ethical ground of which no other movie has gone before! Is the exclusiveness of this material because it is so controversial or perhaps because it’s a retarded fucking question that no one gives a damn about?

Score: 3

4. She Gods of Shark Reef (1958)

This movie is terrible. The production quality was so bad that for a while I couldn’t tell whether it was black and white or colored. This movie is actually hard to watch because the production quality is so low; the resolution of the picture is so low that everything looks all blurry and pixilated. Also the color of the film (yes it is colored after all) is so blown out that pretty much everything looks white or black. The plot is terrible. Some ex-US navy guys steal something or do something illegal like that and then I guess they are in a boat and crash on an island full of young girls. Once again, this film is not at all a Sci-fi. I don’t know what happens next because I quit watching this movie about half way through because it was so un-enjoyable. I really hoped I would be able to sit through all these things but this one was just so bad. Maybe I’ll finish it later, probably not, but maybe.

Score: 1

3. Robot Monster

Now this is a Sci-fi! I think my only complaint is that the whole movie is a little boy’s dream. This is made painfully obvious right from the start so I really don’t see what the point of it was. It’s a damn Sci-fi; what’s the point in presenting it as a dream? Can’t it just be a world where robot monsters really do exist? Whatever. So this kid’s (Johnny) dream starts with this pointless fight between lizards. It’s one of the laziest lizard fight’s I’ve ever seen. The two lizards bight each other’s jaws and then repeatedly roll over for a while. Now for the good stuff; the “robot monster” (Ro-Man) is some guy wearing a huge gorilla costume and a space helmet. He’s truly amazing. So the little boy Johnny and his family are pretty much the only people alive on Earth because apparently Ro-Man killed everyone else. There is little Johnny, his Mom, his Dad, his little sister, his older sister, and this other dude. The older sister doesn’t like the other dude because he is condescending to her but towards the end of the film they are hiding from Ro-Man in the bushes and then they start to make-out and then they get married. They have the dad perform the marriage rights in what turns out to be one of the most retarded and pointless marriages since the one dude dies a couple minutes later; but at least he got married shirtless, which is badass! The dialogue and acting in this movie are superb. At one point Johnny confronts Ro-Man and says, “I think you’re just a bully picking on people smaller than you,” to which Ro-Man replies, “Now I will kill you.” I know, it’s great. There are a ton of shots of Ro-Man out wandering around while some suspenseful music is playing; well, Ro-Man doesn’t actually walk as much as he just stumbles around with his arms starched out in front of him (not very far though, because his monkey suit is so huge that it doesn’t permit of much flexibility). Ro-Man is definitely one of the most un-intimidating and lazy monsters ever conceived. At one point he is abducting the older sister and she says, “How is it your so strong Ro-Man, it seems impossible,” and of course Ro-Man responds by telling the girl what his weakness is. However, this isn’t actually relevant to the plot since this revealed weakness has absolutely nothing to do with the defeat of Ro-Man. In the end Ro-Man starts to “turn Human”, kind of, since he has a crush on the older sister. This makes Ro-Man’s boss (who is apparently monitoring Ro-Man from a spaceship) mad and he proceeds to unleashes some sort of death-ray on the earth which kills Ro-Man. Then for some reason we see another scene of that that retarded fighting scene between the two lizards rolling on the ground. Then we find out that it’s all a dream and Johnny says to the others, “You’re alive!? Her too? Boy was that a dream or what!?” It sure was Johnny, it sure was.

Score: 5