“Commies made him an atomic mutant!” Synopsis: A defecting Soviet scientist is hit by a nuclear explosion near Yucca Flats and roams around as a beast.

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Calamity Brains:

I’ve seen more than my share of half-hearted movies in my time, but The Beast of Yucca Flats takes it to a whole new level. The story is poor, the dialogue banal, and the acting worse. 90% of the spoken movie isn’t even dialogue at all; it’s narration. Add in that the makeup is lazy, and you’ve got a painfully bad monster flick.

I mentioned most of the movie is narration – but even the in-person dialogue is dubbed in later. It ends up feeling like the filmmakers weren’t willing to spend money on proper sound equipment, and opted to just buy one mic for everyone to speak into during post-production. The camerawork is occasionally interesting, but that probably has much more to do with a desire to avoid showing the actor’s faces while they spoke than any artsy cinematography.

Tor Johnson is part of the cast as the titular Beast, but his presence isn’t enough to make the movie worth watching. Most of his acting and shuffling around the set is very lackluster, and makes me wonder if he agreed to do the movie only on the condition that he didn’t have to run. (And there are multiple points when he absolutely should be running.)

I can’t say enough bad things about this movie. Its only redeeming feature is the music, which is very energetic and seems to belong to a film with a lot more going on. But really, guys – this movie isn’t even an hour long, and I still don’t think you should waste your time. Steer clear of the Beast.

Calamity Brains’ Rating: F
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