30 August 2008

TTT: Space Zombie Bingo!!! (1993)

This one's unique in the TTT collection: an intentionally bad movie. SZB is a homage / parody of Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster and other schlock from the '50s. Zombies from outer space, wearing welder's helmets and flippers, invade the world. When throwing nuclear bombs at them doesn't work, it falls to Major Kent Bendover to save us.

Making a bad movie on purpose is a hard thing to do well. Often, the humor will fall flat or you'll get tired of the wink-wink-we're-making-cheeze attitude. Though there's a lot of cheezy humor (a character named General Herpes Simplex) and wink-winking in this one (the narrator constantly mentions he's in a movie), SZB is hilarious without getting tiresome. I think the key is that everyone in the movie understands exactly what kind of movie they're making and takes it seriously. It's kind of in the ZAZ style, but maybe even sillier and more nonsensical. The General's interview scenes pretty much sums up what this movie's all about:



I can't wait to trick people into watching this with me.



d. George Ormrod