Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Monster a Go-Go’

One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

Comments on the poster: What’s a “wim-wam” anyway? The quote at the top was so clearly not real and, in fact should read… “THIS PICTURE COULD SET OUR MOVIE INDUSTRY BACK AT LEAST FIFTY YEARS!”

Title: ‘Monster a Go-Go’

Release Date: July 1965

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 9/23/2009): #7 (based on 2,516 votes)

Why it’s Here: “Why is MONSTER A GO-GO on this list?” That’s a great question, albeit an extremely easy one to answer. MONSTER A GO-GO is, quite simply the WORST movie EVER made, at least it as so far, amongst the 4,000+ films I’ve seen over my three decades of existence thus far. At the time of this article, MONSTER A GO-GO sits at a disgracefully high-ranking position of #7 on the IMDB’s Bottom 100 List. Sitting at #4 is SUPER BABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2 and sitting proudly at #1 is POCKET NINJAS. I would, and I exaggerate none, GLADLY sit through either of those films… no, BOTH of those films, back-to-back, before I would willingly subject myself to a second viewing of MONSTER A GO-GO.

As far as I’m concerned, this movie should have a lifetime membership on the IMDB Bottom 100 list and retain a position at #1, indefinitely! Now, I’m not one to criticize an older film, based solely on it’s age, but that’s not the problem. Many “old” movies a bad by today’s standards, but still hold some redeeming value and interest. MONSTER A GO-GO however, holds none, whatsoever. I am actually amazed that Turner Classic Movies occasionally plays this film, although it’s usually late at night. I thought the film had to be good as well as old to be taken under TCM’s wing, but I guess I was wrong.

The film is a terrible knock-off of the classic sci-fi TV series like THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS, complete with the semi-documentary feel and the articulately-spoken narration from a mysterious, unseen voice. The difference of course, is that these elements are epic failures in MONSTER A GO-GO. The cinematography is beyond amateurish, in fact… high school student amateurs with NO prior experience could have done a better job, even back in the 60’s.

The opening title cards aren’t even properly leveled, and the 60’s go-go music at the beginning an end has absolutely no place in the film. The camera is shaky, often out of focus, poorly lit to the point many of the night scenes are nearly pure black and the bulk of the rare “monster” scenes are so dark and obscured they might as well have not even shot any monster scenes. The filmmaker lingers WAAAAAAAY TOOOOOOO LOOOOOOONG on scenes of little to no importance, often maintaining a single, straight-forward non-moving camera angle. Seriously, this is the most boring, uninteresting, un-enjoyable and unbelievably regrettable 70 minutes I have EVER spent watching a movie. Period!

A few words on the audio, what there is of it… Not only are the levels so uneven and poorly modulated that I found myself often playing hopscotch with my remote control’s volume buttons, there are so many audibly silent sections of the film where there’s simply no audio track at all. The narrator in the film has a terrible tendency to give the point of a scene away, right before the scene occurs. Let me illustrate: the narrator explains on more than one occasion that a character will meet his demise, as that character approaches that very demise, then it happens… why even shoot the damn scene? MONSTER A GO-GO might as well have just been an audio book (if they had them back then). At least it would have cost less. The dialogue, well… that’s really a whole other article in itself. Here’s a taste of the narrator’s dialogue at the end… don’t worry, it really doesn’t matter that I’m giving this away. Trust me, you won’t want it!

Narrator: “Suddenly there was no trail. There was no giant, no monster, no thing called Douglas to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness. With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size some 8000 miles away in a lifeboat.”

Lowest of the Low Moments: Easily, one of the lowest of the low moments is during a scene when an attractive brunette’s car breaks down in the middle of the road. She can’t get the car started. She hears a vehicle approaching, gets out of her car and runs in front of the truck. The driver stops, gets out and yells at the woman. She tells him her car is broke down, unbelievably terrible (and pointless) dialogue ensues between the two characters before the truck driver realizes she’s apparently just out of gas, gives her a bit of fuel, then as he walks away the brunette calls him back to give the stocky stranger a big, wet kiss on the mouth, then they both part ways. That’s it! Why? Does this scene really need to take as much time from the “story” (using the term loosely) as it does, if it needed to be there at all?

If you’re truly interested in torturing yourself by watching MONSTER A GO-GO, view the trailer below, so that at least you’re not going into the movie blind…

Will it Ever Get Off the List: The only enjoyable way to view this film is as the episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 that was produced, but even then it’s not the best. I imagine this was one of the most difficult films for them to make fun of…

I surely hope it never finds it’s way off the IMDB Bottom 100 list. The list is intended for bad movies that actually ARE bad and NOT fun to watch, and MONSTER A GO-GO certainly fits that mold. Any movie that has me (of all people) repeatedly checking the running time of the film every ten minutes to see how much longer I would have to endure this torture, is not a film a would wish upon my worst enemies. Then again, now I’m imagining such an enemy being strapped into a chair with his fuzzy warbles held open, forced to watch this film, in a loop, over and over and over and over… hahahahaha (evil laugh).