Entry #13: The Beast of Yucca Flats

Release Date: May 2, 1961
Budget: $34,000

After watching The Beast of Yucca Flats and Eegah this weekend, I did some housekeeping on the list and realized that I've only made it through 13 of 25 movies: I'M JUST HALF WAY DONE.  It feels like I've been working on this project for 7 years and several lifetimes now. 

The Beast of Yucca Flats.  It's not an overly complicated movie: a "noted" Russian scientist, Joseph Javorsky, comes to America to continue his work for humanity and just so happens to be chased onto Yucca Flats at the time of an atomic bomb testing.  Dang the luck.  Of course Jovorsky is turned into a monster and proceeds to wander the flats senselessly killing all those in his path... that he can catch. 

I didn't hate this movie.  For one, it was short with a running time of just 54 minutes and, two: the Director understood going into this that he didn't have a significant budget to try to make this into a real movie (just $34,000 compared to Plan 9's $475,000) so didn't even attempt special effects or on-screen dialogue.  So where other movies of this genre suffer from mismatched and poor audio quality, The Beast's audio is clearly just dubbed in later and the "actors" always turn away or cover their mouths when lines are delivered.  Also, because no dialogue is actually delivered on screen, the acting doesn't appear nearly as terrible as it otherwise might have been.  

Also because of the lack of on screen dialogue, a lot of the plot is revealed and advanced by a beat poet of a narrator in a slam style.  When trying to explain why the hell Javorsky is being chased by two soviet agents, he delivers this gem: 

Flag on the moon

How did it get there

Secret data: pictures of the moon

Secret data: never before outside of the Kremlin

Man's first rocket to the moon

Also, the plot is so simple that it's tough to put holes in it: man gets turned into a monster by an atomic bomb and must be stopped by two desert patrolmen, Jim Archer and Joe Dobson.  Sure, there are really dumb scenes like Jim mistakenly trying to shoot a poor dad, who is just looking for his lost kids, from an airplane for about 5 minutes., but the whole thing wraps up quite nicely when Joe and Jim shoot the Beast just as he is about to nearly almost catch those two dumb little kids. The Beast spends his last breath trying to kill a wayward rabbit. 

In summary, The Beast of Yucca Flats is short, simple, and the Director's attempt at turning it artsy due to a lack of a budget almost works... almost.  I give it a -5 stars.  There are way worse movies in this genre.