Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

The Atomic Monster: The Beast of Yucca Flats
Girl Madness
The Violent Sun

Cast:

Tor "You better remember him from Plan 9 From Outer Space" Johnson is Dr. Joseph Javorsky
Bing Stafford is Jim Archer
Larry Aten is Joe Dobson
Douglas Mellor is Hank Radcliffe

What the box says:

Fans of The Incredible Hulk will love this early sixties horror film. After accidentally being exposed to a dose of atomic radiation, a Russian scientist's body undergoes massive transformation. With this ill-tempered monster out to reek havoc on the world, is anyone safe?

Plot:

I will use PN to stand for pointless narration. By the end, you'll understand why...

A woman is drying off and gets ready for bed. A loud clock is ticking. Suddenly, a large man grabs her neck and chokes her to death. The killer places her on the bed, and the scene cuts off as he crawls on top of her.

A plane lands. Naration informs us about the famed scientist, Dr. Joseph Javorsky.

But, Tor, even you can't eat 3 sides of beef... He defected to the US and has secret data on the Russian space program. He lands at Yucca Flats to meet at the A-Bomb testing grounds.

Iron Curtain assassins are to retrieve the briefcase and kill Javorsky. I can’t call him Javorsky just use his name Tor….

A gunfight without firing blanks ensues. Dr. Tor gets away.

A car chase suddenly stops and resumes. PN rambles on about secret moon data.

They drive on to the testing grounds. An agent holds the assassin at bay 10 feet away as Tor runs off with the secret data. The agent is killed.

Tor trudges away. Suddenly the A-Bomb explodes as Tor is caught in the fallout of stock footage.

Manfred Man was right about blinded by the light...

A car stops. A couple is on a trip. Beast Tor kills the guy and chokes the wife out and carries her into the desert. PN ensues.

A passerby spots the dead body. He drives into town and reports it to Officer Joe. Joe drives to the murder site. He follows the footsteps for a few feet and drives off to get his partner.

Jim is told of the murder and saved from having to sleep with his skanky nighty-clad wife. PN ensues as the officers are on the road.

Beast Tor keeps wandering aimlessly through the desert. The woman is lowered to the ground and he’s about to get his mojo on.

Joe and Jim search close enough for Beast Tor to hide. They climb near the cave and find the woman who is still breathing. They carry her, and she dies on the trip down.

Newspaper headline ensues.

The Radcliffes have 2 boys. They stop for gas. The little idiot brats explore around the station before going back to the car.

The cops climb back to the plateau.

Beast Tor is still hiding.

PN resumes. Jim will have to parachute on the plateau and kill the killer.

On the road, the Radcliffes have a blowout.

Jim and Joe get to the airstrip.

Hank Radcliffe works on the tire. The boys run off to play.

Jim, the former paratrooper, takes off in the plane.

Hank starts to look for the boys.

Jim is in the plane looking for the killer.

Hank calls for the brats.

The brats don’t hear anything.

Lois, the mother, searches to no avail.

Hank crosses over a fence and ignores a no trespassing sign for a missile base.

The brats take a rest.

Beast Tor spots the annoying little idiots.

Hank is running, and Jim is still in the plane. The officer spots something running and starts shooting at Hank. Oh no, he’s trying to…This picture does a better job of the rip-off.

Imagine a scene from North by Northwest only it sucks when done by Coleman Francis. Hank is being chased by the plane. After 20 or 30 shots, Jim finally hits his prey. Hank falls down a hill as PN assaults us.

Jim parachutes to the ground.

PN rambles as Joe gets in on the dragnet.

Hank gets up and spots the approaching paratrooper look for him. The wounded Hank alternates between limping and running.

Lois is still waiting. Hank limps up to her jumps in the car to get help and leaves her behind.

Joe and Jim are still searching.

The little idiot boys decide they are lost.

Lois starts crying alongside the highway.

Boys think they found a lake if water. They aren’t sure if it has water in it or not.

Beast Tor trails them as they stay near the lake.

Lois is still searching.

Beast Tor is puzzled by the kids and decides to finally chase them.

The kids hide in nearby cave.

Beast Tor wanders back to the cave. He is angry that wife is gone and rages by throwing boulders around.

Boys try to sneak past him.

Hank gets some help to search for the brats.

Boys get past Beast Tor. As an Angry Beast Tor ensues, he chases the kids.

Jim and Joe spot Beast Tor. They shoot at him and inspect the body. Suddenly, he attacks the cops. Beast Tor wrestles the cops. Choking Jim, gunshots are heard. Joe shot Beast Tor.

Jim is fine. They start to leave as more PN ensues.

The cops and the boys leave.

Lois is still waiting by the side of the road.

A little rabbit hops around.

Touching reunion for the Radcliffes ensue.

The bunny smells Beast Tor who kisses it before dying.

What I say:

Coleman Francis is one of the most widely acknowledged bad movie directors of all time. I'm not referring to bad as "good", "cool", or "hep." If a director can make Ed Wood seem like John Ford, you get a director who makes movies that should be banned under the Geneva Convention. Coleman Francis has made some of the most excruciating movies. He only directed 3 movies: Beast of Yucca Flats, Skydivers, and Red Zone Cuba. However, they were all on MST3K.

The thought of a nuclear explosion that turns a scientist into a monster may be in the Incredible Hulk territory. In fact, Tor roaming the desert in ripped up clothes and trying to evade the forces trying to destroy him is almost a perfect definition of the Hulk. The Beast of Yucca Flats seems to enjoy getting his rocks off. I am sort of surprised there hasn't been a sort of Skinemax version of the Hulk with a Julie Strain painted green getting a little somethin' somethin'. A Spiderbabe was made....

The intro with women in the towel was included to add a little skin into the movie. Any movie having a nipple shot 5 seconds into it has you expect more nudity. If not a law, it should be a law. The audience shouldn't be teased by flesh if the director refuses to show any more. I don't count the nighty-wearing man-wife of Jim. I like other red blooded guys love women and the nekkider (Naked means not wearing clothes. Nekkid means now wearing clothes and up to something. ;) the better if hot chicks. I do understand the fact it you want naked women, there is a wonderful thing called the internet. The only reason, I could think of them doing this in the hope that every guy watching will automatically assume there is more flesh coming shortly...

First, we have a monster that strangles women and has his way with them. Later, he chases small boys which seems extremely creepy even after the Michael Jackson trial is over. This scene was before when Tor got exposed to the gamma bomb (no way I could let a gamma radiation joke get by me.) So, who killed the towel chick? I'm positive Tor wasn't even in that scene. Logically, it couldn't have been the killer at that point. Logic and Coleman Francis aren't but should be antonyms.

I can mention how the movie has no dialogue and it was dubbed in post-production. How easily is it to spot? Several scenes show actors talking though nothing is heard. However, dialogue is dubbed in without any attempt to match the character's mouth movements. A lot of the actors either turn their backs to the camera or cover their mouths as they speak. The biggest speaking role belongs to the narrator who is Coleman Francis. Beast of Yucca Flats seems to be dubbed like the way the 60s Godzilla movies were brought into English. However, this movie was done this way by a group of English speakers. Trying to explain the audio dubbing loses a lot by me just writing it. The Godzilla movies or any of the Mexican horror movies like the Brainiac seem so more professional even with their dubbing compared to Beast of Yucca Flats.

The narration for the most part doesn't make any sense. Of my quotable dialogue below, only one is from a character. Who has the largest number of speaking roles? Would it be nepotism if the director does it himself? I've not mentioning his compelling cameo as a gas station attendant. Coleman Francis has a big thing about progress. In a 55 minute long movie, he has these 4 lines about it.

"Vacation time. Man and wife. Unaware of scientific progress."
"Joe Dobson. Caught in the wheels of progress. "
"Another man caught in the frantic race for the betterment of mankind. Progress. "
"Boys from the city. Not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress."

Imagine someone taking a silent movie and then adding dialogue later that doesn't fit the story. We've seen how bad redubbing sci-fi and horror movies as comedies can be. The redubbed version of Night of the Living Dead with the extremely long title Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D. Here are the visuals and put in the omniscient narrator trying to make things seem "coherent" as he rambles on more than my reviews. That is another point against it.

When the best actor in the movie is Tor Johnson, an 400 pound former Swedish wrestler made famous by his appearances in Ed Wood movies, it has to be seen to truly understood. Well, Tor wanders around and growls in this movie like he did as a zombie in Plan 9 From Outer Space. He staggers around so slowly the victims have to almost walk slower than the person ahead of you in the supermarket checkout line. In fact, when the movie was filmed, Tor was so large he could barely walk and had to be hauled by the crew for his scenes to be shot. I do find it hard to believe this movie was so cheap they couldn't afford hire Tor for the towel-drying girl scene. Coleman Francis didn't have enough money to hire Tor for another scene. Our man Tor got paid $300 for this movie.

I have made several jokes about Tor Johnson. I still think he deserved far better than movies like this. My Tor jokes are meant in good humor. I hope the giant Swedish wrestler appreciates it in that giant casting couch in the sky preferrably in a lounge chair beside Bela Lugosi.

I normally would say something about the other actors besides Tor. However, when the movie didn't have a soundtrack, does it seem fair to rage against the actors? They may have dubbed their own lines. I'll give the benefit of the doubt they had nothing to do with that part of the movie. Didn't they suffer enough by being connected to Coleman Francis and the Beast of Yucca Flats?

This movie gives us the facts the government was afraid to tell. I didn't know the Russians had secretly reached the moon in the late 1950s nearly 10 years before the US did. That was all of it. The Russians also had other secret space data that was just known within the Kremlin. OK, it is hard to believe someone wrote about a famed Russian scientist who knew all of the USSR's secret space secrets. Why in the world was that even put in the script? It didn't add anything to the movie. If they had just said the Russians were trying to kill a defecting scientist, that would be good enough.

The ending is just so....strange. The Beast kisses a bunny and dies. Yes, the idea is for the audience to realize that Beast Tor has somehow been able to reclaim his humanity. It is easy to blame Coleman Francis for everything that went wrong with this movie. He does have plenty to be held accountable for, but Tor came up with that idea. Why do I remember the old Looney Toons cartoon with the sheepdog "I shall hug him and pet him and call him "George?"

This movie may not have the numerous confused scenes between day and night like an Ed Wood movie. It seems to be a lot more chronological ordered than say Plan 9 From Outer Space. Talk about damning with faint praise.

I never knew that police were to shoot first and ask questions later. I guess they learned that at the academy where radios and cars with sirens and lights were banned. Apparently, the police in Coleman Francis movie sort of wander around and don't do much when a mad killer is roaming about the countryside. At least in Europe, angry villagers will storm castles and not attack anyone but the actual monster.

The budget for this movie was somewhere around $35,000. That is an incredibly small budget for any movie. Let me compare that with an even smaller budgeted feature. Sam Raimi's Within the Woods cost maybe $2,000. I had to invoke Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell against this blight of a movie. Nowadays, a little under a million is normally considered low budget for an independent movie.

Plan 9 from Outer Space is considered to be one of the most entertaining bad movies. The Beast of Yucca Flats has to be one of the most technically inept movies ever made. The shooting without a dialogue makes it even worse. This is something of a boring movie. A lot of scenes jump between several characters as if to make the movie more exciting. It gets the scenes confusing. Well, excruciating would be a much better word to use. As bad as it is, this is something b-movie fans need to experience.

What can I say about this movie that are good? This is definitely the best movie with the word "Yucca." It isn't an hour long. The Star Wars Holiday Special was at least 4 hours long. The Beast of Yucca Flats does drag some but nowhere as much as George Lucas's secret shame movie. When Tor is fighting the cops, he actually uses a wrestling hold on one of them. It may not have been hilarious as the Brandon Lee backbreaker move in Laser Mission. What movie would be to compare with it? Any movie with Tor Johnson has some redeeming value.

I am of two minds on this movie. I can see how others may truly despise it for being bad. This movie doesn't transcend its badness and morph into an amazing movie. Beast of Yucca Flats is a standout in the field of movie. Look at all the terrible things in it. The incompetence such as the dubbed dialogue, random occurences, and Tor Johnson somehow elevate the Beast of Yucca Flats to not quite a classic but a definite movie true B-movie fans should watch.

Still, I would say Pocket Ninjas or Massacre were the worst movies that I've run across were the 2 low bar movies. The Beast of Yucca Flats, you don't watch it. You experience it like a sugar rush and hope to just survive it...

Quotable Dialogue
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
"Joe Dobson caught in the wheels of progress."
"Touch a button, things happen. A scientist becomes a beast."
"Boys from the city, not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress, feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs."
"Jim, shoot first and ask questions alter."
Morals of the Story
Quality ensues when the movie has a nipple shot in the first 5 seconds of the movie and isn't a porno.
People can talk without moving their lips in converstaions.
Guns have no muzzle flashes when fired.
Gunfights should be conducted 10 feet away from your opponents.
Radioactive fallout makes 400 pound men love the dead just a tad too much.
Police cars aren't supposed to have lights or sirens.
Kids can't understand the concepts of caves and being lost.