|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Eegah
|
|
|
|
5 |
MST3K
|
|
|
|
8 |
|
 |
|
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
Shot
for a paltry $27,000 over the course of a few weeks, mostly
in the southern California desert, 1962's Eegah
almost validates ineptitude as a filmmaking virtue.*
It's really that bad — every aspect of the film, whether
technical or "artistic" (if one wants to use that term), is
a complete disaster. A good thing, too... because a teen-centric
rock 'n' roll science fiction movie about a horny Neanderthal
invading Palm Springs would not have worked even had Robert
Bolt written the screenplay and Stanley Kubrick been behind
the camera. Instead we can just wallow in the unintentional
hilarity courtesy of jack-of-all-trades Arch Hall Sr., who wrote,
produced, directed and acts in this thing, all under the guise
of different pseudonyms. (Names were changed to protect the
guilty...)
Greasy-haired Arch Hall Jr. (son of Eegah's
auteur) plays Tom, gas station attendant and erstwhile teen
rocker, whose girlfriend Roxy (Marilyn Manning) looks to be
at least 10 years older than he is. When one night Roxy claims
she almost ran down a "giant" on the highway, her author father
Mr. Miller (the very tan Hall Sr.) and Tom accompany her to
the scene next day. Just off the road they discover a huge footprint
much too large to have been made by a normal-sized human. To
investigate further, Roxy's dad charters a helicopter to take
him out into the desert — if there is a giant living
in the desert around Shadow Mountain, he's determined to get
proof. Not two minutes after being dropped off he encounters
Eegah (Richard "Jaws" Kiel), an honest-to-goodness
club-swinging caveman over seven feet tall.
A mechanical fault means the chopper can't
return to Miller's rendezvous point. After treating us to a
poolside musical number, Tom loads up his custom dune buggy
(which actually belonged to Hall Jr.) so he and Roxy can drive
into the desert and pick up her dad. There's no sign of him.
They camp for the night, intent on resuming the search in the
morning, giving Tom the opportunity to sing another dreadful
ballad. (The horror...) Next day, while Tom explores
the other side of a ridge line, Eegah snatches Roxy and carries
her to his cave high up the face of a cliff. Here she's reunited
with Pops, who explains that their captor must be a prehistoric
being whose tribe somehow survived undetected in the desert
all these years. Now lonely ol' Eegah is the only one of his
kind left. He seems particularly fascinated by Roxy's feminine
charms...
From the wretched acting
to the insipid songs to the laughably bad audio looping that
sounds as if recorded in a bathroom stall ("Watch out for
snakes!"), Eegah is a total
train wreck of a movie —
with the dubious honor of being listed among the IMDB's 100
Worst Films of All Time. Even in 1962, apparently, 27 grand
just didn't go that far. The flick's only custom-built set,
the interior of Eegah's cave, is made out of canvas darkened
with soot; you can ripples in the "stone" walls. The only participant
to emerge with even a shred of dignity is Kiel, who somehow
manages to evoke sympathy amid the awfulness of the production
and his fellow performers. (Just like King Kong, "was beauty
that killed the beast.")
Eegah's infamy
grew exponentially with its broadcast as an "experiment"
on the long-running cable TV comedy series Mystery Science
Theater 3000, resulting in one of the most beloved episodes
in the show's history. It showcases Joel Hodgson and his robot
(i.e., puppet) sidekicks Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) and Crow (Trace
Beaulieu) at the top of their form, hurling a nonstop barrage
of barbs, puns, gags and put-downs at the screen as they're
forced to watch the movie by mad scientists. As with virtually
all MST3K episodes, the host segments that bookend the show
and skits sprinkled throughout are strictly hit-and-miss affairs;
where the devilish wit and pop culture repartee of the MST writers
and performers truly shines is in the "theater", with the movie
underway and serving as straight man. Eegah
is amusingly cheesy in its natural state but often downright
hysterical in its 'Mystied' form.
|
| *
For a terrific interview with Richard Kiel about the making of
Eegah and more, see "Eegah To
Please" by Tom Weaver (Video Watchdog # 97, July 2003). |
|
|
Rhino's
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection edition of Eegah
allows the discerning cheese enthusiast to view the film either
uncut — sans Joel and the 'bots, with roughly 20 minutes of footage
restored —
or as broadcast in truncated form on the Comedy Central network
in 1993. Eegah is fairly beat up
on the Rhino disc, with the uncut version taken from a less damaged
print. It's still quite watchable, however, and in better shape
than a lot of the public domain DVD product out there. A/V quality
was never much of a concern for the MST gang; the terrible condition
of some of the prints they ran on the show was often the butt
of jokes. ("Actually filmed inside the thumbhole of a bowling
ball!", etc.) The wraparound skits and host segments of the
MST version look and sound terrific.
The disc does not have to be flipped
over to enjoy either version of the film. One of their earliest
MST3K discs, Rhino tried an experiment with Eegah
that hasn't been attempted since. From the menu of the MST version,
viewers can enable a cue which will alert them at the point where
footage was cut from the film for the show's purposes. (An icon
that looks like Crow's head pops on-screen.) Pressing your remote's
ENTER key transitions the DVD to the 'missing' footage from the
original version. This is all fine and good... except that the
disc doesn't automatically return to the point where one left
off in the MST episode when the cut scene is through. You'll have
to be quite familiar with the Mystied version of the movie to
know when to hit ENTER again to go back to where you left off.
More hassle than it's worth, really. 4/23/04 |
•
Home
| Reviews | Top
•
|
