Movie Review: The Beast of Yucca Flats

The Beast of Yucca Flats

Starring: Tor Johnson, Larry Aten, Douglas Mellor, Barbara Francis, Bing Stafford, Conrad Brooks Director:  Coleman Francis 

Cinema Associates, USA, 1961.

 

This movie was part of Horror Movie 50 movie pack box published by Mill Creek Entertainment.

In the first scene we see a woman after a bath who is strangled by Tor Johnson's character. This scene however has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

Woman dies - the movie starts

Noted scientist Joseph Javorsky (Tor Johnson) has defected from behind the Iron Curtain. He has data about Russian moon shot. He is meeting American officials at Yucca Flats nuclear test area. KGB agents are after him. After a car chase Javorsky leaves the shoot-out area and walks away.

Noted scientist Joseph Javorsky

KGB agents try to kill Javorsky

Javorsky calmly walks away

The American agents die (they just can't stay behind a cover! "I just stand here and reload my gun and wait until enemy shoots me!" Javorsky is already far away in the test area - and a nuclear bomb detonates! It is assumable that the KGB agents died in the blast because they are not seen anymore in the film.

Reload calmly and do not try to get to cover or something

Nuclear blast mutates Javorsky

Man and wife have a vacation near a atomic bomb test site. Mutated Javorsky or Beast appears and strangles first the husband and then uses his stealth skills to enter the car and strangles the wife also. Tor is a huge guy so his Ninja skills are very impressive! Also the victims are always calm and do not put up a fight.

The Beast

Joe Dobson (Larry Aten) desert patrol-man gets informed about a murder. He goes to see his partner Jim (Bing Stafford). We get some random scenes about his wife or girlfriend in nightgown. Meanwhile the Beast carries the unconscious girl to a cave (so it seems that the wife is still alive because she is breathing). Jim and Joe try to get to the cave, but they have to climb over 1000 feet of a steep cliff. And clumsy Beast carried the girl so easily to the cave. However the girl dies on the way down.

Jim's wife has little to do in the movie

Jim and Joe get ready for parachuting

The Radcliffe family with their two sons, "boys from the city not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress" goes to vacation also. The boys see some real pigs and a wild coyote (chained to a tree). The cops hunt for the killer and but can not get to the plateau. Jim tries to use parachutes to get there.

Meanwhile the Radciffe boys Randy and Art get lost in the hills. Their father Hank (Douglas Mellor) tries to find them. Jim thinks that he is the killer and shoots him from the airplane. That's some police work! Hank doesn't die so Jim continues the hunt on the ground.

Jim does some police work

Hank tries not to get shot

The boys are lost. Maybe.

Meanwhile mother (Barbara Francis) waits at the car. Hank comes back and drives to get some help leaving mother standing on the road. Okay, that seems logical. Jim loses the track and returns to Joe.

Honey, stay here and I go get help

What just happened?

After wandering for hours the boys decide that they are lost. Maybe. The Beast chases them with a stick. The cops shoot the Beast and he wrestles with the cops. The dying Beast fondles a bunny. Seriously.

The beast chases the boys with a stick

The beast gets enraged

Tor shows some of his wrestling skills

The movie is one of the worst movies ever made. The movie is less than an hour long and most of it is about people wandering in the wilderness. The script defies all laws of logic. There is very little dialogue (luckily because it is bad and lazily recited). Tor Johnson has the best lines: "GAHH! EAAH!" The movie is narrated by the director with hilariously over dramatic style. The narrator uses almost poetic stream-of-consciousness style: "Flag on the Moon - how did it get there? Secret data - pictures of the moon. Secret data - never before outside the Kremlin. Man's first rocket to the Moon." or "Touch a button - things happen. A scientist becomes a beast." The narrator also has some funny ideas about progress.

Although the movie is bad there may be some influences to later pop culture. It is notable that the the Incredible Hulk-comics were first published in 1962 - a year after Beast of Yucca Flats. Also Wes Craven's Hills Have Eyes has a bit similar setting. I must admit that this is one of my favourite bad movies. The picture quality of the Mill Creek DVD is quite good.

Rating: So bad it is good