Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and his wife Betty (Fay Masterson) are heading into the mountains to find a meteorite that Paul believes fell in the woods. Paul is a scientist. The meteorite contains a rare and precious element called atmosphereum. They have rented a cabin to stay at while Paul searches for the meteorite with his atmosphereum detector. Suddenly they see what appears to be another meteorite streaking through the sky.
In the meantime Mad Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) is looking for the fabled Cadavra Cave and the Lost Skeleton that is said to be in it. When he finally finds it he believes that if he can make the skeleton come to life it will make him the most powerful man in the world. The skeleton mentally communicates with him and tells him that in order to come to life he needs atmosphereum. Fleming hears Paul and Betty out in the woods as they find the meteorite. He decides to steal if from them.
Fleming had also seen what looked like another meteorite in the sky. In reality the meteorite is a space ship from the planet Marva that crashed on Earth. On board are Lattis (Susan McConnell) and Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks). The couple needs to fix their ship and find fuel to get them back to Marva. To fuel their ship they need atmosphereum. Suddenly they realize that their pet mutant (Darren Reed) has escaped. They fear that it will begin randomly killing people. Kro-Bar tries to fix the ship while Lattis looks for the mutant with the transmutatron hoping to find it and change it into something tamer.
Lattis also overhears Paul and Betty talking about the atmosphereum. Kro-Bar and Lattis use the transmutatron to change into Earthlings in the hopes of blending in and deceiving Paul and Betty. Fleming sees Kro-Bar and Lattis transform. When they leave the transmutatron in the woods Fleming finds it. Believing he needs a companion to fool Paul and Betty he changes four forest animals into a female human. He calls the female human Animala (Jennifer Blaire). Lattis, Kro-Bar, Fleming and Animala manage to talk their way into the Armstrong’s cabin. Each one is conspiring to acquire the atmosphereum for their own purposes.
“The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” was released in 2001 and was directed by Larry Blamire. It is an Independent science fiction/horror parody film that spoofs the science fiction and horror “B” movie films of the 50’s and early 60’s. The movie was filmed in Skeletorama. The film was made in color and the color was stripped in post-production so that the result is a black and white movie.
There are some intentional continuity errors, like props appearing and disappearing and wires on the skeleton showing. One of the most obvious is the human shoes showing from underneath the mutant costume. The large space ship is silver painted cardboard and the ship landing is a smaller model of the same silver painted cardboard. The props used came from e-bay as well as anywhere they could find stuff. On the spaceship they are drinking space wine out of votive candle holders. The transmutatron is a caulking gun. The acting is intentionally bad and so is the script.
The film started a little slow for me but it wasn’t long before the ridiculousness of it had me hooked. Things really kicked into gear for me when Animala showed up. There are a lot of funny parts and there are a lot of groaning parts. Larry Blamire set out to make the worst science fiction movie ever. He succeeded. His devoted cult loves it.