"There is no escape from me. Very well. I will recalculate. Your death will be indescribable."
The Earth has been invaded by creatures from the planet Ro-man. Everyone was destroyed by an alien death ray. After the apocalypse only a few people are left on Earth. An alien Robot (Ro-man Extension XJ-2) AKA Ro-man, has been sent down to earth to wipe out the last remaining people. There are only eight survivors. Two of them Ro-man has already dispatched. The remaining six people are; The Professor (John Mylong), his wife Mother (Selena Royle), their two daughters Alice (Claudia Barrett) and Carla (Pamela Paulson), their son Johnny (Gregory Moffett) and the professor's assistant Roy (George Nader).
The Professor has developed a serum that made the remaining survivors immune to the alien death ray. Ro-man has been given a directive by the leader of the Ro-men. The leader is called the Great Guidance. The directive; eliminate the remaining Hu-mans. He spends the entire movie trying to do that. And falling in love with Alice (Claudia Barrett).
“Robot Monster” aka “Monster from Mars” was released in 1953 and was directed by Phil Tucker. Some people hate it. They call it lame, corny, boring and just plain bad. On the other hand there is a faction out there that actually loves the movie. I’m not sure if they think it’s so bad it’s good or just good. Whatever the reason it runs the gamut. The budget for the movie was approximately $16,000 so I can understand why it’s sometimes considered crap. But it’s grossed over $1,000,000 so it’s certainly got a following. The acting is awful and could be considered campy. The special effects are laughable but with such a small budget I can understand that.
Some have compared “Robot Monster” to “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. I see why they might. Which one is worse? That kind of thing. In looking at the two I have to say that at least “Plan 9” has Vampira and Bela Lugosi. Ro-man is a gorilla with a fish bowl on his head and a TV antenna. The Ro-man and the Great Guidance were both played by George Barrows. The voice for both Ro-man and the Great Guidance was done by John Brown.
The first time I watched it I found it a little on the tedious side. OK a lot on the tedious side. I may have even fallen asleep. There is an awful lot of dialogue. Especially from a monster that doesn’t have a mouth. He spends a lot of time shuffling along saying “I will recalculate” and “Hu-mans there is no escape.” The only real action is the monster waving his arms around and making fists. The trailer was more exciting.
The second time I watched it I started listening to the dialogue more. It wasn’t quite so tedious. There are some really good quotes in it and some really funny dialogue so I was beginning to see why so many people found it appealing. Although I couldn’t rave about it I can see why others do. At this point, I’m afraid to watch it again. It could become a habit, if not an addiction.
I just don’t know what the lizards were all about.