“The Beast of Yucca Flats” is basically as boring as Yucca Flats.
Russian spy Joseph Javorsky (Tor Johnson) has defected to the United States. He has with him a briefcase full of Top Secret papers. Javorsky and his contacts are attacked by the KGB. Everyone except Javorsky is killed. Javorsky flees into the desert to get away from his would-be assassins.
He wanders into the atomic testing site at Yucca Flats, Nevada. An Atomic bomb is detonated. Javorsky is close enough to the blast to experience some of the radiation emanating from it. The radiation changes Javorsky. He experiences radiation burns and his mind is transformed into a mindless monster with the urge to kill. He comes across a couple in their car and kills them. He takes the woman’s body with him.
In the meantime a vacationing family, the Radcliffes, are also in the area. They are enjoying their vacation and stop at a service station near the flats. After they set off again they get a flat tire. The two boys, Randy and Art, wander away from the car and out into the desert. State Ranger Joe Dobson (Larry Aten) and his partner Jim Archer (Bing Stafford) must find the beast and stop him before he makes the boys his next victims.
“The Beast of Yucca Flats” was released in 1961. For reference, other movies released that year include; “West Side Story”, “El Cid”, and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. When the star in your movie is Tor Johnson, it’s got one strike against it already. Don’t get me wrong, many ex-wrestlers have done movies and sometimes have been in good movies. Look at The Rock in “Rampage” or Dave Bautista in “Guardians of the Galaxy”. But they are not Tor Johnson and the movies they were in were not directed by Coleman Francis. That is strike two. Coleman Francis is arguable the worst director ever. People tout the brilliance of Ed Wood as compared to Francis.
What is strike three? Pick something. The movie was also written and produced by Coleman. Coleman also did the narration to the movie. The two kids in the movie were his real sons; their mother was played by their actual mother who was also Coleman’s ex-wife. Coleman’s partner in this devastation was Anthony Cardoza, a welder by trade. The movie was filmed without soundtrack. The voice-overs were done in a studio. No one’s lips move. When people are talking all you see is the back of their heads, or the sky, or the ground, or anything, except their face. The music score is stock music. Tor has no dialogue and Conrad Brooks does nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The movie is about 53 or 54 minutes long depending on if you have the nude scene or not. Coleman liked nude scenes so he stuck one in the beginning of the movie (depending on which release you have), that has really nothing to do with the movie. It appears that the monster killed this woman, but there is no further reference to it in the movie anywhere. There is the suggestion of sexual assault with the dead women’s bodies. The movie plods along with no action and copious pages of droning narration. Any dialogue is inept. And don’t ask me the relevance of the rabbit at the end of the movie cause I don’t know. Is it a so bad its good movie, or a so bad it’s still bad movie? I don’t know that either. Watch it at your own risk.