The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra Celebrates the 1950s B-Movie Horror Genre


Giant ants! Gargantuan tarantulas! Colossal radioactive women! In 1945, the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II and ushering in the Atomic Age. Americans’ fears shifted from the threat of communism to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Families began building bomb shelters in their backyards while school children participated in “duck and cover” drills. Hollywood, never missing an opportunity to exploit the public’s greatest panics and anxieties, began churning out nuclear annihilation-themed movies. Some of them were serious pictures with somber themes, like 1959’s On the Beach and 1964’s Fail Safe. Some were biting satires like 1964’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Most, however, were low budget schlock fests, produced on the cheap and churned out as B-sides of movie house double features. The plots followed the same basic structure – a nuclear blast or radioactive meteor crashing to Earth unleashes a cataclysmic event, producing mutant insects, hideous deep sea creatures, or even freakishly overgrown human beings who trounce through small towns and big cities. There was 1954’s Them!, about massive atomic ants wreaking their havoc across the New Mexico desert, 1956’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the story of a titanic fire-breathing beast stomping all over Tokyo, and 1958’s The Blob, the moving tale of an oversized pile of red goo that crash lands on Earth and gobbles up an entire slab of northern Pennsylvania. These movies gave nervous Americans an opportunity to escape their fears of nuclear obliteration by enjoying 90 minutes of implausible thrills and chills.

COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAY

What is ‘The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra’?

As ridiculous as most of these films were, they’re iconic parts of our cinematic history and are treasured today as reminders of the uneasy state of America in the years following World War II. In 2001, writer-director Larry Blamire paid homage to those cinematic relics of the Cold War era with The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a spot-on, hysterical send-up of the Atomic Age science fiction-horror genre. What makes the film so entertaining and so funny is Blamire’s dedication to replicating the authenticity of the genre, from the outlandish plot, to the deliberately wooden acting, to the dreadful script, and to the dollar store production values. In fact, Blamire does such an exceptional job of recreating the look and feel of those films of the 1950s, it may take viewers some time to figure out they’re actually watching a parody.


The story itself is preposterous and incorporates almost every theme, gimmick, and trope from the era. A meteor has crashed onto Earth, and dedicated scientist Dr. Paul Armstrong, played by Blamire himself, is on a mission to find the big, glowing rock, because it contains a precious element called atmospherium. The significance of atmospherium is never fully explained, other than it’s an important scientific element crucial to, well, science. Meanwhile, another scientist – a mad one – Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe), is also looking for the meteor, because he wants its atmospherium to revive the evil spirit of a skeleton that resides in the caves of Cadavra. As if this isn’t ludicrous enough, a spaceship piloted by a husband and wife pair of aliens named Kro-Bar and Lattis (Andrew Parks and Susan McConnell) from the planet Marva has conveniently crash-landed near the meteor. Kro-Bar and Lattis would also like to get their hands on the atmospherium. They have another problem, though. The mutant creature that was with them on the spaceship has escaped and is on the loose. But wait! There’s more! Mad Dr. Fleming has obtained a laser weapon, the “transmugetron,” from Kro-Bar and Lattis’ marooned spaceship and has used it to transform four different forest animals into a beautiful woman named Animala (Jennifer Blaire). Blamire leaves no silly cliché behind in setting up the story, though the story isn’t really the important thing here.


Authentic Bargain-Basement

The look and feel of the movie is authentic 1950s bargain-basement. True to other pictures of the era that touted being filmed in such bogus cinematic advances as “Cinemagic,” the trailer for The Lost of Skeleton of Cadavra promotes the movie as being filmed in “Skeletorama.” What that is exactly, no one knows, but the movie itself, filmed in black-and-white, is completely flat, somewhat fuzzy, with little contrast. Cinematographer Kevin Jones makes sure camera movement is limited, with most of the actors entering from one side of the screen and exiting to the other while the lens remains focused dead center. The majority of the action takes place in forest thickets, also known as the hills near Griffith Park in Los Angeles and Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino. Other locations are spare – a mountain cabin sorely lacking in decor, save for an abundance of wood paneling and a fully stocked kitchen where Dr. Armstrong’s dutiful wife Betty (Faye Masterson) cooks his meals. There’s also a dark cave where the skeleton in the movie’s title resides (which, incidentally, is the same cave from which the Batmobile emerged in the 1960s Batman TV series). When Kro-Bar and Lattis’ spaceship crashes, Jones takes extra care to ensure the audience knows it’s seeing a toy spacecraft attached to strings plopping down onto a miniature plastic woodland. The life-sized version of Kro-Bar and Lattis’ spacecraft appears to be made of silver spray-painted pine, and its automatic door gets stuck opening and closing from time to time. Finally, the film’s overall atmosphere wouldn’t be complete without the background music pulled straight from the science fiction-horror studio sound library, circa 1955.


RELATED: ‘The Addams Family’ vs. ‘The Munsters:’ Who Ya Got?

The costuming also authentically replicates the genre being sent up. Dr. Armstrong and Betty trudge through the foliage in search of the radioactive meteor, he in his white button-down shirt and tan khakis, she in her pleated circle skirt, string of white pearls around her neck, cardigan sweater draped over her shoulders, and of course, a pair of white high heels. Aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis wear shimmering gray one-piece sauna suits with nondescript decals attached to the chest areas, letting the audience know these two must hold some kind of official rank back on their home planet. When they use their transmugetrons to change into authentic “human” clothing, Kro-Bar is bewildered by the “neck restrainer” around his throat, but Lattis seems to enjoy what she calls the “inverted cloth funnel” she has on. Animala, the amalgamation of forest creatures in human form, sports a straight up beatnik-inspired black catsuit. Then there’s the escaped mutant, a wonderfully preposterous three-eyed H.R. Pufnstuf/Sigmund and the Sea Monster hybrid wearing what looks like a pioneer woman’s skirt. Being a mutant, the creature doesn’t speak, but it does make a sound like a shrieking pterodactyl or angry pachyderm as it stalks its prey.


What truly makes the film stand out is the bad script and even worse acting, all purposely executed for maximum comic effect and as a wink and a nod to audiences about the genre being spoofed. Blamire cast largely unknown actors in the film, much like those from early sci-fi movies – performers who nobody recognized and who would usually never be seen again. The actors deliver a lot of dialogue about science – literally. At the beginning of the film, as Dr. Armstrong conveys to Betty the criticality of his mission to find the crashed meteor, he tells her, “You know what this could mean to science. If we find it, and it’s real, it could mean a lot. It could mean actual advances in the field of science.” Later, after a hearty meal prepared by Betty, Dr. Armstrong says, “Dinner was delicious, honey. Keep cooking like that and I won’t even be able to move, let alone do science.” Blamire delivers every line completely straight, without the slightest hint of mocking or irony. When the escaped mutant begins killing the townspeople, devoted Forest Ranger Brad (Dan Conroy) pops in on Dr. Armstrong and Betty to sternly warn them. “I don’t wanna frighten you folks, but a farmer nearby was horribly mutilated. And I thought I should tell folks like yourself, so maybe, just maybe, you won’t be horribly mutilated, too.”


The True Centerpiece: the Aliens

The true comic centerpieces of the film, however, are Kro-Bar and Lattis, whose robotic dialogue and movements are meant to convey the emotionless way in which alien beings of 1950s films were portrayed. Kro-Bar and Lattis speak in a stilted, clipped manner as they struggle to make sense of planet Earth. “It is strange how the ways of different people on different planets differ,” Lattis observes. Lattis also provides a good deal of exposition, with lines like, “I will get the things which we will need to repair our ship, which is broken, in this crash on this alien planet that we had.” Kro-Bar and Lattis disguise themselves as humans to infiltrate the home of Dr. Armstrong and Betty in order to get their hands on the atmospherium, but being aliens, they’re clueless about how human beings behave, and so must mimic what they see humans do. The scene in which they come to the Armstrongs’ home for dinner is true comedy genius. Not wanting to give themselves away as visitors from another planet, Kro-Bar and Lattis create what they think are “Earth names” for themselves, Bamin and Tergasso. Seeing Dr. Armstrong and Betty sit down, Kro-Bar commands to Lattis, “Fold yourself in the middle!”


The proceedings become even more hysterical when evil Dr. Fleming shows up with Animala, passing her off as his wife named Pammy, who proceeds to hiss like a cat and lick the hands of her hosts. When everyone sits down for dinner, Animala buries her face in her plate and laps up all the food. Kro-Bar and Lattis, thinking this is normal human behavior, do the same, as the Armstrongs look on in stunned horror. To keep the zaniness going, the spirit of the Cadavra skeleton begins inhabiting the dinner guests, which results in Animala performing a bizarrely seductive dance to entice Dr. Armstrong into giving her the coveted atmospherium. Meanwhile, Betty wanders off in a trance and runs smack dab into the mutant, fainting conveniently into its arms, just like all 1950s damsels in distress who encounter otherworldly creatures. And, like all conflicted otherworldly creatures, the mutant has feelings for the pretty earthling Betty, so it ultimately sets her free.

In keeping with the narrative of the 1950s creature feature, the film’s big finale involves a fight to the death between the mutant and the skeleton, with the mutant holding the plastic skeleton in its arms and whirling it around a hillside as if engaged in a waltz. Menacing music grows to a crescendo, the camera makes herky-jerky movements, and the cast of characters watches the battle from the sidelines in shock and fear. Finally, the mutant hurls the skeleton off the side of a cliff, where it breaks into multiple pieces. Exhausted from the extended battle, the mutant expires as well. Mourning the death of the mutant and delivering the obligatory moral lesson, Betty surmises, “I don’t think it ever meant to kill. It just didn’t know not to.” In a final act of compassion, Kro-Bar uses his transmugetron to change Animala back into the four different forest animals from whence she came, then offers one last nonsensical message of hope for all mankind: “You know, it’s funny, but when the kind of understanding that you and I have over a little piece of rock spreads throughout the universe, then, and only then, will there be understanding amongst all peoples, alien and alike, in all kinds of places, at the same time.”


The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra‘s dedication to recreating the precise spirit of 1950s films is what makes it such a wonderful homage. Blamire doesn’t mock the genre, but instead pays it its due respects. It’s the perfect film for any monster movie fan, and for anyone who appreciates a well-crafted satire. Available to stream on Amazon Prime, it’s worth taking a look at this cult classic that praises cult classics.



Source link