Microwave Massacre

Stand up comedian and sometime actor Jackie Vernon had his last movie role in this laugh riot camp horror film. Jackie plays Donald, a construction worker whose wife May (Claire Ginsberg) is trying to get him to eat her experimental dinners. She does this supposedly for his own good, and does it with the assistance of her microwave oven (a real gargantuan artifact). Finally, he can take no more of her nagging and, in a drunken rage, bludgeons her to death with a salt grinder. He comes to realize that he likes the taste of human flesh, so goes out and kills more people to feed his newfound appetites.

Written and produced by Craig Muckler and Thomas Singer, and directed by Wayne Berwick, "Microwave Massacre" is a pretty tasty morsel when it comes to horror comedy. It's full of utter ridiculousness, and absurd dialogue, not to mention some deliciously tacky gore effects and one utterly priceless severed head. The amusingly deadpan Vernon alternates between being sincere, and letting the audience in on the joke by breaking the fourth wall. His interactions with victims and other characters are a joy to behold. We have a hooker named Dee Dee Dee (Lou Ann Webber), a psychiatrist (John Harmon, who'd acted for director Berwicks' father Irvin in things like "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" and "Malibu High"), a doctor with the childish moniker of Von Der Fool (Ed Thomas), a hottie foreigner (Anna Marlowe) who makes a living dancing in a chicken costume, Donalds' fellow construction workers Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Philip (Al Troupe), and Sam (Phil De Carlo), a grumpy bartender who doesn't want to hear his patrons' sob stories. Ginsberg is perfect as the kind of nagging wife that would drive any husband mad.

This movie keeps coming up with enough wacky and irreverent shtick to sustain it through a very reasonable one hour 17 minutes run time. Just don't expect to see the title appliance come into play all THAT often while it plays out.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm so hungry I could eat a whore.

Seven out of 10.

Filmed several years ago and finally emerging as a homevideo release, "Microwave Massacre" is an amateurish comedy dwelling on cannibalism in its lampooning of gory horror films. Vaguely resembling the spoof-of-a-spoof "Please Don't Eat My Mother" (a takeoff on "Little Shop of Horrors" made a decade earlier), this film is suited for fanciers of grotesque black humor only.

Standup comic Jackie Vernon toplines as a mild construction worker Donald, engaged in Bickersons-style arguments with his stout wife May (Claire Ginsberg), especially over her penchant for inedible gourmet repasts prepared in her large microwave oven. In a rage, he kills her, and cuts the body into pieces (including a very cheap plaster head) and stores them neatly wrapped in aluminum foil with the frozen meat.

When Donald accidentally nibbles on one of his wife's hands for a midnight snack, he discovers he likes the taste and begins cooking the human flesh in the microwave, sharing the results at lunch with his friendly co-workers. Now, a bachelor again, he starts picking up pretty girls, but ends up killing them while having sex and eating the corpses.

Filmmaker Wayne Berwick, Thomas Singer and Craig Muckler overplay this material for cheap laughs, with mugging actors including the usual deadpan Vernon. Gore is very fake-looking, aiming at viewers laughing at the production rather than being outraged by realism. Emphasizing vulgar gags and slowing down dialog delivery results in an embarrassing, generally unfunny exercise, punctuated by the usual quota of female nude shots.

Budget is microscopic, with passable technical credits. In explaining Donald's final comeuppance (yes, even in amoral farragoes such as this there lurks some form of retribution), picture briefly intimates a supernatural element, but this is not enough to attract the interest of traditional horror film fans.

My review was written after watching the film on a Midnight videocassette.

Is MM a good movie? No. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes.

This is one of those films that falls into the "B minus"-movie category. It's sincere in being what it is, but what it is is a lot of schlock.

Oddly, Jackie Vernon is probably one of the weakest parts of this film. His portrayal of a middle-aged blue-collar schlub is just not convincing. (Hmmm...as if any of the other actors are convincing.) I/m sure that this film probably wouldn't have been made at all if he hadn't been attached to the project, but he's just not very good/interesting/funny in his role.

On the bright side, the producers somehow managed to scrape together quite a few pretty good-looking women and get them to take their tops of. In fact, I'm rather surprised that Marla Simons didn't go on to do more films after this one, even if this would have been due to her assets rather than her acting. The nudity in this film is silly rather than titillating and I personally would have given it a PG-13 rating.

Everybody else in the film acts as if they're in a sketch on the Carol Burnett Show, mugging and over-reacting. Some of the jokes and one-liners are pretty funny, just don't expect any real acting. Oh, yeah...and it's not at all scary or even gross.

The only big question that I had after watching this was, "How did the huge, industrial microwave fit into that little shipping box that you see in the beginning of the movie?" Recommended for people who are tired of artsy-fartsy horror films.

Okay, first off, this is quite possibly the worst movie that I've ever seen. It makes Ed Wood (R.I.P.) movies look like the best movies out there.

The movie follows a construction worker named Donald as he kills his wife when he is mad at her and accidentally eats some of her flesh while looking for a snack. He loves the taste, so he goes out and kills more girls and eats them, occasionally sharing the new meat with his friends. They don't know its human meat, but they like it so Donald keeps giving them the meat.

Okay, and as for the ending, I thought it made sense, but it was still funny. I won't reveal it, but trust me, you will never have guessed what happens.

The special effects are horrible, but I find myself laughing at these more than the jokes in the movie. I love bad SFX, and this one takes the cake in the bad special effects department. Bravo Microwave Massacre.

So see it if you can find it, and if you can't find it, get a bootleg. Its worth it if you like bad movies.

My friend and I got bored last night so we decided to watch a movie my Dad had bought for me from a yard sale. 3 guesses what movie it was. Anywho. Right off we knew it was bad. And then I realized I had heard about this movie from badmovies.org. Lauren and I are strange, I think. We enjoyed the movie. We laughed and cried. We cried because it was so painful to watch, but enjoyable at the same time, go figure! This is definitely a party movie to lighten the mood. Maybe have a some finger food around for atmosphere *grin*