Rocket Attack U.S.A.

In 1986, SNL alumni Laraine Newman starred in a 13-installment series called "Canned Film Festival", in which she and regular customers in a phony theater snackbar setting would talk about the bad movie that was playing in that night's schedule. What the writers failed to realize was that the irritating "comic relief" offered up by this stock pile of wannabes was nowhere nearly as funny as the films they showed... that took themselves seriously!

Cue ROCKET ATTACK USA. This typically lethargic Barry Mahon epic (remember CUBAN REBEL GIRLS?) is nonetheless a real scream. It is an outrageous piece of grimy slop. This is the kind of Grade Z espionage flick which heavily relies on stock footage, people reacting to offscreen cut-ins, and the principal cast "emoting" in front of those great nondescript black backgrounds. This is the kind of movie where a person gets mowed down by machine guns, and says, "You go ahead- I'm all right."

I haven't seen this film since, but I would love to have another look at it. However, in light of the atrocities of September 11, no-one would dare program it. After all, it does feature rockets attacking New York City. In today's climate, pictures like this and SHACK OUT ON 101, can no longer be viewed as hilariously outdated, naive pieces of Red Scare Propaganda. Suddenly, we understand how our ancestors felt back in the 1950's... being on the verge of disaster. Who knew that a Barry Mahon film would be topical?

Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Cold War propaganda has an American agent landing in Russia where his mission is to determine how far their missile technology is and whether or not the United States are in danger.

ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. comes from director Barry Mahon and many reviews will have you thinking that this here is one of the worst films ever made. I'd argue that it's not even one of the worst Cold War propaganda films ever made. Perhaps I've simply been watching too many Mahon films but there's no question that there's a lot of bad stuff in this movie and I'll talk about that later.

No matter how much you hate this bad movie, and it is a bad movie, at the same time it's technically a lot better made than so many other low-budget movies. I mean, the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr., Al Adamson, Francis Coleman and Ted V, Mikels is much worse to say the least. At least Mahon could take a low-budget movie and to make certainly technical errors that so many others have. While the budget and performances don't make for a great picture, I think Mahon could have delivered something better with the right material.

With that said, the budget here is just so low and there are so many other problems. For starters, this film makes it way too easy for the American agent to sneak into Russia and what's worse is that everyone there is speaking with an American accent. Another major problem is that there's no suspense to be found and you really don't care if the missile hits America or not. In fact, I'd argue that most people will be cheering for it to do so!

ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. wasn't meant to be taken serious and there's certainly nothing here that warrants you doing so. If you're expecting FAIL SAFE or DR. STRANGELOVE then you're certainly coming to the wrong film.

For an example of a fun movie to spend an hour with, see TRAPPED BY TELEVISION from 1936. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you want to spend that hour in abject misery you should watch ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. from 1961. I can't say it's the worst movie I've ever seen (that dishonor belongs to another…) but it is most definitely one of the worst. I watched these two movies hour-long movies of bygone eras (TRAPPED BY TELEVISION and ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A.) back-to-back the other day and the two of them could not have been more different. ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. is a spy movie for people who hate spy movies. And movies in general. And life. It opens with Russia's launch of Sputnik satellite into orbit and jumps immediately to the United States Department of Defense where people are worried that it will be used to collect data for the enemy. The decision is made to waste no time dropping a central intelligence agent, John Manston (John McKay), behind enemy lines to meet with a Soviet defector named Tanya (Monica Davis). Tanya will use her connections inside the Russian government as an official's mistress to get information on Sputnik's true purpose and the potential likelihood of an attack on the United States. Then a bunch of nothing happens, your interest most like declines to the point of physical pain, and after a while we get the inevitable missile attack against the United States in a film that I assume was meant to scare the American population into hating Russia even more.

I don't know if I'm even justified in commenting on this horrible, horrible film because, despite having actually seen it twice now (and this I promise…never again), I have no real idea what goes on once John makes contact with Tanya in Moscow because this movie is so incredibly dull and so horribly executed that I am incapable of keeping interest. I might be looking at the screen as the movie is playing but my attention begins dropping off exponentially until I'm left glassy-eyed and slack-jawed. I'm essentially comatose for twenty or thirty minutes until finally something of interest happens in the film and John sneaks (unsuccessfully) onto a Russian military base and finds the missiles locked and loaded for assault on the United States. Then we shift over to New York City where we spend some time getting to know a bunch of regular folk for a few minutes in a desperate attempt to add emotional weight to the final few minutes of the film. I haven't managed to find any sort of confirmation but, from the quality and content of ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A., it reeks of anti-Soviet propaganda. I really want to know if this movie was developed and released to help fuel the average American's fear of the Russians. Or maybe it's not and director Barry Mahon was venting some of his own personal fears through this film. I don't know and I've already stopped caring. Regardless of what ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. was supposed to be, it's garbage. Unwatchable garbage.

I mean, come on…it's just so poorly done. Movies had been around long enough that we had an understanding of character development, story structure, drama and creating tension. This uses absolutely none of it. The only characters we spend any real time with are Manston and Tanya, and I couldn't care less about either. John McKay seems as if he's genuinely trying to act in a spy film (and failing) while Monica Davis may as well have been pulled in off the street. She's just bad. So, right off the bat, I don't care about the characters. What about the story? If it's interesting enough, I might be able to forgive some of the film's other problems. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Story's crap. What little bit I walked away with, anyway. You see, most of the film's exposition is delivered in droning voice-over narration. And some of the character motivation, too. Seeing as how no one in this film bothers to act, the narrator is left with the job of telling us how characters are feeling. It's insufferable and impossible to follow as a result. I dare you to find anyone who'll enjoy this movie non-ironically. Because this movie fails on so many levels, I can't see it being effective propaganda because I can't imagine anyone sitting through this movie at full attention. If anything, ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. could've been used to torture suspected Communist sympathizers into confession. Just stay away from this movie. Or don't. I don't care. But just remember I warned you.

**ROCKET ATTACK U.S.A. Fun Fact: director Barry Mahon and "actress" Monica Davis went on to create a bunch of old-timey porn sounding movies (not necessarily together) including 1000 SHAPES OF A FEMALE, SIN IN THE CITY, UNHOLY MATRIMONY, and RUN SWINGER RUN.

This movie must be the only terrible movie to be too terrible to be panned on MST3K (which it was...). Did any of these "actors" actually paid for this trash? This makes the 1951 Invasion USA look like academy award material. Who was Barry Mahon trying to kid? How about a worst movie of all time festival with this piece of you-know-what, Monster A-Go-Go, and Manos the Hands of Fate as the headliners? The production was the cheapest, the actors the worst, the plot was stupid and contrived, the so-called facts about the Soviet Union and sputnik weren't. How about all those "foreign" accents, eh? Well Mahon may have gotten the miniscule amount of spoken Russian right as they were spoken by two real Russians (noticed them in the credits).

OK, this isn't bad on the order of say, Monster A-Go Go, but it is still one crappy movie. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 and pretty much freaked out all of America. This little chunk of dreck is one of the results of that paranoia. Cheaply made, poorly acted, and beyond forgiveness in its depiction of the cold war, this is one huge pile of wasted film.

The background music is too loud, when it's there, and doesn't match what's going on on-screen. There is a mindless narrator that pipes up every now and then and only makes the story more confusing. Totally random characters are thrown in for no reason I could fathom. Example: An air raid siren blares and people are seen rushing toward underground shelters. A blind man wanders slowly into frame and quietly says "Help me", and that's the last we see of him.

Add in a couple reels of stock footage, some horrible accents, extremely annoying sound effects, and animation that wouldn't have cut it in the '30's and you get the idea. A waste of time on all levels.