The Milpitas Monster

My review was written in March 1985 after watching the movie on VCI video cassette.

Reviewed for the record, "The Milpitas Monster" is an amatuer horror film completed in 1976, theatrically unreleased and now available via home video (presented by "Le Bad Cinema"). Distrib VCI includes a disclaimer that pic "may insult your intelligence", but as usual, caveat emptor.

Premise is a huge monster (portrayed alternately by stop-motion animation and a guy in a felt suit) spawned by limitless garbage dumped in the little town of Milpitas, 40 miles from San Francisco. Between scenes of failed comedy relief concerning the town drunk George Keister, monster attacks a dance at the local high school and is finally fried when it climbs up the town's transformer tower in emulation of "King Kong".

Non-actors and incompetent film technique reduce this one to the unwatchable category. Sole point of interest is credit for (much-needed in view of the shoddy sound recording) sound effects by young wiz Ben Burtt, late an Oscar-winner for "Star Wars" and key contributor to many other recent fantasy films.

Made for $65,000, this one was the brainchild of a high school teacher who decided to make a monster movie in his small Californian town of Milpitas. And it seems like everyone in the town starred in this one! Is it any good? No! Its unsurprisingly strictly amateur hour all the way with ropey effects and a sound so muddy, you barely hear what anyone says but you never really feel like you're missing much. Its about a giant monster who feeds off the local rubbish dump. The inhabitants in the town take ages to spot it, which is somewhat hard to fathom seeing as it seems to be about ninety metres tall. It ultimately winds up with him grabbing a girl and climbing up the highest building in town. I wonder where they got that idea? Overall, this is likeable stuff, while simultaneously being utter, utter rubbish which is borderline unwatchable much of the time. It is nice to think that a small U. S. town got together and had a laugh back in 1976 and made a movie though. Bet they would never have believed that dumb-asses would still be watching it 45 years later.

B-movies, either you love them or you hate them. Right? I'm not so sure. I believe there are exceptions. I just cannot except how anyone in their right mind, could hate this movie. And by the way, this hilariously inept pile of garbage ain't no B-movie. I'm talking about genuine Z-grade. I'm talking about some of the worst acting you'll ever see, even if you happen to like this type of thing. I'm talking about an incoherent, pointless movie which drags the term "Z-grade" to new lows. This is The Milpitas Monster. This avenger was toxic before toxic was cool. Actually, this guy isn't much of an avenger, he sorta wants to kill everybody. Years and years of garbage build-up, and an accident, involving the town drunk has somehow created a giant, pollution monster, who, like I said, wants to kill everybody, or at least walk around and scare the hell out of everyone, and destroy stuff, and leave giant footprints everywhere. That's basically it. No character development, or anything like that. I don't think that anyone even says anything remotely clever. Not the brightest bunch, I guess. The phrase "so bad, it's good" never made so much sense. An enthusiastically produced, feel-good, schlock-fest, from a better time. I would say how they don't make them like this anymore, but the truth is, they didn't then either. The giant monster thing was done a million times over in the 50's and the early 60's. Just one more thing to add to the clueless oddity that is The Milpitas Monster. I suppose this movie could have used a little gore, like other stuff from this era, but it ain't about shock in Milpitas, California, it's all about the schlock... or at least that's how things ended up. For all I know, these people could have been going for a masterpiece, although, I sincerely doubt it. Just try to remember, The Milpitas Monster meant well. 8/10

The movie it's self is cheaply made and the editing is horrid. The whole mess sounds as if it was dubbed and badly i might add. From reading other review I believe that this movie was a local project and that would explain why it looks so bad. But that would also explain the heart that you can feel from the film. Even though it sucks and is muddled you can tell the project meant something to the people involved and that is why I will give the film a 6. I hate watching it but the effort is a all that matters. If Hollywood films would put forth half the love into their films we might not have crap like Miami Vice or Halloween H-2-O ruining the cineplex experience and driving the box office takes down. In Conjunction with this I will say that the drunk guy who runs around through the movie is hilarious and the only saving grace of the films story. he is worth two stars all by himself So keep on destructing Milpitas Monster.

And that's not necessarily a good or bad thing.

Let's face it: The Milpitas Monster is a cheapie...in fact it's the kind of movie that Frank Zappa immortalized in the song "Cheepnis", only a couple of decades removed. This movie rode the tips of the coat tails of the brief monster movie revival of the seventies (Octaman, The Crater Lake Monster, APE) that occurred right before the advent of Star Wars and the plunge of science fiction into the mainstream.

But it has its points. I actually like some of the stop-motion animation in this one, primitive though it may be. There are a lot of interesting camera angles that one wouldn't normally see on such a film, and the lighting is for the most part adequate (the movie, especially during most of the special effects sequences, is kept rather dark).

I even enjoyed the story up until the introduction of the stupid "odorolla" tracking device, and the particularly stupid way that was used to lure the monster to its death. I don't mind a "bad" script, but I hate a stupid one.

The Milpitas Monster is worth a look if you are a fan of the giant monster genre, or if you just like cheap movies in general. A film that has Paul Frees do the narration can't be all bad.