Monster of the Day #1085

Sorry about yesterday, I was deep in my post B-Fest coma. This was the first film shown, courtesy of our own Chad Richards. He furthermore gave the credit to Petersen Games (a.k.a. Green Eye Games). The timing was fortuitous; the base game for Cthulhu Wars had just recently shipped. Indeed, after the Post Office lost my game for nearly a week after marking it successfully delivered, it finally turned up. We picked it up on the trip down to the Fest, and it waited ominously slumbering in the van while we slowly mutated in the auditorium. We played it Sunday, and it’s pretty spectacular. The simply gigantic expansion stuff, including another 100-plus plastic figures, will ship down the road. The base game is already amazing, though. I think the Rev. will confirm this when he resurfaces.

You know, like Cthulhu.

Since this was picture, I think, our one ’50s sci-fi film (save for the perennial Plan 9, which as usual I napped through), and one of very few black and white pictures, I might have personally saved it for later in the bill. But it was well received, which isn’t surprising as it’s one of the several interesting takes on zombies Sam Katzman produced.

  • Flangepart

    Now why is the song CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN runnin’ through my head?

  • Eric Hinkle

    I remember this film! CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN. It always struck me as being a scheme that Dick Tracy might have run into in his ‘Moon Maid’ years, or maybe one of the pulp heroes like the Spider (Master of Men!) or Doc Savage. It somehow managed to be both goofy and genuinely scary at once.

  • Gamera977

    No match for the ‘CREATURE WITH THE ATOM GALL BLADDER’ though…

  • bgbear_rnh

    Patrick Wharburton has been around longer than I thought.

  • Flangepart

    Yeah, the other organs get no respect! Although, the prospect of seeing THE CREATURE WITH THE ATOMIC ANUS would put me off my feed for some time.

  • Gamera977

    A whole new meaning to the term ‘radioactive waste’… ;)

  • The Rev.

    *surfaces*
    I did, as well.
    This was a fun one that I hadn’t seen before. Surprisingly violent for a movie of this vintage. It turns out one of Jason Voorhees’ more infamous kills was not as original as I’d thought…
    Cthulhu Wars was a LOT of fun. Ken was all worried during our game that because he wasn’t as much into games as the others he’d make a poor showing. Naturally he took an early lead; and despite my best machinations at an end-run victory for Shub-Niggurath, he, in the best tradition of Nyarlathotep, enacted his master plan and took victory for the Crawling Chaos. He then tried to pass it off as luck due to the Cthulhu player having to leave mid-game to catch his train. Admittedly, if that had not happened my end run may have been successful, but it still would have been a squeaker. Credit to Ken, he got a well-deserved win. Credit to the game, I immediately wanted to play again, having already come up with alternate strategies to make sure Shub was the queen of the mountain the next time, or give Hastur a run (the rules and means to victory for Hastur seem the most intricate of the four, which drew my attention). I regret my inability to kick in on it, because I already want to own this and I have to wait even longer to do so.
    Know what else is a lot of fun? Italian Spiderman and “Force Five.” SEE THEM ASAP (assuming you haven’t already)!

  • Ken_Begg

    Thanks, Rev! And thanks to Cthulhu for abandoning our pitiful dimension when it did.

    I believe you mean “Danger Five,” and Australian TV series by the makers of Italian Spiderman.

  • GalaxyJane

    This was a fun one, and I was surprised at how many of the shots during the mass zombie attack seemed to prefigure similar ones in NOTLD a good 10+ years ahead of time.

  • The Rev.

    Ah, yes, “Danger Five.” Sorry!

  • Ken_Begg

    Katzman also produced Invisible Invaders which calls to mind NOTLD even more strongly, although the champion of that group, because of the siege element, is probably The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price.

  • Gamera977

    Cthulhu Wars sounds fun, wish I knew some people to play it with.

  • Ken_Begg

    Sort of my dilemma. I own the game, but don’t really know any local gamers (any more). And I’m certainly not interested enough in gaming to find some. I guess I should take the game I won against all odds and just hang up my hat while I’m ahead.

    Can’t wait to get all the expansion stuff, though.

  • The Rev.

    You can always bust it out every B-Fest weekend, if nothing else. (I won’t ask you to drag it to Texas, mostly because Sandy would of course have it right there in his home.)
    I still do some gaming (not nearly as much since I have much less time nowadays), so I could probably find opponents. I know two or three guys who were actively discussing its progress at one of the stores last year; I’m sure they’d be game.
    Now I just have to get it.

  • Gamera977

    Yeah, it’s funny the DM in my D&D group has a dozen or so board and war games like this but no one ever seems motivated to play one.

  • Rodford Smith

    When I saw this movie as a kid I thought it was the best movie ever! Atomic zombies created by a Nazi mad scientist funded by a gangster who uses them to get revenge on the guys who ratted him out!

    I finally found it on DVD and watched it again. It turned out to be a *lot* less serious than I remembered. Looking online, I noticed that many reviewers think it was a deliberate parody, and on rewatching that seems to be true. Just look at the pipe fiddling contest between the main character and the scientist he consults at a university.

    OTOH, it still has one of my all-time favorite chilling lines: I told you I’d come back.