Look, the thing about comedy is, it either makes you laugh, or it doesn’t. For instance, there was a little DTV women-in-prison movie parody called Prison-a-Go-Go. I thought it pretty good, for what it was. However, The Warden over at Prison Flicks, certainly a critical force to be reckoned with, didn’t think much of it at all. So I’m not going to come out and recommend The Naked Monster, because who knows if what I thought was funny would strike you that way. All I can say is, I thought it was hilarious.
There’ve been a lot of micro-budgeted fake ‘cheesy’ monster movies lately, the most famous of these being the theatrically released The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Some have been quite good (Mistress of the Moon, for instance), some pretty good (Cadavra, Frankenstein and the Monster from Blood Cove), some watchable (Monster from Phantom Lake) and some really not so hot (Creature from Hillbilly Lake).
This one really hit my vibe. The grainy footage, tinny sound and awkward direction are right out of the Larry “Zontar Thing from Venus” Buchanan movies I grew up watching as a kid. The film is packed with old monster movie guest stars like John Agar, Les Tremaine, Robert Clarke, Lori Nelson, Robert Corthwaite, Gloria Talbott and many others. ‘Fan’ celebrities like Forry Ackerman and Bob Burns also appear, and Burns, a well-known professional gorilla suit man, also appears in his ape suit. Meanwhile, the film is narrated by George Fenneman, remembered by those of a certain age as Groucho Marx’ sidekick on Groucho’s old gameshow, You Bet Your Life. (Fenneman also played a scientist in The Thing from Another World.)
Indeed, one of the actual stars of the film is Kenneth Tobey, who starred in some of the best ’50s monster movies, including The Thing From Another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and many more. Sadly, many of these beloved personalities, including Mr. Tobey (honored during the film’s touching coda) have passed on since making this, which makes their appearance here all the more special.
Most of the other old timers have cameos here and there, especially during one sequence where Tobey’s organization “Monster Central” has asked for ideas on how to fight the film’s giant monster. They are answered by a batch of phone calls from these the old stars (all appearing as the characters from their original movies). “Try poking it with sticks!” Les Tremaine suggests. “It worked on the Slime People!”
Basically the movie derives its humor from three areas. The first is just in recreating the really crappy look of a very cheap ’60s sci-fi film. The movie is about note perfect in this regard, and best of all, they don’t generally take it too far. It looks really bad, but nothing that someone of my vintage who watched a lot of cheapie horror movies wouldn’t have seen.
Well, OK, the suit for the film’s ‘giant monster’ is a tad too goofy for my taste. It would have been funnier to me if they made the suit look a little better. (When the film started as a short, as we see in a DVD extra, they initially used a stop-motion monster that actually looked a little scary. I think that would have been a better idea.) Otherwise, they really run with how cheap these things could look, with mismatched film stock, washed out color, continuity errors (the monster keeps changing size, which used to happen a lot), jumps in the editing and stuff like that.
The second area of humor revolves around in-jokes about the old movies. This includes stuff like quoting passages of dialogue from The Thing, or using lots of stock footage and recognizable music cues from old monster movies. They also use familiar settings from old b-movies, such as the cave in Bronson Canyon that housed Ro-Man and Gor the Space Brain and a zillion other movies (and Batman in the old Adam West TV show), the town square featured in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the beach where they shot The Monster of Piedras Blancas, and other recognizable locales.
The guy who wrote and co-directed the film is Ted Newsom. He earlier wrote the Christopher Lee hosted TV documentary series 100 Years of Horror, and has written numerous other monster movie retrospectives. Meanwhile, the other director is Wayne Berwick, whose father actually directed The Monster of Piedras Blancas. (Several of that film’s stars are among those who have cameos here.) So these guys know their stuff.
Newsom opens things up with a William Castle-like “as himself” introduction, in which he appears as The Naked Monster’s producer and informs the audience that the film was shot in MONSTERAMA. (Even funnier to me was the quick credits noting the film was shot in Econocolor.) This segment is spot on, and even cadges lines from some of Castle’s actual introductions. Needless to say, the guy also is holding one of Castle’s trademark cigars.
The third sort of humor is a collection of the lamest puns and sight gags imaginable, which I personally found hilarious. I grew up watching a lot of vaudeville-influenced schtick, especially via local horror hosts Svengoolie and Son of Svengoolie. For instance, if you find slide whistle sound effects funny, then this is the movie for you. I could mention some of my favorite gags, but why ruin them?
Special note, by the way, to one-time screen queen Brinke Stevens, who plays the female lead in a dead perfect fashion. She also has the inevitable gratuitous shower scene (which a crawl reassures us “is essential to the plot”), and all I can say is Ms. Stevens has kept herself in shape. So also has Linnea Quigley, who have a brief appearance and also sheds her top because, well, you know, she’s Linnea Quigley.
