Violence/Gore: Light, campy, and extremely fake. Nothing really.

Sex/Nudity: Aside from some sexy dances, none of that either.

Best Line: “We take our horrible mutilations seriously around
these parts.”

Score:

The drive-ins of the 1950s were filled with movies designed to frighten, shock, and entertain with concepts popular at the time - giant atomic mutant bugs, space aliens, and other bugaboos - and filmmakers like Ed Wood, William Castle, and Roger Corman built careers (if they could be called that) on the sci-fi craze.

THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA is more than an homage to these gems - it is a loving re-creation of sci-fi classics right down to the strangely stilted dialogue, wooden acting, not-so-special effects (the skeleton is controlled by painfully visible fishing line), and logical gaps through which one could steer a Plymouth. But it’s all OK, because anyone with the smallest grasp of satire knows that it’s not meant to be perfect; that would defeat the point entirely. It’s a spoof, and if you have no connection to or appreciation for the ’50s sci-fi gems, you may not get the joke this movie so lovingly perpetrates.

The movie begins as a scientist (this is subtly mentioned about…oh, 20 times in the first 3 minutes), Dr. Paul Armstrong, and his adorably dingy wife Betty (playing a cross between Donna Reed and every shrieking, fainting ’50s heroine), travel to a deserted cabin in the woods (cunningly filmed in Bronson Canyon, location of many B-movies and Westerns) to locate a meteor Paul has detected - a meteor that just happens to be “lousy with atmospherium,” the new, rare element that “Earth can benefit from in many ways, many of them good.” Add to the mix an evil scientist; his master, the titular Lost Skeleton (a cranky, anachronistically-dialogued ex-med school skeleton hilariously controlled by fishing line); Animala, a half-woman, half-four-different-forest-animals dancing beatnik; and two crash-landed aliens, Kro-Bar and Lattis (not to mention their rubber-suited pet mutant…there are no words), all of whom want the atmospherium for themselves. Stir well, and let the side-splitting mayhem begin!

One of the funniest things about LOST SKELETON are the props, like the Transmutatron - the ray gun the aliens bring to subdue the mutant (and which is used by the “evil” scientist to create Animala). It’s quite obviously a disguised caulking gun, while the “spaceship” is a toilet roll covered in silver paint and foil. The inside of the space ship is made of pegboard with random gizmos stuck on, and the part of the spaceship that’s broken is played by a bicycle bell.

Despite the occasional viewer complaint that “camp isn’t created, it becomes,” director/actor/writer Blamire’s intelligent and lovingly respectful way of paying homage to the low-budget sci-fi era radiates from the film. Nothing misses, from the sexy, seductive Animala’s beatnik dancing to the classic scene of the DOCTOR WHO-esque rubber-suited monster dragging off the heroine (who, naturally, has fainted dead away). THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA is a darling re-creation of every ’50s drive-in flick you ever saw late at night on cable. Although it plays well alone, CADAVRA is best watched with a group of your cinema-geek friends and the sophisticated adult beverages of your choice.

DVD Extras: The DVD has a lot of additional release material, including: A making-of featurette that’s surprisingly free of spoilers and gives the viewer insight into Blamire’s mindset while creating this adoring homage to sci-fi mayhem; “Obey The Lost Skeleton,” the story of the skeleton in all his cranky glory; commentary tracks from director, cast and crew; a blooper reel (the outtakes are in color, as the color was stripped from the finished film); an AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE Q&A featurette from an LA screening; “Virtual Skelectibles,” a look at LOST SKELETON merchandise that ‘might have been;’ a photo gallery; and finally (and perhaps most charmingly) an original 1937 Ub Iwerks-animated color cartoon short feature called “Skeleton Frolic,” in which a skeleton band plays a dead gig (the cemetery, hee hee).

SS