31 Days of Horror Part II: Day 21 [Bottom 100 Wednesday] – #31: The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

 

Director: Coleman Francis

Cast: Tor Johnson, Conrad Brooks, Douglas Mellor, Barbara Francis, Bing Stafford

Screenplay: Coleman Francis

54 mins. Not Rated.

IMDb Bottom 100: #31 (as of 10/21/2015)

 

This week, I looked back at a classic (or anti-classic) of the science-fiction horror genre: The Beast of Yucca Flats. This film isn’t actually as bad as it seems. It still is boring as hell and very confusing, but when people have compared it to Plan 9 from Outer Space, I could disagree. Still a terrible film, but we’ll get to that.

Joseph Javorsky (Tor Johnson, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 from Outer Space) is a defecting KGB agent who has just been hit by a nuclear radiation blast and has now become The Beast, a monstrous man who is murdering the hell out of random strangers. That’s. About. It.

In this film from the terrible writer/director Coleman Francis (Night Train to Mundo Fine, The Skydivers), we get to see an underwhelmingly underdeveloped story with the notoriously terrible Tor Johnson at the forefront. This film doesn’t bother me so much with its many inconsistencies, but more so with the boredom I felt from its 54-minute runtime.

I have very little else to say about this piece of shit. So let’s cover the redeemability…possibly.

 

But is it Good?

No. Not the worst film of all time, mind you, but rather bad.

 

Can it be Fun?

I’d keep the MST3K version for fun. The film has almost no dialogue, so you can get the best experience.

 

The Beast of Yucca Flats is truly awful (Ed Wood levels of awful). Yeah. Real bad.

 

1.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

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