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They trumpet the fact that this is "from the producer of Robot Monster." Moon Rocket 4 encounters meteors then lands on the moon. Helen, the ship's
navigator, is described as "sexy." She leads the crew into a "pressurized
underground cavern filled with giant carnivorous spiders and subterranean
sweeties dressed in black tights." They are "purrfect hosts" but something's
not right "with this litter of kittens." 1953, 64 minutes, VHS
Normally when a movie claims to be 64 minutes long and the copy I'm watching
clocks in at an emaciated 52 minutes, I would be raising holy hell, whining
about how I was ripped off, mislead, lied to, and that I don't need some
namby-pamby sissy boy censoring my videos. In the case of Cat-Women of the Moon, however I felt like somebody up there liked me when this crime against nature
abruptly terminated its insidious transmission, apparently 12 minutes early.
In this biz (the MonsterHunter biz, that is) you're going to see your fair
share of dreck, filth, junk, crap, sludge, and downright worthless, unredeeming
trash. I mean, you knew that when you signed on. Somedays though, a "film"
will cross your path that just makes you stop to wonder how much more advanced
we are than the chimps that sit around and pick bugs off each other's crotches
all day. This movie was awful from start to finish, stem to stern, and pillar
to post. I was constantly amazed at the depths that this film continued to
reach as it unspooled. Everything about it stunk. Everything. The plot, the
acting, the music, the dialogue, the sets, the science, and even the film print
itself. Rhino released this one onto video awhile back, claiming that it was
in 3-D. Heck, they even included about a hundred pair of those red and blue
glasses so that you could experience this one in every dimension possible
(thanks guys!). Now, I've always been one of those dudes that loves the 3-D
gimmick. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. One of the best movie
going experiences of my life was seeing Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3-D
with a theatre full of rowdy Gill Man fans (I sure wouldn't want to see that
third Creature movie with them, though!). Several times I thought the Creature
was actually going to reach out and grab my nuts! That turned out to be an
Indian kid I knew, but the 3-D effects were well extremely well done. Then
there have been the times when 3-D kind of let me down. I remember seeing Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone in 3-D back in the early 80s (I had a choice of either going to my Uncle's
wedding or see a movie, though I might be thinking of the time I saw Superfuzz). In any event, the opening credits of Spacehunter were really cool in 3-D,
then the rest of the movie just fell kind of flat (ouch!). So it was with some
anticipation that fired up the VCR, donned by really cool 3-D shades, sat back
and prepared to be wowed. And I was.  My 3-D glasses quickly found their way onto the head of this wooly mammoth
stuffed animal that was hanging out in my trailer as I realized that the 3-D on
the box actually stood for, dumb, and two other really mean words that start
with the letter "d." You see, this movie wasn't really in 3-D. Oh, sure,
there were times when the picture was out of focus and you could see some red
outlines on some objects which I guess was an indication that at some point in
the past the movie may have been in 3-D but the only thing the glasses did to
the picture was tint it a little and most of the movie was just normal,
sometimes in regular black and white and sometimes in this grainy, fuzzy
condition that made it seem like you were watching a convenience store security
tape. Without the 3-D going for it, the movie has to rely on its content to
get itself over. And boy is that a mistake! I knew there was trouble when we
open up things in this spaceship that is very large with some of the walls
looking like they were made out of corrugated metal like you'd find on the roof
of a chicken coop or something. Then they had these chairs that everyone laid
down in when they were flying and they resembled those tri-fold lawn chairs
that I use to do my nude sunbathing in my backyard during the summer months
(memo to my neighbors: I'm going to put up a fence sometime within the next
couple of summers.) Once they manage to haul themselves out of their
lawn chairs, I mean flight chairs, they make radio contact with Earth. Since
this is the first space mission to the moon on lawn chairs, the folks on Earth
ask if they can speak with each of the crew members about this historic moment.
The leader of the expedition, a guy whose first name is Lard, I mean Laird,
shouts, "no!" Then he says they're going to do this mission "by the book." He
only says that about six more times during the course of this less than one
hour movie. Luckily though, he relents thus introducing us to the rest of the
crew. The co-pilot is named Kip which shouldn't come as too big a surprise on a
ship where the captain is called Laird. There's a woman navigator whose name
is not Uhura, but Helen and it turns out she's being mind controlled by the
Cat-women of the moon, but more on that later. There's also two other guys
that don't leave much of an impression, except that one of them has brought
along his own postmarking equipment so that he can sell first day covers to all
the mindless philatelists back on Earth (what an operator!)  While they are all gabbing and being interviewed by Inside Edition, a meteor
hits or almost hits (the special effects were so minimal that I really couldn't
tell) the ship. This really makes Laird mad (he already has this acting
technique where he shouts out his lines, so this just exacerbates that
condition) and he announces that from now on the mission is going to be done
"by the book." I think that this is also about the time we see the rocket ship
execute a three point turn in space, which would really be a nifty feature to
add to the space shuttles we currently use. They get ready to land and Helen
gives them a sweet spot to land in and makes a comment about a cave. It later
turns out that she couldn't have possibly seen the cave before they landed and
this coupled with a cryptic comment about someone named Beta when she was
giving her shout outs to her pals on Earth, lead everyone to believe that she
must be controlled by a race of Cat-women that live underground on the moon and
want to take over Earth and re-populate their species. Once they land, they
decide that everyone should get into their spacesuits and explore the surface.
This is one of those movies where the astronauts are highly trained
professionals who take all the essentials with them while exploring the moon.
You know, essentials like cigarettes and a handgun. Geez, are they exploring a
distant world or holding up a 7-11? They get into their suits which are these
unflattering baggy nylon affairs complete with ugly looking space helmets, some
of which look like a potty chair turned sideways. They all get out of the ship
and start walking around. I guess this is Laird's way of doing it "by the
book," having everyone leave the ship, with no one back there guard it or
whatever. Watching them explore the surface gives you the distinct impression
that whomever wrote the script had an five year old's understanding of physics
and astronomy. First of all, the crew communicates by shouting through their
helmets. Um, don't need some kind air or atmosphere to transmit sound? Second
of all they have all this blather about the dark side and the light side of the
moon. To show us how deadly the light side is (which is demarcated by a nice
dividing line - one side is dark, next to the dark side is the light side)
somebody bums one of Helen's smokes and throws it into the light side where it
immediately and spontaneously bursts into flame. Um, don't you need oxygen for
something to ignite and burn? Then someone shouts that a meteor is flying at
them and everyone hits the ground (I should note that the moon is portrayed as
having the exact same gravity as Earth) while the meteor crashes into the rocks
just behind them resulting in a big explosion. Yeah, I bet that can happen.
Laird decides that greater security measures should be instituted so he has
everyone walk single-file from then on (come on, what about the buddy system?) They head over to the cave that Helen couldn't have possibly seen from space
and once inside of it they see what looks to be moisture and decide that there
must be some type of atmosphere in there. So one of the guys takes his helmet
off, gets a big whiff of that smelly cave air, and since he doesn't turn blue
and his eyes don't bug out, everyone shucks their spacesuits and starts
breathing that sweet moon air. They leave their spacesuits lying in a heap
near the cave entrance and go further into the cave and run smack dab into a
giant rubber spider attack. Helen tries to get herself chomped by this big
thing that some stagehand has lowered on several ropes and started to shake
violently. The other four crew members see this and proceed to take care of it
"by the book." This involves all of them jumping onto the thing, punching it
and stabbing and generally gang stomping it. Once they get it under control,
another one attacks so they bust a cap in its ass (good thing they brought that
gun to the moon!) With two giant spider attacks under their belt, two guys go
back toward the entrance of the cave to get the spacesuits or something while
the other two guys go in the other direction to further explore the cave.
Helen, who just survived a brutal and traumatic (and rubbery) giant spider
attack, is left resting against a rock. This moment of solitude allows the
Cat-women to contact her and we see that Helen has some white spot on her hand
that the Cat-women use to control her mind. I don't really recall what was
said, but I think it had something to do with keeping the men in the cave for
awhile so they could get control of the spaceship. Shortly thereafter, there's
some battles with the Cat-women and eventually everyone ends up in the
Cat-women's secret city in the cave. The city is as cheesy as you would expect
in a movie like this, consisting chiefly of ugly park benches, lots of ornate
vases and other items that generally look like the trash that one of those
stores that sells all those outdoor yard ornaments my neighbors seem to favor
(you know, the shiny globes, lawn gnomes, and those wooden things where the
person's butt is in the air) would have in their inventory.  The Cat-women appear and they all have these stupid names (Beta, Lambda, and
Zeta) along with these ugly black leotards. To top it all off, their hairdos
can only be described as something along the lines of an Eddie Munster do with
a bun in the back. Not a very attractive look gals. They have taken the space
suits away forcing the crew to stay in the cave with them, though they do say
they will give them back in the morning. Riiiight! Most of the crew doesn't
seem to mind. Laird thinks Helen is in love with him. She isn't really. The
Cat-Women are are using her to get close to Laird so that they can get the
knowledge on how to fly the ship. They're also trying to find out stuff about
the ship from the guy who is looking to make a bunch of money off the mission.
One of the Cat-women agrees to show him where a mountain of gold is if he will
tutor her on how to work the auto-pilot. Gee, nothing suspicious about that.
Another crew member has fallen in love with one of the Cat-Women after hanging
out in her cave for all of five minutes. She later tries to stop her comrades
from stealing the ship and is killed for her efforts. Kip is the only guy who
thinks that the kitty litter in the Cat-women's cave is kind of smelly if you
catch my meaning. He sits around with one leg swung over a chair while scowling
a lot. I think his real beef though is the fact that he loves Helen and he
doesn't get why she's all hot and bothered by Laird. Eventually, everything
becomes clear and it turns out these Cat-women need our ship to invade our
planet, breed with our men, and produce whole litters of little Cat-women.
Most of the crew make their escape and it is revealed that Helen really does
love Kip (whew!) This is easily one of the worst movies you will ever see. The
idiocy that runs throughout the movie is something to behold. I'm still
trying to figure out how they squeezed in so many stupid and bad ideas into an
hour long movie. The actors are as bargain basement as the budget in this
film. They aren't any good at delivering lines or conveying anything like
recognizable emotions and they aren't even very photogenic. As documented
above, the science part of this science-fiction movie is completely absent and
the special effects look like someone went out of his or her way to make them
look that awful. The story makes no sense and neither do any of the crew's
actions (Why would you abandon your spacesuits? Why wouldn't you fight the
Cat-women to get them back?). The Cat-women were never explained in such a way
so that you could understand their abilities. Sometimes they teleported.
Sometimes they used mind control, but sometimes it didn't work, and when it
did, it sure didn't achieve any big results (let's see, you controlled a single
navigator who could barely get Laird to make some notes on some notebook paper
about the ship's operation). I think they couldn't
control men's minds, but they had no trouble wrapping all of them around their
fingers (except the sullen Kip). Here's a question that could have obviated
the whole movie: why didn't the Cat-women just act all nice and helpless and
get these guys to transport them back to Earth as part of a "rescue?" It's
like my granny always said, "you can catch more flies with honey, than with
vinegar." I suppose if that were the case, then you wouldn't have the
opportunity to watch one of the worst movies of all time. And yes, it is so
bad, you need to see it. This is one of those deals where you have witness the
carnage with your own eyes. The English language doesn't possess the words to
do it justice.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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