 |
 Three survivors of the end of the world "take refuge on the fringes of a tropical jungle" and get mixed up in an "explosion of sexual tension." They call it a "color spectle." 1960, 64 minutes, DVD
It probably shouldn't come as any surprise to us that the last woman on Earth turns out to be a two-timing hussy, but who could have predicted that the last two men on Earth would end up beating each other up with fish? Truly, this is a world gone mad. Unfortunately, this world gone mad was made possible because producer/director Roger Corman and his cast and crew were down in Puerto Rico filming Creature From The Haunted Sea and decided that while they were there they could shoot three people lollygagging on a beach and call it an end of the world thriller. The results are as horrific as you would expect with the end of the world basically being two guys bickering over a woman while only periodically wondering what they're going to do about this whole apocalypse situation.
Harold Gern is down in Puerto Rico with his wife, apparently avoiding this pesky indictment that's just been handed down to him for some shady business dealings. His young lawyer, Martin, is also down there to help him plot some strategy for the upcoming legal battle. They meet up at the local cockfights, where Martin and Mrs. Gern, the almost Eve-named Evelyn meet for the first time. Harold is one of those loud, abrasive, in your face dirty business types who doesn't really listen to his wife because he's too busy looking at other broads or gambling at the craps table. Martin is more attentive and she flirts with him when he goes to their hotel room to pick up Harold's briefs. He actually says that that's what he's there to do and that isn't the only bit of silly and/or idiotic dialogue that this movie practically marinates in.
Screenwriter Robert Towne would go on to write Chinatown, The Last Detail, and the single greatest Tom Cruise car racing movie, Days Of Thunder, but very little of the genius in those scripts would be evident in this one. Surprisingly, he manages to give the most ridiculous dialogue to himself. Yep, that's right! That guy named Edward Wain, who plays the cynical Martin (despite him appearing to be a sensitive guy early in the film, by the end of things, he's bragging about how he doesn't believe in anything and that it's all over but the laughing for the human race) is known to his mom as Robert Towne! So, how is Robert's performance as an actor in this one? Well, let's just say that with his disinterested and unconvincing line delivery, as an actor he's a really great screenwriter.
Robert's story sees the three amigos go out on a little scuba diving excursion the day after the big cockfights and somehow or other, Evelyn manages to shoot Martin with her spear gun while aiming at a manta ray. The wound is actually fairly minor and doesn't play into the story at all, but that's the kind of dopey event this already short movie is padded out with. Upon surfacing to have a look at the wound, all three notice that they can't breathe. Putting their oxygen masks back on, they make their way onto their boat and find the captain dead. They also can't get anything over the radio except the same annoying song. Based on this scanty information, I had it pegged as some sort of Soviet plot to drive us crazy with cheap background music.
Back on the island and with their oxygen almost gone, they discover that they can breathe again. None of them knows exactly what happened, but Martin posits that something must have sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere and now, an hour later, all the plants have put it back into the air. This explanation is obviously drenched in sphincter juice since Marty pulled it out of his ass. But like Marty also says, it doesn't really matter how it happened, does it? Not really, if the rest of the movie was an interesting tale about these three fighting for survival instead of about these three fighting over who was going to bang who. With bad actor Robert Towne mouthing screenwriter Robert Towne's lazy shortcut across the major plot point of the film, our survivors are ready to begin their new life in a brave new world.
So how do they do that? They move into a country villa a friend of Harold's has. Then Evelyn and Martin proceed to be of absolutely no help while Harold is telling them that they need a plan for the future. There's some talk about how they're going to have to leave the island because of the insect problem they'll have once all those dead Puerto Ricans starting rotting in the streets. Since Harold is a crooked businessman, he's used to bossing people around, but Marty and Evelyn only play along with him until he goes out fishing leaving Marty and Evelyn to drink several Budweisers on the beach together. Even though all of us know how stupid it is for Harold to leave this two alone, we all end up wishing we were out fishing with him instead of being subjected to the insipid blather these two engage in that passes for flirting. By the time Evelyn is writing question marks in the sand and then "erasing" Marty by dragging her foot across them, you're ready for Harold to come charging up the beach brandishing a pair of oars.
Sadly, by the time Harold does appear, all he finds on the beach is a bunch of empties. If he was back at the villa, he would have found a bunch of empty condom wrappers, because Marty and Evelyn engage in the first case of adultery in this newly minted post-apocalyptic world. It all occurs off screen, but we know the dirty deed was done when Evelyn is trying to mollify her husband by explaining that Martin didn't rape her. Well, shoot. If you did it willingly, babe, I guess I ain't really got a right to be peeved, do I? Now, where's that Martin gone to? I guess I owe him an apology for thinking he was a rapist instead of a regular old dirty backstabbing bastard who can't be trusted around his friend's wife.
Tensions are running high on their dingy the next time Marty and Harold go out together to fish. An argument between them turns ugly (and probably quite smelly) when they start belting each other with the catch of the day. Since fights are pretty cheap to film, especially when you do your own stunts, this brawl continues all the way onto the beach until Harold takes a rock and smashes the mocking Martin in the face with it, while asking the classic question "do you think that's funny?" To tell the truth, I actually did, but since I knew that Martin was responsible for the story in this movie, I'd been rooting for someone to drop a rock on his head since the opening cockfight.
Harold votes Marty out of the house following this fracas, though why Marty would want to stay after all that wouldn't make any sense anyway. Evelyn decides behind Harold's back that she's going to skip out with Marty and the next thing you know, she and Marty are speeding down the road in the convertible that Harold gave Marty to use. Despite Harold dramatically announcing that if Evelyn left him, he wouldn't go after her, as soon as they're out of sight he gets to work feverishly trying to hotwire the truck that was left behind. Looking back on Marty and Evelyn's plan, it might not have been the best decision to let the guy who got whacked in the eye with the rock and who is complaining that it feels like something is "rolling around behind my eye" to do the driving. One wrecked convertible later, Marty leaves Evelyn hidden at a church while he heads to the boat all three of them had decided to leave the island on, with Harold in hot pursuit.
So that was the only boat on the island, right? I mean, otherwise it would be pretty stupid to head to the same boat that Harold wanted to use. Well, this wouldn't be the first time the plan concocted by the dude with the head injury didn't exactly smack of genius, but we can't blame Marty since it wasn't like he wrote the stupid script. Oh wait a second, he did write the stupid script! In any case, Harold catches up with Marty, another fight ensues, then Marty runs away to a nearby coastal fortress where some more fighting occurs, before he finally makes it back to the church where he stashed Evelyn. By this time though, he's gone blind from the repeated assaults visited upon him by Harold. And not only does he go blind, but he croaks! Harold and Evelyn leave together and the human race lives happily ever after (at least until Harold loses his temper again).
A terribly minimalist effort that can't even generate tension from the love triangle since all three people are folks you wouldn't ever want to meet, let alone care what happens to. Harold's a control freak. Evelyn's a vapid slut. Marty's a smart mouth punk. Surely, a low budget doesn't preclude developing a few characters that actually have a tad of humanity in them. At least then we'd be able to mourn what was lost when the world winked out. Instead, with these three, you're thinking that the human race can't be extinguished soon enough. Almost as if to match the wretchedness of the film, Alpha Video provides us with a DVD of apocalyptic quality. A horrible full frame print is used with colors so screwed up that in some scenes I was trying to figure out if the toxic green sky was a result of the end of the world in the movie or just Alpha's complete disregard for putting out a competent product. They also claim the movie runs 71 minutes, but my disc gave up and ran the end credits at about the 64 minute mark. I suppose considering the movie involved, Alpha should be applauded for trying to minimize the damage to the audience. The same basic story was later used to much better effect in The Quiet Earth.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
|
|
