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The Monster Times'
World's Fifty Worst Monster Films Ever
Once upon a time, in that semi-mystical time known as The Seventies, there was a monthly fan magazine called the Monster Times. Unlike other fanzines, it was published on newspaper stock. And even more unusual, it had good writing.
It was a strong influence on the way the young Apostic would look at monster movies. And now that I'm a bit older, the memories of those tabloid issues continue to influence how I write about those movies. Every issue contained a feature article describing a movie in detail. Sometimes, the descriptions were less than complimentary.
In February of 1974, there was a particularly memorable issue. They called it "The Worst Issue." It had an article on the worst in mainstream comic books. (Who here has fond memories of The Geek and Prez? There are reasons why you may not...) And it had an article on the spoof Schlock (1971) and a blow-by-blow description of Horror of Party Beach (1964). And it had an exhaustive article about the teen monster genre of the '50's. And it had interviews with Dennis Steckler (of Incredibly Strange Creatures (1963) ill-fame) and William Grefe (who wrote and directed Wild Rebels (1967) and Death Curse of Tartu (1966)).
But the jewel in this trashy crown was a pair of lists: The worst in horror movies, and a some runner-ups (or runner-downs if you prefer).
Contents
About the Lists
Jason Thomas (writer for The Monster Times) and Joe Kane (editor in chief, Monster Times) started out with a list of over a hundred movies which they considered to be the worst in horror. Then they eliminated those that had even a single good thing in them. After that, they tossed out some foreign films because a bad dub could eliminate a lot of talent from the source material, and then they tossed out a lot of the gore movies of the late '60's and early '70's because they were dominating the list. They also eliminated entries that they thought were too obscure.
Finally, they presented the list in alphabetical order. There was no ranking; as far as they were concerned, these movies were all equally bad. Each "winner" was listed with its director, a capsule description, and stars. (Please note that "star" is loose term here.)
But wait, there was more! They followed this list with another list of Dishonorable Mentions. It named those movies that were close, but no prize. Rather than describe them, they just dumped them into your lap.
So, dear reader, when skimming through these two lists, please note the following:
(1) This was all done without the aid of things we take for granted today, like the Internet Movie Data Base and VCR copies. There were giants in those days.
(2) This preceded the Golden Turkey Awards by Harry and Michael Medved by four years.
(3) After over twenty-five years, these lists are still viable. Sure, there have been some doubly dubious movies made since, and some that were too obscure then (like Manos (1966)) have been unearthed and lauded; a new list would certainly include them. But as it is, the films in these lists are notorious nadirs from three eras of B movies -- the Iron Age (1940's), the Golden Age ('50's through most of the '60's), and the Silver Age (late '60's through the '70's). (And yes, in this rare case, nadir should be plural.)
About the Tables
Hyperlinks on movie titles lead to the Internet Movie Database description for that title.
The "TMT Commentary" entry is a brief quote from the capsule review from the original article. These are presented to show why these movies were selected and to give a taste of the article. There was no commentary for the Dishonorable Mentions.
"Apostic's Notes" gives additional information. In many instances, members of the B-Masters Cabal (the people who occasionally gang up on a single movie or genre) have posted reviews of the movies. The hyperlinks on the reviewer's names leads to those reviews. (Special thanks to Nathan Shumate of The B-Movie Mailing List for keeping track of this information.)
The "R" column contains quick links to Reel.com. If you see something you suddenly "must have" and Reel.com has an entry for it, then you can get to it by following the star (*). Note that not all entries at Reel.com will have a copy of the film in question.
And now, without dragging our feet anymore...
The World's Fifty Worst Monster Films Ever
| Title | TMT Commentary | Apostic's Notes | R |
| Astounding She Monster (1958) | Recommended as a late-night sleeping aid only. | At least the title character, an alien chorus girl, looks semi-astounding. | |
| Astro Zombies (1968) | Its chief crime is its 94 minute running time. | Dr. Freex shrugged off those 94 minutes. | * |
| Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) | The most expensive items used are a few small explosives and two cheap-looking leech costumes.... | One of those movies that might've been more interesting without the monsters. | * |
| Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1953) | The plot is so bad that Lugosi must have been really desperate to do this one. (And he was....) | It's bad enough watching Jerry Lewis go through his shtick; here, someone's trying to make a buck by ripping him off. | * |
| Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1965) | The film works so hard at being bad that it's not even good camp.... | Some of the worst day-for-night shooting. | * |
| Blood Feast (1963) | The first of a long line of blood 'n' gore movies, this one set the sickening standards the others have, unfortunately lived up to. | When the bad guy is disposed of by a fall into a garbage truck, is sort of sums up the movie. | * |
| Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969) | Not counting skinflicks, this is probably the worst Dracula movie ever made. | Vampire + werewolf + S&M + Al Adamson + lots of footage of Sea World = What in the hell were they thinking? | * |
| Bride of the Monster (1956) | This, one of Lugosi's last features, is a real loser. | Yes, this is the one by Ed Wood, Jr., with Lugosi and a rubber octopus. | * |
| Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960) | The only good thing about this insipid alien invasion garbage is the ending, mostly because it's just that. | Near the beginning of this Phil Tucker flicker, it features the line, "You've lost your arm. I'll sew in on for you later." Tongue-in-cheek or finger-down-throat, I can't decide. | |
| Captive Women (1952) | With schlock it's loaded. | Get out the big bottle o' No-Doz for this early post-apocalypse meanderer. | |
| Cat-Women of the Moon (1954) | Enjoyably terrible.... | Redone as satire in Amazon Women of the Moon (1987), but they didn't have to go far. | * |
| Creature of Destruction (1967) | The production looks like it was scripted and directed by a talentless hack (which it was). | Buchanan remakes She Creature (1956) with an impressively silly costume for the monster. | |
| Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966) | The most elaborate thing in the show is a 10¢ fright mask. | I think they paid less than that for the make-up in this Buchanan epic. | |
| Death Curse of Tartu (1967) | A lot of animals guest-star in this farce, and they seem to be more intelligent than the actors. | A film by William Grefe, who'd later bring us the Willard rip-off Stanley (1972) and Jaws cash-in Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976). | |
| Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horror (1967) | Awful acting, stolen plots, wooden dialogue, poor color, abysmal directing atrocious etc. | Not to be confused with Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) with Christopher Lee. | |
| The Evil Brain from Outer Space (1958) | The monsters come close to being good, but the heroes, plot, script and direction (did I forget anything?) are incredibly bad. | The continuing adventures of Japanese superhero Starman or Super Giant or whatever the heck they're calling him on a dub. | * |
| The Eye Creatures (1965) | This is a grade Z remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men, which was bad enough in its original form. | Liz suggests this may be the worst of the Buchanan remakes. | |
| Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956) | The producer risked his entire fortune by buying real smoke bombs for this low-budget catastrophe. | Astronaut crash lands on a planet populated by fleshy ballet dancers. Easily confused with Phantom Planet (1961). | |
| Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965) | This was supposedly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and it sure succeeded. | Dr. Freex has declared this one prime bad movie party material. | * |
| Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971) | The villainous smog-eater is original and kinda cute, but the theme song can drive you right up the ceiling. | StompTokyo cut this one some slack, but not much. | * |
| Homicidal (1961) | The brutal decapitation of an elderly woman was the picture's high point in terms of revulsion. | I tend to cut this one slack on that scene's implied brutality. But as a quick rip-off of Psycho, it gets no mercy. | |
| Horror of Party Beach (1964) | [This was the subject of that issue's less than complimentary feature article.] | Dave Sagehorn was even less complimentary. | |
| I Drink Your Blood (1971) | As inept as it is offensive. | "My, what an unpleasant little movie." -- Dr. Freex | * |
| I Eat Your Skin (1964) | Not as bad as I Drink Your Blood, [but] terrible enough in its own right to warrant a spot on this list. | "[Let's] try to make this as painless as possible..." -- Dr. Freex | * |
| Invasion of the Animal People (1960) | John Carradine narrated, but he was smart enough not to show his face in this mess, except in the film's prologue. | "They find a cheaply realized section of space craft. A twenty foot tall Chewbacca look alike with false teeth and haircut like Pekinese dog arrives and breaks the 'plane." -- John Fidler | * |
| Invasion of the Star Creatures (1961) | The second-worst science fiction movie ever made. | Attempted comedy about some soldiers running into some really tall alien chorus girls and their vegetable-man flunky. Compare with Zone Troopers (1986). | |
| It's Alive (1968) | This one is so bad that TV doesn't even air it before 1:00 in the morning. | A man, his pet monster, and the people he feeds to said monster. Cheap costume reused by Buchanan from Creature of Destruction. | |
| Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1961) | You can't fight the inevitable! | If the trend of gunslingers vs. monsters had continued, would it have led to Monster Rancher? | * |
| Killer Shrews (1959) | Absurd masks are tied onto angry dogs (who are probably angry because of the masks), and we're expected to believe that they're gigantic shrews. | "23 mins -- They sure look like dogs wearing carpet remnants..." -- Andrew Borntreger | * |
| "How much crap must you see before you've seen enough crap?" -- Dr. Weasel | |||
| Latitude Zero (1969) | Remember the good old days, when [Cesar Romero] and Joseph Cotton...used to be fairly good? Well, they're gone forever! | On the other hand, Toho fans in an undiscriminating mood might be able to sit through this submarine adventure. | |
| Monster A Go-Go (1965) | The title alone should keep away anyone with any smarts. | And so should the tagline. "The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot-tall monster to give you the wim-wams!" | |
| Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954) | When we finally do see the thing, it's nothing but a small model being manipulated via very visible strings! | Roger Corman's first effort. | |
| Monster from the Surf (1965) | Incredibly cheap, slow and dull-witted. | At least it's not as offensive as Horror of Party Beach. | * |
| Monstrosity (1964) | Even the zombies are duller than usual. | Second worst use of a cat in a horror movie. The first goes to Uninvited (1988). | |
| My Son, the Vampire (1952) | Made as a British comedy, it's actually rather pitiful. | Last of the Mother Riley series, which featured Arthur Lucan dragging it out for a laugh. | |
| Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1965) | The "actors" are considerably less talented than the plants (and they're fake!). | At least Mamie Van Doren wasn't fake.... | * |
| Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956) | The script and everything else were highly helpful -- in making this one of the biggest wastes of time ever. | Ed Wood, Jr. Golden Turkey, Worst Director of All Time. And as dramatized in the movie by Tim Burton, "This is the one they'll remember me for!" | * |
| "What can you say about Plan 9, the ur-template for cult b-movie camp classics?" -- Nathan Shumate | |||
| "Come on, lads, it's COOL !!!!" -- Steve Stone | |||
| "35 mins-Bela Lugosi is in the middle of a field, no - graveyard, no - field. What the heck?" -- Andrew Borntreger | |||
| Queen of Outer Space (1958) | Not only is the film terrible, but sexist to boot! | Was Cat-Women of the Moon so popular, it was worth redoing? | * |
| Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) | Absolutely the worst science-fiction flick ever made, bar none! | "50 mins-They are going to escape the airlock via a duct?" -- Andrew Borntreger | * |
| Scared to Death (1947) | Bored to Death would be a more appropriate title.... | Frankly, I'd like to see Quentin Tarantino redo this one, which is a story told from the point of view of a corpse in a morgue. | * |
| She Demons (1958) | Bad acting and direction perfectly compliment abominable script. | Leftover Nazi scientist still doing his experiments to make monsters. Compare with Shock Waves (1977). | * |
| Slime People (1962) | [At] the end of the movie, the sloppy, slurpy things are driven back into the soil -- probably by the terrible script. | "12 mins-Why is the Army fighting the monsters hand to hand? Rifles? Bazookas? Common sense?" -- Andrew Borntreger | * |
| "Though The Slime People is pretty much 76 wasted minutes of your life, you simply can't hate it - more like, you have to pity it." -- Dr. Freex | |||
| Taste of Blood (1967) | This one gets our vote as THE all-time worst horror movie, not because of the dazzling ineptitude but because of its 2 hour running time. That's right -- 120 minutes of unspeakable boredom. | H. G. Lewis - humor = a huge mistake | |
| Teenage Zombies (1959) | Some mindless "teenagers" manage to turn the tables on the villains and save the free world for internal, rather than foreign, manipulation. | Yeah, yeah, every generation's got teenage zombies. But it seemed more prevalent when grunge was popular. | * |
| Undertaker and His Pals (1966) | Tasteless trash disguised as comedy.... | Cannibalism is not for all tastes. | * |
| Untamed Women (1952) | Contains the immortal line, "Shoot anything with hair that moves." | At least you can't accuse it of ripping-off Cat-Women of the Moon. | |
| Voodoo Man (1944) | Anyone who lives through seeing this atrocity wonders why a voodoo priest would work in a gas station. | Title sounds like a cologne. | |
| Year -- 2889 (1967) | A rotten remake of Day the World Ended, which could have used some help as it was. | And Buchanan strikes again! | |
| Zombies on Broadway (1945) | The only good thing about the film is its title, which sounds more like cinema verite in our book. | Or it could be the audience lining up for another Andrew Lloyd Webber show. | * |
| Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1966) | By not sticking to new versions of already terrible films, Larry Buchanan's cinematic crimes become more serious. | "Buchanan even preserves a poorly-considered edit in the first dinner scene." -- Dr. Freex |
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The Dishonorable Mentions
| Title | Apostic's Notes | R |
| Attack of the Mayan Mummy (1964) | Or "Attack on the Recut Footage." This is Mexican mummy movie watered down by half with expository dialogue for American audiences. Take it from someone who doesn't know Spanish: Even if you don't understand what they're saying, some of these movies are better left alone. | |
| Beast of Blood (1970) | Third entry in Eddie Romero's Blood Island series. For a surprisingly coherent description, see the article at Wild Pictures. | |
| Blood Thirst (1971) | Filipino vampires. Why should the Europeans have all the fun? | |
| Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970) | Gorester Andy Milligan does Sweeny Todd. | |
| Bowery at Midnight (1942) | Lugosi languishes as a criminal mastermind with a zombie in his basement. | * |
| Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962) | Guy keeps the head of his girlfriend on a table and a monster in his closet. Common favorite among MST3K fans. | * |
| Captive Wild Woman (1943) | Scientist Carradine turns an orangutan into a woman. No, didn't make that up. Followed by two sequels. | * |
| Color Me Blood Red (1965) | H. G. Lewis' most artistic achievement. Well, at least it's about an artist. | * |
| Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) | Roger Corman's last black and white screwball comedy, and it was too screwball for most. | |
| Cry of the Banshee (1970) | Not even Vincent Price can save this rambling variation on both witch hunting and werewolf themes. | * |
| Curse of Nostradamus (1961) | Was German Robles the Mexican Christopher Lee? You decide.... | |
| Day the Earth Froze (1959) | Angry witch freezes the world. Try it on a double bill with the similar Jack Frost (1964) if you dare. | |
| Devil Girl from Mars (1954) | Title character goes husband hunting in Scotland. Why couldn't she just put an ad in the personals like everyone else? | * |
| Diabolical Dr. Z. (1967) | Not to be confused with The Blood Waters of Dr. Z (which Franco fans will maintain should be on the list instead of this one). | * |
| Disembodied (1957) | Allison Hayes: jungle goddess. This movie: jumbled plotless. | |
| Dungeons of Harrow (1962) | Man in the 19th century is shipwrecked on an island run by a mysterious count. Filmed in San Antonio; drawls run rampant. | |
| Eegah! (1962) | Richard Keel in a love story? What more could you want? | * |
| Flying Serpent (1946) | Archeologist uses a creature from Aztec mythology (like Quetzalcoatl) to his advantage. Compare with Q (1982). Makes you wonder why The Giant Claw (1957) isn't on one of these lists. | * |
| Frankenstein 1970 (1958) | This time, Karloff gets to be Frankenstein. Wish it'd been in a better movie. | |
| Frankenstein's Daughter (1958) | Sloppy mad scientist builds a girl. Or is it robot? Cyborg? Oh, the heck with it. | * |
| From Hell it Came (1957) | "Once the Tabonga actually gets on its...er... feet... it seems to wander aimlessly, first from left to right, then from right to left, apparently happening on its victims at random." -- Dr. Freex | |
| "Perhaps the film is trying to imply that the natives of this island just run very poorly. This would help to explain how anyone could be caught by the less than fleet Tabanga, who joins the ranks of monsters that you could escape by utilizing a brisk walk." -- Ken Begg | ||
| Ghastly Ones (1969) | Gorester Andy Milligan gathers people for the reading of a will, and the fake blood spills. | |
| Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959) | Annoying teens are pestered by someone in the monster suit from She Creature. Unfortunately, nobody dies. | |
| How to Make a Monster (1958) | Or, how to use leftover prosthetics. Make-up artist turns actors into the real thing. Sort of. | |
| I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) | And this is the movie whence came some of those leftover prosthetics. Love the line: "Answer me! You have a civil tongue in your head! I know--I sewed it in there!" | |
| Incredible Petrified World (1959) | Diving bell is lost, but the crew survives when they find some underwater tunnels filled with air. If you have to watch it, leave your science at the door. | |
| Invasion USA (1952) | Cold War artifact about the United States being invaded. Makes you wonder how we won. | |
| King Dinosaur (1955) | Astronauts exploring planet are terrorized by dinosaurs. Audiences are terrorized by footage from One Million B.C. (1940) and iguanas presented as dinosaurs. | * |
| Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968) | Second in the Blood Island series. See Beast of Blood above. | |
| Mesa of Lost Women (1953) | "For many years there was an (admittedly) minor furor over this movie; rumor had it that Mesa of Lost Women was clandestinely written, if not actually directed, by the great Ed Wood, Jr." -- Dr. Freex | * |
| Missile to the Moon (1959) | Someone else remade Cat-Women of the Moon. Why? Oh, wait. It's Richard Cunha. Never mind. | * |
| Return of the Apeman (1944) | Bela Lugosi vs. John Carradine. You'd think that'd be good. That's what you get for thinking. Written by Robert Charles, who also gave us Voodoo Man. | * |
| Robot Monster (1953) | Golden Turkey for Most Ridiculous Monster | * |
| "Lovers of classic schlock will adore Robot Monster and it's honestly a blast to watch." -- Andrew Borntreger | ||
| "If you've only ever heard about it before, trust me: Robot Monster is The Cheese. It occupies that rarified atmosphere, that lofty plateau occupied by only a few, those happy few: the completely and utterly inept." -- Dr. Freex | ||
| "Speaking of Robot Monster, [Phil Tucker] maintained that 'For the budget, and for the time, I felt I had achieved greatness.' You did indeed, sir. And Jabootu salutes you." -- Ken Begg | ||
| Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) | If you believe they're from outer space, then you'll probably believe they're teenagers, too. | * |
| Torture Dungeon (1970) | Gorester Andy Milligan gets medieval. | |
| 2000 Maniacs (1964) | For people who are already convinced that "deep south" is an oxymoron. | * |
| Unknown Terror (1957) | Jungles. Fungus monster. Where's that Desenex when you need it? | |
| Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) | Mamie Van Doren mixed in with footage from Planet of Storms (1962). Not to be confused with Basil Rathbone mixed in with footage from Planet of Storms, which was called Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), nor John Agar in (mostly) original footage called Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966). There. Got all that? | |
| Wasp Woman (1960) | Lady using an experimental beauty cream starts turning into a wasp, and I don't mean the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant kind. Compare with Leech Woman (1960). | * |
| Wizard of Mars (1965) | "Mostly, The Wizard of Mars serves as a reminder of what used to pass as entertainment. No, really." -- Dr. Freex | |
| "[B]elieve it or not, the film is sort of, vaguely (very, very [very x10] vaguely), patterned after The Wizard of Oz." -- Ken Begg | ||
| "...and many, many more." | So many bad movies, so little time.... |
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Endnotes
Designated material for this article originally appeared in "The World's Fifty Worst Monster Films Ever" by Jason Thomas and Joe Kane. The Monster Times No. 30 (February 1974). It is presented strictly as quoted material, and the author makes no claims that it is his own. Likewise, the quoted materials contained under "Apostic's Notes" do not belong to the author. And he doesn't own Reel.com, either. ("Oh, I've got plenty o' nothing...")
Published 11 March 2000
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