THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA

By: MICHAEL TUNISON
Review Date: Friday, May 03, 2002

Gripping human drama, spine-tingling suspense, cutting-edge special effects, impressive production values THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA has none of these, but it's a heap of fun anyway.

An affectionate spoof of '50s-style sci-fi Z-movies of the most laughably silly sort, writer-director Larry Blamire's no-budget indie comedy suggests the ghost of Edward D. Wood Jr. still haunts the hills around Hollywood, unwilling to quit the Earth until he figures out the basics of film storytelling. Which isn't to say Blamire himself displays Wood-like incompetence in this regard. On the contrary, the veteran playwright and visual artist shows the clever foresight to build his directorial debut around a concept that, to put it bluntly, gets funnier the dumber the movie gets. Which is very, very dumb.

The intentionally absurd storyline concerns devoted scientist Dr. Paul Armstrong (Blamire), who ventures into a wooded, mountainous area with his eternally perky wife Betty (Fay Masterson) in search of a recently landed meteorite believed to contain that wondrous, rare element "atmosphereum." Meanwhile, another scientist, Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe), enters the same woods on a much different quest: to reanimate the bones of the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a fearsome creature of legend capable of taking over the world with its awesome mental powers. What does the skeleton require to restore its mobility so it can begin its campaign of world conquest? Atmosphereum, of course. By coincidence, a rocketship bearing a pair of human-like aliens (Susan McConnell, Andrew Parks) and their hideous pet Mutant has crash-landed nearby. Desperate for the element required to fix their craft atmosphereum the aliens prepare to make contact with local Earthlings.

These three plot strands converge when the aliens, posing as human tourists, and the scheming Dr. Fleming all show up at the cabin the Armstrongs have rented near the meteorite crash site. Making things even more hilariously complicated is the fact that Fleming, feeling he should bring a date to what is quickly shaping up as a couples gathering, has utilized the aliens' "transmutatron" device (don't ask) to create a sexy, catsuit-wearing female escort - dubbed "Animala" (Jennifer Blaire, Blamire's real-life wife) - out of the genetic material of four different forest animals.

Between the

aliens' near-complete incomprehension of what the Earthlings are saying, Animala's wild instincts, Fleming's transparent scheming and the increasingly impatient telepathic communications from the still-immobile Skeleton, things at the cabin descend into ever-deeper concentric circles of weirdness. Oh, yes and have we mentioned that the shambling, three-eyed Mutant is now loose in the countryside?

With his tongue planted so firmly in cheek it's a wonder he didn't end up with permanent mouth damage, Blamire plays all this for maximum ironic humor value, aided immeasurably by his funny cast and the film's dead-on, mock-dramatic '50s sci-fi score. He has the tin-eared hack dialogue of the era's cheapie cinema down cold, and he knows not to push the tone too far beyond the already over-the-top melodramatics that make the genre's oldies but baddies so much fun to watch today. Design elements from the rocket and the aliens' shiny metal duds to the rubbery Mutant are as fake-looking and ridiculously dated as possible (would that be a caulk gun at the center of the aliens' transmutatron?), while idiosyncratic touches such as the tropical dance a mind-controlled Animala does to lure Dr. Armstrong away from the cabin pummel the brain with their incongruity.

Where Blamire misses the boat somewhat is in the film's too-slick, obviously video-shot look despite being in black and white, the camerawork and cinematography don't really recall the primitive, guerrilla style that marked the films it parodies. While one hates to criticize a heroic little effort like this for a factor that probably came down to time and budget limitations, it's hard not to think of the extra humor that might have been squeezed out of certain sequences if the film were as adept at generating gags with the camera as Blamire is at generating them in the script.

After bouncing around various film festivals, THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA begins a limited midnight movie run in Los Angeles this weekend, followed by a stop at the Dallas Film & Video Fest on May 17. Those interested in catching it on the big screen are advised to check out the film's Web site (www.lostskeleton.com). The site also has information about ordering copies on home video ($40).