ROBOT MONSTER

Robotmonster always on outside looking in.

Like most atomic monster/invader movies, Robot Monster was filmed in Hollywood’s Bronson Canyon. And, like most atomic monster/invader movies filmed in Bronson Canyon, it features a monster aimlessly stumbling around sand dunes. But this is no ordinary sand dune stumbling monster, my friends. This is ROBOT MONSTER.

The star of Robot Monster is Ro-Man, a guy in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on his head. Ro-Man is sent to Earth to destroy the clearly inferior Hu-Mans. Ro-Man tries to be civil (“Is there a choice between a painless surrender death and the horror of resistance death?”), but when the foolish Hu-Mans choose “resistance death”, he is left with no other choice but to use his bubble machine and bombard them with stock footage of little lizards dressed up like dinosaurs.

When Ro-Man discovers the lovely Alice, however, his big evil robot-monster-monkey heart goes all mushy and he starts saying stuff like “To Laugh. To Feel. To Want. Why are these things not in The Plan?” (What is he? A Scientologist?)

Filled with the shame of sexual confusion, he does what most people/apes do: He asks his boss for advice. “I need your guidance, Great One,” he asks. “For the first time in my life I am not sure.” “You sound like a Hu-Man, not a Ro-Man,” his boss replies “Can you not verify a fact?!” The “Great One” then disintegrates poor Ro-Man.

And you thought YOUR boss was a jerk!

Originally shot in 3-D, Robot Monster featured a score by Elmer Bernstein. Yes, THAT Elmer Bernstein! The director of Robot Monster, Phil Tucker, was said to have attempted suicide after reading the reviews. I hope to God he’s not reading this one. “Put down the gun, Phil. Put it down! NOOOO…!”