DVD Reviews: The RiffTrax Collection from Legend Films - Page 3

Missile To The Moon (1958)
Directed by Richard E. Cunha

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, someone’s got to say it: the moon‘s really a let down!”

Well, since I started with a sci-fi title, I figure this is as good of a second entry as any. An uncredited remake of the equally awful (but in many ways better) Cat-Women Of The Moon (1953), Missile To The Moon features a less-than-stellar cast of TV actors who were probably out of work (including Richard Travis, K.T. Stevens, Tommy Cook, and Gary Clarke) who, for one reason or another, wind up hopping in the phoniest balsa wood rocket ship ever and taking an impromptu trip up to the moon. Unbeknownst to the native Earthlings, their ship’s designer and pilot, Dirk Green (Michael Whalen), is actually a moon-man, and his unwitting passengers (two runaway juvenile delinquents, a boozing middle-aged scientist, and his boozing middle-aged wife) are left to fend for themselves on the lunar surface when Dirk is accidentally killed by a very large battery that was placed on a high shelf with a loose knot.

The moon, which looks a lot like a Southern California desert (“Look at that: lot more crabgrass on the moon than I thought there’d be,” quips Kevin as the jumpsuit/pilot helmet-clad heroes stroll down through Red Rock Canyon), holds perils the likes of which mankind has never seen before like a big fuzzy inanimate spider puppet, giant rubber rock critters that look like Gumby, and a bevy of beauties from the '50s complete with torpedo boobs. The busty ones are actually the moon’s doomed inhabitants, who are presided over a blind old woman known as The Lido (Stevens), and whom Dirk was returning to in order to save them from their rapidly diminishing atmosphere.

Naturally, nothing ever goes right in this sort of a flick, and The Lido’s number one right-hand gal Alpha (Space Patrol’s Nina Bara) has some treacherous plans up her spandex sleeve involving keeping the story’s boring middle-aged hero for herself and killing the others. Yada, yada, yada. Luckily for those of us who have had the misfortune of seeing the movie on its own several dozen times (and I have, really), Missile To The Moon gets a much-deserved verbal pummeling from RiffTrax, who assault everything from our hero’s ripening age and suspicious social drinking to the grand special effects that Ed Wood only dreamed of. Rating: B-

Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

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