Title: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away: If you know any of these actors from being in anything else, award yourself ten bonus points.
Introduction: I first got this movie from the library, not fully understanding what it was. I then later purchased it at Walmart.
Location: This movie takes place primarily in a cabin in the woods, but there are a few other spots out there to be seen. It is close to being a phonebooth movie, but only really because they didn’t spend their budget on going to exotic places.
Plot: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra has been found and wishes to take a bride. Through an unlikely series of events, a group of people all comes together for the same goal. Really, this movie doesn’t have a great plot in the sense that you don’t really need to understand what is going on to find it funny. It’s like a comedy (or a B movie) in that way because you can just laugh at things and not really have to get into the finer details of the plot. So for purposes of this review, let’s skip over the plot and tell you what you really need to know, because while the plot is slightly complex and would take time explaining, that time would be much better served giving you the real reasons why you should see this movie.
Acting: It is over the top. I read that most of the actors were classically trained and so delivering such a performance was really a feat in itself. It’s kind of funny to think that certain movies can have such bad acting unintentionally but with great ease, while this movie goes out of its way and really works hard to make the acting seem so bad. It’s quite remarkable and hilarious at the same time.
Production: It’s shot like a B movie, but less like Roger Corman and more like H.G. Lewis. It has that cheesy sci-fi feel to it that I love and would watch just about any movie that came out looking like this. I have too many favorites to name that appear in this genre.
Sex/Nudity: Nope and nope, thank goodness.
Special Effects: At some points when things happen you can see strings. This is done intentionally, of course, to keep with the B movie tribute. When you think about how they had to take what would be considered a normal movie then go out of their way to make it appear as a B movie, it’s really kind of crazy because they seem to be going this extra mile whereas the original B movies (Manos Hands of Fate comes to mind) just kind of had it happen naturally.
Overall Verdict: First off, I must applaud this movie for its efforts simply on the fact that it took a big risk that really paid off. I think that 90% of what makes a B movie so great is that it doesn’t try to be a B movie and it actually takes itself rather seriously. As a director/writer/actor you have these things happen that you take to heart, but it comes out as either unintentional humor or simply as Ed Wood said, you must get sucked into the movie and lose your disbelief. Whatever the case maybe, true B movies capture that while this pays tribute to it but if done wrong it could have seemed like it was mocking it. I think the real truth as to why this movie paid off is because they bought the majority of their props on eBay and the largest expense they made from their budget was getting a location permit. Again, this could have been a huge disaster. Part of being a B movie is not wanting to be a B movie. Although certain movies from, say, The Asylum have done a good job of being B level movies that are fun if not taken too seriously. (Sharktopus comes to mind) So as a tribute to B movies this does a great job and I actually really enjoyed it, so much that I’ve watched it more than once and even own it now. I suggest everyone see this whether they are a fan of B movies or not. I truly think that there is some humor here to be taken from this, as well as it could possibly dispel some myths about the fact that B movies aren’t actually bad movies they’re just different.
No comments:
Post a Comment