Wednesday, January 11, 2017

LOBSTER MAN FROM MARS - "Rock Lobster" (1989)

Welcome to another wacky Wednesday in The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is called "Lobster Man From Mars" and it surfaced on this planet in the year of 1989!
I'm not sure what I was doing in 1989, but I wasn't going to the movies, so I never saw this thing when it first appeared! I think I was into Martinis and Margaritas, not Martians, at the time!

"Lobster Man From Mars" is so dumb, I really want to hate it, but I just can't for several reasons!

Probably the biggest reason that "Lobster Man From Mars" is actually a decent movie is because it truly has an incredible cast! Maybe they're not used to their full potential, but as far as Pop Culture goes, this movie is pretty amazing!
Like Fr'instance, here's two of my favourite guys in one scene together, Tony (Some Like It Hot)( And Father of Jamie Lee) Curtis and  the comic genius  of one fourth of The Firesign Theatre, Phil Proctor!
That was it for me, the movie could do no wrong after that, and it really doesn't! Weird, because most movies like this suck to me!!

"Lobster Man From Mars" is a movie about a kid who makes a movie and tries to sell it to a big Producer, who only listens to the kid and watches the movie because he's in so much financial trouble with the I.R.S. that he needs to produce a movie that is so bad it is guaranteed to lose money!

The effects aren't half bad, in fact, they're sometimes even pretty good !

 
William Ackerman gets the credits for casting, and all I can say is that he was one brilliant some of a gun; here's cute as a bug and gorgeous enough to be a Maybelline model, the "Valley Girl" Deborah Foreman as Mary proving that using the Bronson Caves in L.A.'s Griffith Park just never gets old!
And I don't get it, William's bio on IMDB says, his wife is Michelle, and they have three children! That's it! Nothing more, zip, nichts, nada! Seems fishy!

Probably somebody's, but not my favourite character in the movie is Tommy Sledge as The Detective! It's a valiant effort, but he's just not the Nick Danger he would like to be!
These ads are funny though!!

Just to keep that Pop Train rolling, here's Skip Young (Best buddy Wally from The Ozzie and Harriet Show) as Zip, the bartender! Skip was of course also in the classic film "The Spider!"

The Colonel is most likely name Colonel Ankrum because in some cool Sci-Fi movies in the 50's Morris Ankrum played the military man in charge of cleaning up the whole mess like "Invaders From Mars," "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," and "Beginning Of The End!"
Fred (Galactica 1980, Project U.F.O.) Holliday plays the Colonel!

Big Dick Strange does his best, and it's a good one, impersonation of Rod Serling! 
Big Dick is played by D.J. and "Wheel Of Fortune" announcer M.G. Kelly!

The aforementioned William Ackerman also plays the mechanic whose body becomes a nest for these little buggers!

Even the unknowns like Karen Kelley Dugan do a good job! This was Karen's only movie gig as far as I can find out!

No, we're not done yet, here's "The Avenger's" Patrick Macnee as Professor Plocostomos! At first I expected Patrick to just show up, but he also puts in a good performance!

The Lobster Man shows how devious he is by going through a girl's shower and locker room at a college!

A cooking show on TV gives them an idea on how to destroy the Lobster Man! 
BOILING HOT WATER!

 Believe it or not, this wasn't the first time in film history that somebody decided to have a lobster as the main character! In 1966, there was Ebirah in "Horror Of The Deep," or "Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster!"

In 2014, there was "Mutantis," but then again, this might be a crawdaddy!

I couldn't find any info on this poster, and I'm pretty sure that it's not really a movie, but it's a cool image I just had to include here!

 Almost like a mixture of "Night Of The Ghouls," and "Frankenstein Vs. The Space Monster!"

 Arguably one of the most famous little guys in the whole world, Billy Barty plays the mystical Mr. Throckmorton!

 The Colonel says it's time to wrap this up! 

It's too much, I tell you, too much!!
There are more appearances from a host of notable people like Dr. Demento, Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Richard Penn, Dean Jacobson, Anthony Hickox, and of course they had to use the B52's 1979 hit:
"ROCK LOBSTER"...........but then, WHY NOT?

6 comments:

Randall Landers said...

Outside of Ebirah, the most serious use of the lobster occurred in VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA's "The Lobster Man."

http://veehd.com/video/4674863_Voyage-to-The-Bottom-of-The-Sea-S04E16-The-Lobster-Man-Original-Air-Date-21-January-1968

"The end of your world, Admiral!" indeed.

Grant said...

The "Baltans" on the original ULTRAMAN were also lobster men. A lot of the monster suits on ULTRAMAN were goofy in a pleasant way, but the Baltans were genuinely spooky-looking.

The name that surprises me a little here is "Professor Plecostomos." "Plecostemus" is the formal name for that "sucker-mouthed catfish" you see in almost every aquarium, but I hardly ever hear that name outside of places like aquarium books.

I'm sorry to say I've never seen LOBSTER MAN FROM MARS, but I need to.

TABONGA! said...

The plant creature in THE REVENGE OF DOCTOR X looks kinda like a lobster. Yeah, Phil Proctor!

EEGAH!! said...

Thanx Guys! Hey Grant, I was going to give you the link to this film on the Internet Archive, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist anymore! That's why I don't post links any more. These things seem to spring up like wild flowers, and then disappear as fast as they showed up a lot of the time! I just deleted five bookmarks I had that were no longer valid!

the Del-Aires said...

Just to add to the rest of the comments, 'Teenagers From Outer Space' featured (the shadow of) a giant lobster which was the big-bad of this '59 film. Does that count??

EEGAH!! said...

I Think It Does D-A!

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